Category: English

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Adrian Barnett, Senior Lecturer in Behavioural Ecology, University of Greenwich

Look down at the rainforest floor. Rotting flowers shift under the assault of tiny petal-eating beetles. Vividly coloured fungi pop up everywhere like the strange sculptures of a madly productive ceramicist.

Look in front of you and heliconias and calatheas, tropical plants familiar from garden centres and greenhouses, vie for the attention of hummingbirds with scarlet and orange flowers.

Look up and the distant canopy offers a full spectrum of shades of green, along with clusters of flowers and fruits in a bewildering range of shades, shapes and sizes.

You’d be excused from thinking that life in a tropical forest is easy. A lazy arm movement being all that’s needed to secure the next mouthful of food. But it’s not like that at all.

Life in the rainforest demands extraordinary adaptations.

Which is why I found myself stepping out of a small canoe on the Tapajós
River in Brazil’s central Amazon to collect the remnants of the most recent meal of the endangered red-nosed cuxiu monkey (Chiropotes albinasus) for my recent study.

They are like no other monkey on Earth. Many species have ecological parallels on other continents, often with very similar physical and behavioural adaptations. For example, spider monkeys and gibbons, chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys. But cuxius, and their close relatives the uacaris and sakis, are a uniquely South American phenomenon.

Cuxius are cat-sized animals, with canines bigger than human teeth, even though their skull is the size of an orange. Although other primates have massive canines too (think baboons, mandrills or chimps) these are for display. Those of the cuxiu are the real deal; designed for cracking open hard, unripe fruits to get at the equally unripe and hard seeds. They eat a range of fruits that include relatives of the Brazil nut, acacia tree and oleander.

Humans would need a hammer to crack open this kind of fruit. But cuxius and their near relations bite them open. Powered by massive muscles, the jaws can deliver a bite which, if scaled for size, is equal to that of a jaguar. They eat hundreds of rock-hard fruits a week, tens of thousands over their ten-year life span.

So, I wanted to know: how do they avoid cracking their teeth along with the nuts? We know their skulls are evolved to disperse the shock of a bite. But scientists have long been mystified by how the cuxiu avoids breaking its teeth through the sheer repetitive strain.

My findings revealed that cuxius are a lot smarter and more subtle than anyone thought.

Pick up a walnut and you’ll notice a thin line running around the hard shell. This is the suture, and it’s where the shell would naturally break open to free the seed when it ripens. It’s also a lot less resistant to puncture than the rest of the fruit. Fruits with sutures dominate the diet of the red-nosed cuxiu, so I wondered if this could be the key to the cuxiu’s success.

Measurements of the force needed for a copy of a cuxiu canine to penetrate fruit outer husks showed this was the case. It took up to 70% less force to go in at the suture than elsewhere on the fruits the cuxiu ate.

My examination of skulls held in London’s Natural History Museum showed canine breakages were no more common in cuxius than in capuchins (which use either their molars or stone tools to break hard fruits) or ateline monkeys (which eat either soft pulpy fruits or leaves). Avoiding dental damage is smart – with no dentists in the forest a split tooth is a quick path to a slow death by starvation. And it allows the cuxius and their relatives to access unripe seeds, a food source few other animals can exploit.

This mirrors tactics used by carnivores like big cats, who bite prey at vulnerable spots to avoid breaking their teeth.

Then there’s the fact that every animal in the rainforest needs to be its own doctor, physiotherapist and fitness coach. With no first aid stations for bitten, twisted or shocked bodies, it’s best to avoid things going wrong in the first place. This is also true for actions that, through sheer repetition, could cause breakage through stress.

Survival in the rainforest depends on vigilance, cunning survival strategies and Olympian levels of fitness. An animal’s survival depends not only on knowing what to eat but how to eat it. Seconds count when a bite too many can mean missing the one key glance skywards that stops you becoming someone else’s breakfast.

