How do you make a change locally? Bring in the world, says Dr Hum Gurung
As a child, Dr Hum Gurung (PhD Environmental Science ’08) wandered in the spectacularly beautiful foothills of Annapurna, