Nepal, May 4 -- Over the 33 years that the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust (KVPT) has been working on the ground, it has restored more than 87 monuments and temples, some 36 after the 2015 earthquake. The Trust has many long-term donors, institutional and across countries and embassies, but domestic donors, the truest stakeholders, are fewer and far between. Aside from the odd corporate donor or wealthy individual domestic funding is hard won, and not at all in proportion to our priceless World Heritage Site status, which includes the rare aspect of a living heritage component; we still worship at these places.

For every artefact outside of Nepal identified by the Lost Arts of Nepal, there are a dozen, maybe even a hundred, objets d'...