Living in the top of the canopy of either rainforest or flooded forest, moving huge distances and doing so very fast, makes cuxius a challenge to observe. I first became interested in cuxius and uacaris because they are hard to study and, as a result, were so little known. But, soon after I started working with them, I realised cuxius and uacaris are like extreme sports athletes, pushing the boundary of what is possible in a monkey.

And they aren’t the only ones.

Swinging and hanging between the trees, the life of a spider monkey is like a perpetual parallel bar performance, not for a few brief minutes, after months of rigourous training as in humans, but all day, every day. No gold medal and long retirement, just surviving till dusk and starting again at dawn.

Additionally, while not exactly Olympian, the energy howler monkeys use during their daily calling bouts is similar to that of a mid-aria opera singer. Except that the monkeys must perform twice a day for a lifetime.

Sadly, animals’ Olympian abilities are no match for humans, whose use of tools is the equivalent of competitors using steroids or robotic enhancements. And, since it is clear that humans are not as smart as we are skilled, rainforest loss continues at a pace that even evolution – formerly the world’s best trainer – cannot have prepared them for.

Adrian Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Deep in the Amazon, I discovered this monkey’s ingenious survival tactic – https://theconversation.com/deep-in-the-amazon-i-discovered-this-monkeys-ingenious-survival-tactic-271995

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jun Du, Professor of Economics, Centre Director of Centre for Business Prosperity (CBP), Aston University

European negotiators believed they had bought stability in July 2025 amid the global trade turmoil sparked by Donald Trump’s liberation day tariffs. The EU’s deal with the US involved eliminating tariffs on American goods, purchasing US energy and committing to American investment. But six months later, as the US president made his intentions regarding Greenland clear, it collapsed.

Trump has now threatened new tariffs on eight European countries, the UK among them. The tariffs punish countries that sent military personnel to Greenland in support of Danish sovereignty.

The president has said 10% tariffs will apply to all goods entering the US from the eight countries from February 1, rising to 25% on June 1 until he is able to buy territory.

This isn’t an aberration. The US offered to buy Greenland in 1946. And before that it purchased Alaska (in 1867, from Russia), Florida (in 1821, from Spain) and Louisiana (in 1803, from France). What’s different now is the coercion mechanism – tariffs rather than a negotiated price.

Greenland offers Arctic shipping routes, rare earth deposits and missile defence positioning. Trump’s “Golden Dome” defence system needs more than military bases – it requires sovereign control to deploy classified systems without Danish oversight.

This is the same logic that drove pressure on Panama to renegotiate US control of the canal. This showed how existing arrangements aren’t enough – Washington wants exclusive control.

The tariff threats serve multiple purposes: punishing countries that showed solidarity with Denmark, testing whether economic pressure can fracture Nato from within, and of course generating revenue.

US tariff income hit US$264 billion (£197 billion) in 2025, up US$185 billion from 2024 after new tariffs kicked in. This is a windfall that makes security dependent allies who cannot retaliate reliable payers.

The usual playbook won’t work

When China faced US tariffs in 2025, it retaliated hard. China targeted soybeans from swing states, restricted rare earths with new export licences and slowed regulatory approvals for US tech companies. Beijing could absorb pain and inflict it back. That was a trade war fought with trade weapons.

Europe’s position is different. Brussels is now discussing the anti-coercion instrument – the so-called “trade bazooka”.

This law gives the EU teeth to hit back against economic blackmail from a non-EU country and overrides existing trade deals. In practice, this could restrict US companies from public procurement and impose retaliatory tariffs on €93 billion (£81 billion) of American goods.

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Read more:
Tariffs may bring a US$50 billion monthly boost to the US government. But ordinary Americans won’t feel the benefit

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But the EU requires unanimity for serious trade retaliation, and member states differ vastly in their US market exposure and Nato security dependence. Any serious escalation risks the security guarantee, a constraint China never faced.

And these tariffs aren’t really about trade anyway. Fighting a territorial objective with trade weapons is bringing the wrong tools to the job.

If trade diplomacy cannot solve a territorial problem, what can? The conventional playbook offers escalating retaliation — measured responses or catastrophic threats meant to deter a rational actor. But that assumes your opponent isn’t playing a game where brinkmanship is the point. Given those constraints, we have identified five options. None of them is comfortable.

