Invasive plant strangling Nepal ecosystem
By Navin Singh Khadka
Environment reporter, BBC News An invasive plant is emerging as a major problem in a Nepalese national park renowned for protecting endangered wildlife species, say scientists. The Chitwan National Park is listed as a Unesco world heritage site and is a major tourist attraction. It has been a huge conservation success story, with nearly 100 breeding adult tigers and more than 400 rhinos roaming within its territory. But a quiet intruder has emerged as a possible threat to the park’s ecosystem. A native plant of Brazil, the weed Mikenia micrantha, has already covered 20% of the national park in southern Nepal. Most of the affected areas are important to the tigers, rhinos and some endangered bird species – moist places and riversides that are conducive to the growth of the invasive creeper. “Already 50% of the rhino’s habitat is covered by this alien plant,” says Naresh Subedi of Nepal’s National Trust for Nature Conservation, which has carried out research in the Chitwan national park. “If uncontrolled, it will spread over half of the park’s entire area.” …
