Description
The military is a crucial institution that safeguards the country from traditional security threats. However, historically, the Nepali military has also played an active role in development, forest and biodiversity conservation, wildlife protection and disaster preparedness. This research deals with the evolving role of the Nepali military in environmental affairs and response to environmental threats. How have the responses of the Nepali military within the government changed over time? What causes and effects of those changes have been seen in the case of the Himalayan country of Nepal. The growing climate crisis and its severe consequences have threatened national, human and ecological security. Hence, it added complexity to the military's role and response. This research recognizes two major debates on the military and the environment. The first is the militarization of the environment, which is largely shaped by the experience of Western countries and the view of environmental issues through a security lens. Second, the critical position of the military role in environmental security is predominantly based on the experience of global south countries, where environmental threats are understood primarily as development challenges. This research brings Nepal's practices and uproots domestic factors on the environment and military debate and argues that environmental threats have been overwhelmingly responded by the military in Nepal. However, it understands the environmental threat as an issue of development. This research uses process tracing as a methodology and uses a working definition of environmental security to bridge the military role in the same.