1. Accept the new reality

Treat US tariffs as a permanent feature of transatlantic trade rather than a disruption to negotiate away. Price them into business planning and stop expending political capital on deals that probably won’t hold.

2. Diversify faster

The EU-Mercosur agreement signed in the same week between Brussels and the South American trading bloc wasn’t a coincidence. It was agreed in the knowledge that higher US tariffs were a distinct possibility one day.

For the UK, diversifying means accelerating its own negotiations (the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership – CPTPP, the Gulf and India). Every percentage point shifted from the US reduces Washington’s leverage.

3. Address the security dependence

European defence spending has risen sharply since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — from €251 billion in 2021 to €343 billion in 2024. But capability takes longer than building up budgets. The Greenland tariffs illustrate the cost of dependence. When your security guarantor becomes your economic coercer, your options narrow dramatically.

4. Reconsider the UK-EU relationship

The crisis creates opportunity for both sides. These options require coordination across member states with vastly different US exposure and Nato dependence. Bringing Britain closer strengthens Europe’s negotiating position while giving the UK strategic options beyond an increasingly transactional US relationship.

The slow reset has been constrained by reluctance to make Brexit look costless. But when both face a direct challenge to the post-war order from their principal security guarantor, the calculation changes. Closer alignment becomes mutual strategic necessity.

5. Hold the line together

The worst outcome would be European countries peeling away from Denmark to escape tariffs. That is precisely what the policy is designed to achieve. This is the logic of political deterrence, which would suggest that showing solidarity will prevent further demands. If this cracks, there is likely to be more of the same from the US.

Whether Trump will ultimately acquire Greenland remains uncertain. Conventional wisdom says he won’t, but conventional wisdom has been wrong before. What’s clear is that this isn’t a tariff dispute requiring trade concessions. It’s a structural shift in transatlantic relations, and European strategy needs to adjust accordingly.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Europe has five options for responding to Trump’s Greenland threats. None of them look good – https://theconversation.com/europe-has-five-options-for-responding-to-trumps-greenland-threats-none-of-them-look-good-273885

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Paul Webster Hare, Master Lecturer and Interim Director of Latin American Studies, Boston University

When the Trump administration sent in a team of U.S. special forces on Jan. 3, 2026, to extract Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the operation fell short of full-scale regime change.

Despite years of U.S. antagonism toward Venezuela’s government, the broader political coalition that Maduro led was allowed to remain intact under the guidance of longtime Maduro ally Delcy Rodríguez. And it now seemingly has the tacit support of President Donald Trump – who has supported a transition to Maduro’s deputy over the option of pushing for opposition leader María Corina Machado to assume control.

As such, it marks a new phase, rather than an end, to the left-wing political ideology of Chavismo.

An ever-evolving Bolivarian revolution?

Now under its third stewardship in Rodríguez, Chavismo has already undergone change since being rolled out in Venezuela by Hugo Chávez.

Chávez himself drew heavily on Fidel Castro’s Cuba in fomenting the ideology, which has ruled over Venezuela since Chávez came to power in a 1998 presidential election.

In particular, he borrowed from Cuba’s model of state controls and a blend of socialism, with a brand of Latin American nationalism and strident anti-imperialism. That included a wide-ranging platform of social welfare and programs to distribute land and money to the poor – financed by Venezuela’s vast oil reserves while the price of crude was high.

All of that is anathema to much of the political beliefs of the U.S Republican Party, particularly in Florida, and rubs up against both the MAGA wing and the coterie of anti-leftist foreign policy hawks that surround the president.

As such, the Trump administration’s willingness to give Chavismo a chance under Rodríguez is a startling difference from Dec. 19, 2025, when Sec. of State Marco Rubio gave a long explanation of why he thought Venezuela was “an illegitimate regime that openly cooperates with terrorist elements.”

Not just Maduro himself, note, but the “regime” itself.

