Smoked the Nature!

Lumbini is the birth place of the Gautam Buddha.

Lumbini has been inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Property (Site) in 1997 for it's Outstanding Universal Values.

Lumbini contains beautiful historical archeology along with inherent natural beauty.

But lately, the industries has been established in between Lumbini-Bhairahawa Corridor.

There are 40% of total cement factories of whole Nepal, along with bricks, woods and paper factories.

These factories' uncontrolled pollutants emission and cross boundary pollutant lead to insane air pollution in the Lumbini Protected Zone.

As per the report of BBC in January 2017, January, particulate matter (PM2.5) in Lumbini, in southwest Nepal, was measured at 173.035 micrograms per cubic metre, which were 1.5 times more than Kathmandu.

The Factories are the major pollutants according to the locals.

Suraj Chaurashiya, a local of Lumbini Sanskritik Municipality stated that the dust emitted by those factories are directly affecting people, animals and the crops (by soil pollution).

He further added they face allergy, skin disease, eye infections and other disease.

While the pollutants affect buffalos, goats and other animals and also causing soil erosion had impacted the agriculture sector as well.

Prakash Mani Sharma had filed a PIL raising the growing pollution from the industries where Supreme Court ruled to shift the industries away from the 15 KM range of Lumbini Protected Area.

Regardless of the verdict of court and severe damage to locals, as seen in the picture the factories are still operating with the radius of 15 KM, infact the industries are very close to villages causing serious threat upon lives of locals.

The picture clearly demonstrate the complex relationship of livelihood, animals and air pollution.

The pollution emitted from factories is converting that place into desert, as seen in trees barely surviving, fields dusted and accompanied by agricultural burns the Land of Buddha turned into dusted desert.