Residents of remote Mugu district bordering China have long been eking out a living by conducting trade with the northern neighbour.

In early 2020, the border closed, and hundreds of households in this northwest corner of Nepal were pushed to the edge of poverty after all commerce came to a halt.

Villagers living close to the Nepal-China border points say Beijing’s erratic trade policy is one of the key reasons for their poor quality of life.

Tibet used to provide Rs3.5 million worth of goods to Mugum Karmarong Rural Municipality in Mugu as a gift every year.

“That too has stopped,” said Chhewa Gyalzen Tamang of Daura Serog village. “For the past three years, there has been no support.” He said that infrastructure development had boomed in Tibet. “But we are still in a poor condition.”

Locals say it is easier to travel to Tibet than Gamgadhi, the district headquarters. Tibet is a two-day walk with a load of goods, but the trip can be made in one day without cargo. Meanwhile, it is a three-day walk to Gamgadhi from their villages.

“The quality of life across the northern border is a lot better,” said Tamang.

Many villages in Mugu are yet to be connected by roads.

Tshiring Kyapne Lama, chairman of Mugum Karmarong Rural Municipality, said around 45 percent of the locals in the rural municipality were living in extreme poverty.

“The number of people living below the poverty line has increased from 38 to 45 percent in a year,” said Lama.

Mugu has seen rapid population growth which has put a strain on local natural resources. The production of medicinal herbs has declined due to overharvesting.

“As people have been prevented from travelling to Tibet, cross-border trade has stopped and many of them have been pushed into poverty as a result,” said Lama.

The population of Mugu district increased from 55,286 in 2011 to 64,549 in 2021, according to the latest census report. But in other remote areas, it is the other way around. Out-migration has emptied the hilly regions while the Tarai plains have become overpopulated.

In the decade before 2021, the proportion of the hill population came down to 40.31 percent from 43.01 percent, and the mountain population fell to 6.08 percent from 6.73 percent.

Wangri village in Mugum Karmarong Rural Municipality has been almost empty for a decade.

Many people have moved to Jumla. They return once a year to collect wild yarsagumba (cordyceps), a caterpillar fungus dubbed Himalayan Viagra and prized for its supposed aphrodisiac properties.

The fungus is harvested between May and June before the monsoon sets in. Tens of thousands of people swarm over the Himalayan foothills in Rukum, Dolpa and Bajhang districts in western Nepal to collect it.

“We have no option. We are forced to leave our birthplace to survive,” said Kunsang Tamang, a local of Wangri village. “There is a risk of starvation, and that has been forcing people to leave the village in droves.”

Locals from neighbouring villages have a similar story.

“Forest fires, droughts, haphazard collection of herbs, lack of conservation and climate change have affected the production of herbs,” said Pranil Devkota, information officer at the Division Forest Office in Mugu.

“Production started decreasing a decade ago,” said Karma Tamang, a medicinal herbs trader. “The collection of yarsagumba has been reduced by more than half.”

There are around 120 households in Mugum Karmarong Rural Municipality-2. In most parts of Mugu, the villagers grow only potatoes and have to import foods throughout the year.

The medicinal herb trade was one key source of income for the locals, but herb production has dropped too.

Herbs such as cordyceps, kutki (Picrorhiza kurroa), wild garlic (Allium wallichii), guchi chyau (Morchella esculenta), chiraito (Swertia chirayita), satuwa (Paris polyphylla), jatamasi (Nardostachys jatamansi) and padamchal (Rheum australe) have become scarce, locals say.

Most of the income from selling herbs is spent on buying rice and millet.

For generations, the villagers have been dependent on Tibet for importing foods; but the closure of the border for the past three years has made life difficult for them.

“We have been struggling for our daily meal after the disruption of supply from Tibet,” said a local resident Sonam Tamang. “We have to walk for two and a half days to reach the nearest market to buy rice.”

In the absence of motorable roads for transporting food materials, locals have to pay exorbitant prices for food.

A 25-kg sack of rice costs Rs7,500 in the village. That’s Rs300 for a kilo of rice. Inflation has added to their woes.

“Life is difficult for poor people like us,” said Gara Tashi Tamang of Mugu village.

According to the rural municipality, only 15 percent of the residents are able to buy food throughout the year. Among the rest, 45 percent can buy food for six months and 20 percent scrape by for three months.

“The Nepal government has been frequently talking about constructing a cross-border railway, but it will be more than enough if they build a road linking us to the rest of the country,” said Lama, chairman of Mugum Karamarang Rural Municipality.

“The rural municipality gets a minimal budget since it is allocated on the basis of geography and population.”

Before Covid, Tibetan traders used to set up haat bazaars for 15 days on the Tibetan side of the Hyajimar-Mugu and Kyatochhongra-Dolpa border points every year in August. It allowed border residents to buy food and other household items, but that has stopped for the past three years.

Nepalis living in the border areas of Mugu, Humla, Jumla and Dolpa districts would go to Hyajimar, while the residents of upper Dolpa would travel to Kyatochhongra to purchase essentials from the haat bazaar.

They bought carpets, quilts, blankets, liquors, pulses, rice, sugar, tea, coffee, ghee and wheat flour from the markets there. They sold buckwheat, yarsagumba and other medicinal herbs to the Chinese.

According to Karma Norbul Lama from Mugu village, it takes two days for a motor vehicle to reach Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, from Hyajimar.

Locals lament that election promises to develop roads have only remained in the manifestos of the political parties.

The 332-km road from Surkhet to the Nepal-China border through Nagma and Gamgadhi, and the 85-km Gamgadhi-Nakchenangla road are considered to be pride projects of Karnali province.

But progress has been discouraging. Only 17 km of track has been opened on the Gamgadhi-Nakchenangla road so far. The Rs800 million road project was launched more than a decade ago and was supposed to be completed in five years.

The government has established a food depot at Pulu Bazaar, but there is not enough to go around for the 7,000 people of 1,200 households in the rural municipality. The government sends 150 tonnes of rice to the depot annually.

“During every election, the political leaders make big promises to make the lives of the people easier,” said Jigmed Tamang of Puwa village. “But they never deliver.”