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With a large cone-shaped bamboo basket strapped to her back, Nirmala Bhandari treks two hours every day from her village to a protected forest in the hills, heaving it back filled with enough firewood to cook food for her three children.
Despite knowing timber collection in this forest is illegal and wood stoves cause deadly indoor pollution, the 35-year-old widow says she has no choice since a shortage of cooking gas hit Nepal more than two months ago.
“My children and I spent three days outside a fuel shop for cooking gas but did not get any,” she said in a village in Jhor, 12 km from Kathmandu.
“If there is a problem collecting wood then I may have to feed them only alternate meals,” said Bhandari, explaining that guards at the Shivapuri National Park have already warned her to stop hacking off tree branches in the fast-depleting forests.
Bhandari’s family is among hundreds of thousands in the impoverished Himalayan nation crippled by a shortage of basic commodities after Nepal adopted a new constitution, sparking protests by the Madhesi minority, who say it marginalises them.
Since September, 50 people have died in protests at border points with India, where demonstrators have blocked trucks carrying everything from petrol to medicines from entering the landlocked nation, still reeling from two deadly earthquakes.