As a former deputy head of the U.K. mission to Venezuela, I discussed politics with Chávez himself back in 1995. I had served in Portugal and the example of a left-wing Portuguese military ousting a right-wing dictator to promote a return to democracy was something that appealed to Chávez.

In opting to allow the Chavista former deputy to Maduro, Rodríguez, to take over the country rather than push for the immediate installation of María Corina Machado – whose proxy won the last Venezuelan election in 2024, according to international verification – Trump is betting that that a reformed Chavismo can uniquely provide the stability that is required to rebuild the Venezuelan oil industry. And that appears to be his immediate priority.

Rodríguez has succeeded, according to reports, in convincing Trump that immediate elections are not a priority, meaning that the Venezuelan people must wait further for their choices to made.

But Chavismo has gone through various iterations since the 1990s, and it might well do so now.

Chavismo’s evolution

At one point, Chavismo had been a more democratic venture. Chávez was elected in 1998 fairly, having been pardoned in 1994 for an earlier and unsuccessful illegal power grab. And at first Chávez seems committed to the idea of a democratic process. Moreover, like in Cuba after the revolution, he prioritized developing socialist programs in areas like health care and housing.

But how Chávez viewed the sustainability of his government changed markedly in 2002. That’s when the U.S. supported a coup attempt that challenged Chavez’s authority.

In surviving that coup attempt, he gained credibility with Cuba’s Fidel Castro who had at first doubted Chavez’ abilities.

Castro became his mentor in all policy decisions, particularly in helping craft his international profile.

At the time, Cuba was facing a more hawkish U.S. president on Latin American leftism in George W. Bush. So Chávez decided that Chavismo needed to become more anti-American, and the high price of oil enabled him to fund domestic and international largesse.

‘Competitive authoritarianism’

The system that the new Chávez presided over evolved gradually, and under Castro tutelage it became increasingly undemocratic.

Chávez was advised by the Cuban government on how to develop what critics have termed a system of “competitive authoritarianism.” This involved extending presidential terms, attacking the media and tweaking the constitution to further centralize power.

In a tried-and-tested authoritarian measure, Chávez packed the judiciary with loyalists, and turned the electoral commission into a rubber stamp for the incumbent government.

These measures proved the lynchpin of Maduro’s election fraud of 2024, when the courts refused to verify the QR codes of receipts produced by the opposition showing that they, not Maduro, had won.

Under Maduro, Chavismo only got more repressive and authoritarian. Lacking the charisma of Chavez – who died in 2013 – and facing dwindling oil revenue with which to fund social and welfare programs, Maduro turned to the suppression of human and voting rights to maintain power as the country spiraled into the economic crisis and gang violence.

And to compensate for reduced oil revenues, Maduro turned to funding from drug and human trafficking, gold smuggling and, perhaps above all recently, crypto-trading.

A post-Trump makeover?

Rodríguez is no break from this Chavismo past, having served under both Chávez and Maduro.

Yet, she is apparently willing to work in cooperation with Washington. And the Trump administration has seemingly given her its blessing for now, evidenced most recently by a high-profile Jan. 15 visit to Caracas by the head of the CIA.

The basis of this apparent bargain is oil. Rodríguez has long experience of dealing with international oil companies – and her handling of oil production is reportedly a factor in her having been accepted by the U.S. administration.

The Chávez and Maduro governments advanced the state’s control of oil and other sectors, such as goldmining in Venezuela.

Under Rodriguez, it is likely to be reversed to appease Washington – opening up again to foreign companies and especially U.S. investment. Such a move would inevitably prove a wedge between Venezuela and Cuba.

Under Chávez and Maduro, Venezuela gave oil at heavily discounted prices to Cuba. In return, Cuban sent its doctors, advisers and security personnel.

This arrangement will likely be terminated under a new arrangement between Caracas and Washington. Its cessation would force Cuba to look for alternative oil supplies – probably from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.

