Gulmi farmers build tree houses to spot and scare off moneys

By Tilachan Pandey,Tamghas, July 19: Believe it or not villagers these days are building tree houses to save their crops from monkeys. 

Thanishwar Neupane, 67, of Arbeni Kharka in Kaligandaki Rural Municipality-2, Gulmi, built a temporary tree house to protect his maize farm from monkeys. 

As the monkeys continued to enter his farm and destroy maize, Neupane found no other option but to build a temporary tree house to protect his farm.

Neupane, who is living alone, build the shed to spot monkeys from far away and scare them off. He complained that the local government did not give proper attention to the plight of the poor farmers. Despite his old age, he worked hard to cultivate maize but felt disheartened as he could not harvest the crop. 

He complained that political leaders who had sought votes in the local, provincial and federal elections abandoned the people's welfare after fulfilling their own interests. 

According to Neupane, he still needed to stay for one more month in the shed to protect the crop. He said that the presence of the local government would be felt only if it could address their problems effectively. 

Similarly, local youth Khimananda Neupane said that farmers were in problems due to monkeys every year. Many farmers have migrated to other places leaving their arable land barren, he added. 

Bed Bahadur Thapa, chairman of Kaligandaki Rural Municipality, said that it has been very challenging to mitigate the destruction caused by wild animals. He said that since the law does not allow to kill wild animals, the federal government should come up with a proper management policy. He also said that for the time being, there is no other option but to drive away the monkeys by the villagers themselves. 

In a meeting of the District Coordination Committee, Gulmi, the local government stressed the need for formulating a policy for proper management of monkeys and other wild animals which destroy the crops.

Local farmer Thanishwar Neupane, 67, of Arbeni Kharka in Kaligandaki Rural Municipality-2, Gulmi, is climbing a temporary tree house after constructing it to protect his maize farm from monkeys.