“My name is Tilak Budha Magar, from Bhume Rural Municipality. I’m a member of the Namuna Farmer’s Group, secretary of the Gravity Goods Ropeway Consumer Committee, and operator of the Ropeway.”
Farmers in the mountainous regions of Nepal are faced with an impossible choice that no one should have to make. The only place to sell produce is the markets, over one kilometre below. On foot, it’s a long, treacherous and back-breaking six-hour round trip, risking wild animals and carrying only as much as you can bear. Injuries are common, and some have even died.
Like millions of people around the world, Tilak is feeling the impacts of the accelerating climate crisis. More frequent and powerful monsoon storms made the journey down the mountain even more perilous – triggering landslides and regularly erasing what pathways there were.
In this context, the world needs action. So we worked with farmers like Tilak to create another way: the Gravity Goods Ropeway.
The way it works is simple, but clever: a basic rope and pulley system. Farmers at the top fill a cage with their crops and, as they’re lowered down, the weight pulls up a lighter package (of whatever the farmers might need) in exchange. It’s relatively cheap, does not pollute or damage the environment, and uses no fuel: only gravity!