Yet Chavistas will likely be advising Cuba to do a similar deal with Trump. Cuba does not have oil, but it does have big nickel deposits and massive upside potential for U.S businesses in tourism. Cuba has only one 18-hole golf course, and years ago Trump, as a real estate developer, commissioned a study on building golf resorts on the island. Such deals might also save “Fidelismo.”

But where else might Chavismo go now? Will Rodríguez reverse the trend toward autocracy, and commit to future elections within a defined time period?

Will she also commit to dismantle “colectivos,” the militias of Chavismo that for years have suppressed opposition? And will she commit to returning the military to a national body, rather than the protector of one political movement?

Looking ahead, Trump’s prolonging of Chavismo is a political gamble in Florida – a state where many Latin Republican voters despise the system and any dealing with socialist governments. Trump ran in 2016 partly on a platform of opposing Obama’s deal with Cuba of 2014, claiming he would never deal with “socialist dictators.”

Can Chavismo survive?

The leaders of Chavismo have long been pragmatic negotiators, with a reputation among critics for breaking promises. In October 2023, for example, the Biden administration helped iron out the Barbados Agreement with Maduro and Venezuelan opposition groups, providing for free and fair elections in return for sanctions relief.

Yet the U.S. soon after accused Maduro of reneging on the deal by disqualifying the chosen opposition candidate, María Corina Machado. Now-acting President Rodríguez is still surrounded by all the stakeholders in Chavismo who concocted the scheme to deny the opposition’s victory – save, of course, Maduro himself.

Nonetheless, Chavismo had shown a strong instinct for survival. And Delcy Rodríguez has learned what many others leaders have: Chavismo can succeed in flattering, or at least appeasing, Trump. She has also learned that Trump appears more interested in oil than in restoring democracy.

Paul Webster Hare does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Chavismo has adapted before – but can Venezuela’s leftist ideology become US friendly and survive? – https://theconversation.com/chavismo-has-adapted-before-but-can-venezuelas-leftist-ideology-become-us-friendly-and-survive-273390

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Jye Marshall, Lecturer, Fashion Design, School of Design and Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology

Valentino, who died on Monday at 93, leaves a lasting legacy full of celebrities, glamour and, in his words, knowing what women want: “to be beautiful”.

The Italian fashion powerhouse has secured his dream of making a lasting impact, outliving Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent.

Valentino was known for his unique blend between the bold and colourful Italian fashion and the elegant French haute couture – the highest level of craftsmanship in fashion, with exceptional detail and strict professional dressmaking standards.

The blending of these styles to create the signature Valentino silhouette made his style distinctive. Valentino’s style was reserved, and over his career he built upon the haute couture skills he had developed, maintaining his signature style while he led his fashion house for five decades.

But he was certainly not without his own controversial views on beauty for women.

Becoming the designer

Born in Voghera, Italy, in 1932, Valentino Clemente Ludovico began his career early, knowing from a young age he would pursue fashion.

He drew from a young age and studied fashion drawing at Santa Marta Institute of Fashion Drawing in Milan before honing his technical design skills at École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, the fashion trade association, in Paris.

He started his fashion career at two prominent Parisian haute couture houses, first at Jean Dessès before moving to Guy Laroche.

He opened his own fashion house in Italy in 1959.

His early work had a heavy French influence with simple, clean designs and complex silhouettes and construction. His early work had blocked colour and more of a minimalist approach, before his Italian culture really came through later in his collections.

He achieved early success through his connections to the Italian film industry, including dressing Elizabeth Taylor fresh off her appearance in Cleopatra (1963).

Valentino joined the world stage on his first showing at the Pritti Palace in Florence in 1962.

His most notable collection during that era was in 1968 with The White Collection, a series of A-line dresses and classic suit jackets. The collection was striking: all in white, while Italy was all about colour.

He quickly grew in international popularity. He was beloved by European celebrities, and an elite group of women who were willing to spend the money – the dresses ran into the thousands of dollars.

In 1963, he travelled to the United States to attract Hollywood stars.

The Valentino woman

Valentino’s wish was to make women beautiful. He certainly attracted the A-list celebrities to do so. The Valentino woman was one who would hold themselves with confidence and a lady-like elegance.

