Nepal, July 17 -- Consider a simple question: If someone asked whether the insects, birds or wildflowers in a given Nepali forest are more or fewer than they were 10 years ago, could anyone answer honestly? For a handful of famous species, perhaps. For almost everything else, no. We have no baseline to compare against. This may sound like a narrow scientific complaint, but it sits at the centre of how the country handles nature, and it explains why so many of our green promises never quite mean anything.

We are not short of ambition. Nepal has signed the global agreement to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. We reaffirm our promise to protect 30 percent of our land. Officials fly to climate summits and return with speeches. What we are s...