What do trail rehabilitation programmes, skilled porters, pack animals and far-flung mountainous regions have in common? They are all part of the Logistics Cluster-led Remote Access Operation, a vital and intrepid project helping rural communities, living in some of Nepal’s worst earthquake-affected areas, rebuild their lives.
When the powerful April and May 2015 Nepal earthquakes struck, some of hardest-hit areas were the country’s central and western mountainous and alpine regions, inhabited by rural populations largely depending on subsistence farming for their livelihoods.
Prior to the quakes, names like Gorkha, Dhading, Rasuwa, Sindhupalchok and Dolakha evoked images of untamed mountain tops and serene landscapes, dotted with landlocked villages jutting out from vertiginous heights, explored only by the most intrepid of travellers. But following the 7.8- and the 7.3-magnitude earthquakes, these districts became synonymous with devastation and the desperate plight of mountain dwellers, and the focus of priority humanitarian assistance programmes designed to reach isolated communities and deliver urgent relief items.
At the onset of the emergency response however, national and international relief organisations were immediately faced with critical disaster-response logistical challenges. While ongoing aftershocks, frequent landslides and now, with the monsoon season in full swing, strong winds and heavy rains exacerbated beneficiaries’ needs, they also created significant travel risks to these hard-to-reach areas, inaccessible to 4x4 vehicles and lacking appropriate landing zones for heavy-lift helicopters.
To overcome these access constraints, the Logistics Cluster, led by the World Food Programme, launched the Remote Access Operation (RAO), which brings local expertise and the wider humanitarian community together, to ensure the continuation of an efficient and coordinated emergency response to the earthquake. The key objective of the operation is the implementation of last mile transport and the facilitation of humanitarian access to secluded locations in the five targeted districts. This extensive, three-phase operation, includes a complex trail assessment programme; the rehabilitation of priority routes to facilitate humanitarian corridors to Nepal’s rural areas, and the use of thousands of porters and pack animals, to transport essential supplies.
As well as to expedite short-term disaster relief operations, RAO is also designed for long-term community-oriented recovery. Re-establishing safe routes and passageways is set to boost local economies; revitalise access to markets; restore livelihoods destroyed by the earthquakes, and provide employment opportunities for communities living in areas where tourism, a crucial driver for economic growth, has been severely interrupted.
At the heart of the operation are the 5,900 local labourers and porters recruited so far, to conduct crucial trails rehabilitation and to transport supplies along, at times, gravity-defying tracks clinging to the side of mountain slopes.
Thanks to their efforts, a common logistics supply chain has been successfully established to bring food, shelter, health kits and medical supplies to rural communities living in villages located far above the altitude for road and helicopter access. Carrying up to 30 Kg each, and, where possible, accompanied by pack animals, Nepalese porters managed by the Trekking Agents Association Nepal (TAAN) and the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), have so far carried more than 233 mt of supplies to the Gorkha and Dolakha Districts. These include 155.87 mt of food on behalf of WFP, as well as Non-Food Items (NFIs) transported on behalf of dozens of organisations, including thousands of bundles of Corrugated Galvanised Iron (CGI) sheets urgently required to build temporary shelters, as the monsoon season rages on.
The rehabilitation of damaged trails is also at full speed. To-date 11 trails, a total of 120 Km in length, have already been made viable in the Dolakha, Sindhupalchock and Rasuwa Districts, and the rehabilitation of 28 trails, totalling 114 Km in length, is currently underway. Furthermore, another 27 trails are already in the pipeline for the next round of rehabilitations, and following trail assessments covering 691 Km, a further 98 trails will follow suit.
They don’t call us trailblazers….for nothing!
For a detailed overview of the Logistics Cluster Nepal Operation, and the services and activities it facilitates, please visit: http://www.logcluster.org/ops/nepal
Photo Credit: Logistics Cluster, WFP and Fenom Creative