Perceived Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation by Chepang Community

Chepang is an indigenous community living in the marginal and fragile landscapes of central Nepal. They highly depend on climate sensitive biodiversity resources, shifting cultivation and collection and utilization of forest products. With climate change being a reality, how is this community perceiving and adapting to the climate change impacts needs to be explored to build on for sustainable management of those landscapes and ecosystems and to develop adaptation strategies of indigenous and other local communities against adverse impact of climate change in developing countries. This manuscript therefore provides Chepang community’s perceptions towards impact of climate change on livelihoods, culture and their associated forest ecosystems. Similarly, it presents the community’s existing strategies and practices of adapting to climate change impacts. In addition, it provides way forward to increase resilience of the ecosystems and adaptive capacity of Chepang community against climate change impacts. The author of this manuscript targets indigenous community groups, development agencies, donor communities, and professionals of climate change adaptation, researchers and students.