Mukesh Pokhrel

Put women in charge of cultivating forests and the trees grow stronger. That's the takeaway from a pioneering 30-year scheme that has elevated women to the top of Nepal's community forests - and paved their way into local and national politics.

Three decades of picking women for leadership roles has produced healthier forests and happier workers, according to Nabaraj Pudasaini, joint secretary of the government's Department of Forest and Soil Conservation.

As parts of Nepal recover from their toughest wildfire season to-date - fuelled by rising heat and drought linked to climate change - firefighters and officials fear that the tools and tactics they use to combat forest fires may no longer suffice.

Some districts have recorded a huge spike in forest fires this year, with experts and emergency responders saying the nation should review its approach to controlling the fires that are spreading ever-faster and proving much harder to extinguish.

Competition over Nepal's mountain hydropower potential is intensifying with India moving ahead of China in a geopolitical tussle that several analysts and industry insiders fear could jeopardise the Himalayan nation's energy supply and ambitions.

Nepal has in recent years looked to its rivers - which have the potential to generate more than 42,000 megawatts (MW) of hydroelectric power - to ease power shortages at home and export excess electricity in a bid to develop its struggling economy.

Two years ago, as he arrived to check a mountain trout fishing centre he owned near the Tibetan border, Gyanendra Kachhapati noticed the Melamchi river flooding, despite a clear sky.

He quickly sent his son racing home on a motorcycle to warn his wife and others living downstream. They survived the rapidly growing deluge - but Kachhapati was not so lucky.

When Pemba Sherpa last spoke with her husband, Nepali sherpa Dawa Tshering, by phone in October, the guide was preparing to lead his clients down Manaslu - the world's eighth highest mountain - after bad weather scuppered a summit attempt.

Tshering promised to ring her when he arrived at base camp – but the call never came. On the way down the mountain, the 32-year-old was killed in a massive avalanche – the kind of threat that is becoming increasingly common in the high Himalayas due to warmer temperatures fuelled by climate change.

At his shop in Nepal's capital, Tilak Dhakal sells traditional crops that have vanished from many of the country's markets: sorghum, millet, buckwheat flour and mustard, among others.

With products sourced from around rural Nepal, the shop is part of a drive to promote local crops that could not just help boost food security and improve people's health, but build the country's resilience to worsening climate change impacts.