“One of you will be directly working with us as a young conservation ambassador,” said Simrika Sharma, Senior Communication Officer at WWF Nepal, and described the areas that past Misses Nepal chose to work with and their efforts during their one-year reign as the conservation ambassador of the not-for-profit organization. [break]
Akash Shrestha, WWF Nepal’s Senior Manager of Communication and Marketing, provided an overview of what they have been doing in Nepal, introducing its mission “to build a future in which people live in harmony with nature.”
Miss Nepal finalists during the interactive session at WWF Nepal’s office in Baluwatar on Friday. (Keshav Thoker/ Republica)
Shrestha also gave a presentation on the focus areas of WWF Nepal starting from the 1960s with rhino conservation and working with protected areas.
“From the ’80s to the ’90s, WWF’s focus shifted to integrated conservation and development, and since 2000, we’ve been working on landscape-level conservation,” added Shrestha, explaining the three key landscapes WWF works in the Terai Arc Landscape (TAL), Sacred Himalayan Landscape, and Chitwan Annapurna Linkage.
Contestants Samikshya Shrestha, Rojisha Shahi Thakuri, Ishani Shrestha, Riju Shrestha, Sumi Moktan (Lama) and Asmita Sitaula questioned the representatives of WWF regarding elephant poaching for ivory tusk, stray animals in Kathmandu, sacrificing animals for religion like in the Gadhimai Mela and to Taleju Bhawani and wood smuggling.
Answering Sumi Moktan (Lama)’s question about how WWF manages to follow up on their projects, Ghana S Gurung, Conservation Program Director of WWF, said, “We don’t start something we can’t deliver and there are a lot of aspects we have to consider when starting a project, from legal framework, financial resources, to revenues.”
The Miss Nepal 2013 pageant is scheduled to take place on March 15, 2013.
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