CHEESE, TOURISTS, AND RED PANDAS IN THE NEPAL HIMALAYAS

Langtang National Park in the Nepal Himalayas provides resources for about 30,000 people living in and around the park. The park is the site of two cheese factories that produce 14,000 kg of cheese per year for marketing in Kathmandu. The factories collect about 140,000 liters of milk annually and use well over 100,000 kg of fuel wood to process the milk into cheese. Loans and one-year advance payments encourage farmers to maintain large herds of chauri (a yak-cattle hybrid), and in many areas overgrazing has resulted. The presence in the area of large herds of chauri, their herders, and dogs has led to the death of many red pandas, a species that is probably on the verge of extinction in Langtang. It is estimated that there are fewer than 40 red pandas and these are isolated in four or more populations. Their fecundity is low and mortality is high. This problem might be solved by reducing cheese production and restricting the number of chauri while commensurately increasing the price of cheese so that farmers' income from milk could remain the same. Current cheese prices are already too high for Nepali consumers (US $4.30/kg), but cheap by the standards of the Western tourists who are the sole market. Thus, increasing prices would have little impact on the cheese market, but could be translated into a substantial benefit for the farmers, whose use of grazing lands must ultimately be sustainable, and for the red pandas and other wildlife that must share the mountain landscapes with the farmers.