Valentino wanted to see women attract attention with his classic silhouettes and balanced proportions. Valentino dressed women such as Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow and Anne Hathaway.

His aristocratic taste inherited ideas of beauty and old European style, rather than innovating with new trends. His signature style was formal designs that had the ability to quietly intimidate – including the insatiable Valentino red.

Red was a signature colour of his collections. The colour provided confidence and romance, while not distracting away from the beauty of the woman.

French influence

Being French-trained, Valentino was well acquainted with the rules of couture.

With this expertise, he was one of the first Italian designers to be successful in France as an outsider with the launch of his first Paris collection in 1975. This Paris collection showcased more relaxed silhouettes with many layers, playing towards the casual nature of fashion.

While his design base was in Rome, many of his collections were shown in Paris over the next four decades. His Italian culture mixed with the technicality of Parisian haute couture made Valentino the designer he was.

Throughout his career, his designs often maintained a classic silhouette bust, matched with a bold Italian colour or texture.

Unlike some designers today, Valentino’s collections didn’t change too dramatically each season. Instead, they continued to maintain the craftsmanship and high couture standards.

“Quintessentially beautiful” is often the description of Valentino’s work – however this devotion to high beauty standards has seen criticism of the industry. In 2007, Valentino defended the trend of very skinny women on runways, saying when “girls are skinny, the dresses are more attractive”.

Critics said his designs reinforce exclusion, gatekeeping fashion from those who don’t conform to traditional beauty standards.

The Valentino runways only recently have started to feature more average sized bodies and expand their definition of beauty.

The $300 million sale of Valentino

The Valentino fashion brand sold for US$300 million in 1998 to Holding di Partecipazioni Industriali, with Valentino still designing until his retirement in 2007.

Valentino sold to increase the size of his brand: he knew without the support of a larger corporation surviving alone would be impossible. Since Valentino’s retirement, the fashion house has continued under other creative directors.

Valentino will leave a lasting legacy as the Italian designer who managed to break through the noise of the French haute couture elite and make a name for himself.

The iconic Valentino red will forever be remembered for its glamour, and will live on with his legacy. A true Roman visionary with unmatched craftsmanship.

Jye Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Valentino shaped the runway – and the red carpet – for 60 years – https://theconversation.com/valentino-shaped-the-runway-and-the-red-carpet-for-60-years-273891

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Geoff Childs, Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis

Dorje Dundul recently had his foot gnawed by a brown bear – a member of the species Ursus thibetanus, to be precise.

It wasn’t his first such encounter. Recounting the first of three such violent experiences over the past five years, Dorje told our research team: “My wife came home one evening and reported that a bear had eaten a lot of corn from the maize field behind our house. So, we decided to shoo it away. While my wife was setting up camp, I went to see how much the bear had eaten. The bear was just sitting there; it attacked me.”

Dorje dropped to the ground, but the bear ripped open his shirt and tore at his shoulder. “I started shouting and the bear ran away. My wife came, thinking I was messing with her, but when she saw the wounds, she knew what had happened.”

Researchers Dolma Choekyi Lama, Tsering Tinley and I spoke with Dorje – a 71-year-old resident of Nubri, a Buddhist enclave in the Nepalese highlands – as part of a three-year study of aging and migration.

Now, you may be forgiven for asking what a bear attack on a septuagenarian has to do with demographic change in Nepal. The answer, however, is everything.

In recent years, people across Nepal have witnessed an increase in bear attacks, a phenomenon recorded in news reports and academic studies.

Inhabitants of Nubri are at the forefront of this trend – and one of the main reasons is outmigration. People, especially young people, are leaving for education and employment opportunities elsewhere. It is depleting household labor forces, so much so that over 75% of those who were born in the valley and are now ages 5 to 19 have left and now live outside of Nubri.

It means that many older people, like Dorje and his wife, Tsewang, are left alone in their homes. Two of their daughters live abroad and one is in the capital, Kathmandu. Their only son runs a trekking lodge in another village.

