Traditional Knowledge Systems in the Himalayas: Why Moving Away from Biomass Cooking Fuel Is So Difficult?

Over the past ten years, Nepal has experienced rapid expansion in access to grid electricity, with 67% of total households having access in 2011 increasing to 92% in 2021. Despite such progress, the proportion of households using firewood as their main cooking fuel has not significantly been reduced. This indicates that while there have been several government interventions to incentivise a transition to cleaner cooking fuels, they have not been enough to completely replace firewood use. In this context, it is important to understand why households prefer firewood as their cooking fuel, before suggesting for them to use an alternative clean cooking fuel. This chapter examines the socio-cultural context involving the interaction between culture, livelihood, and social practices about clean cooking fuel preferences using an expert survey. The results demonstrate that cooking fuel choices differ between rural and urban areas. In rural areas, firewood is often ranked as the best cooking fuel, whilst in urban areas, it is considered the least suitable. This study identified 32 services linked to firewood, as a cooking fuel, in rural areas of the Himalayas. These services, seen as co-benefits, are a crucial part of rural livelihoods which makes firewood the most preferred cooking fuel. There is a need for contextual interventions to address households’ socio-cultural needs to accelerate the clean cooking transition in rural areas of the Himalayas.