Scarcity of ‘scarebears’

Until recently, when the corn was ripening, parents dispatched young people to the fields to light bonfires and bang pots all night to ward off bears. The lack of young people acting as deterrents, alongside the abandonment of outlying fields, is tempting bears to forage closer to human residences.

Outmigration in Nubri and similar villages is due in large part to a lack of educational and employment opportunities. The problems caused by the removal of younger people have been exacerbated by two other factors driving a rapidly aging population: People are living longer due to improvements in health care and sanitation; and fertility has declined since the early 2000s, from more than six to less than three births per woman.

These demographic forces have been accelerating population aging for some time, as illustrated by the population pyramid constructed from our 2012 household surveys in Nubri and neighboring Tsum.

A not-so-big surprise, anymore

Nepal is not alone in this phenomenon; similar dynamics are at play elsewhere in Asia. The New York Times reported in November 2025 that bear attacks are on the rise in Japan, too, partly driven by demographic trends. Farms there used to serve as a buffer zone, shielding urban residents from ursine intruders. However, rural depopulation is allowing bears to encroach on more densely populated areas, bringing safety concerns in conflict with conservation efforts.

Dorje can attest to those concerns. When we met him in 2023 he showed us deep claw marks running down his shoulder and arm, and he vowed to refrain from chasing away bears at night.

So in October 2025, Dorje and Tsewang harvested a field before marauding bears could get to it and hauled the corn to their courtyard for safekeeping. The courtyard is surrounded by stone walls piled high with firewood – not a fail-safe barrier but at least a deterrent. They covered the corn with a plastic tarp, and for extra measure Dorje decided to sleep on the veranda.

He described what happened next:

“I woke to a noise that sounded like ‘sharak, sharak.’ I thought it must be a bear rummaging under the plastic. Before I could do anything, the bear came up the stairs. When I shouted, it got frightened, roared and yanked at my mattress. Suddenly my foot was being pulled and I felt pain.”

Dorje suffered deep lacerations to his foot. Trained in traditional Tibetan medicine, he staunched the bleeding using, ironically, a tonic that contained bear liver.

Yet his life was still in danger due to the risk of infection. It took three days and an enormous expense by village standards – equivalent to roughly US$2,000 – before they could charter a helicopter to Kathmandu for further medical attention.

And Dorje is not the only victim. An elderly woman from another village bumped into a bear during a nocturnal excursion to her outhouse. It left her with a horrific slash from forehead to chin – and her son scrambling to find funds for her evacuation and treatment.

So how should Nepal’s highlanders respond to the increase in bear attacks?

Dorje explained that in the past they set lethal traps when bear encroachments became too dangerous. That option vanished with the creation of Manaslu Conservation Area Project, or MCAP, in the 1990s, a federal initiative to manage natural resources that strictly prohibits the killing of wild animals.

Learning to grin and bear it?

Dorje reasons that if MCAP temporarily relaxed the regulation, villagers could band together to cull the more hostile bears. He informed us that MCAP officials will hear nothing of that option, yet their solutions, such as solar-powered electric fencing, haven’t worked.

Dorje is reflective about the options he faces as young people leave the village, leaving older folk to battle the bears alone.

“At first, I felt that we should kill the bear. But the other side of my heart says, perhaps I did bad deeds in my past life, which is why the bear bit me. The bear came to eat corn, not to attack me. Killing it would just be another sinful act, creating a new cycle of cause and effect. So, why get angry about it?”

It remains to be seen how Nubri’s residents will respond to the mounting threats bears pose to their lives and livelihoods. But one thing is clear: For those who remain behind, the outmigration of younger residents is making the perils more imminent and the solutions more challenging.

Dolma Choekyi Lama and Tsering Tinley made significant contributions to this article. Both are research team members on the author’s project on population in an age of migration.

Geoff Childs receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

– ref. What a bear attack in a remote valley in Nepal tells us about the problem of aging rural communities – https://theconversation.com/what-a-bear-attack-in-a-remote-valley-in-nepal-tells-us-about-the-problem-of-aging-rural-communities-271377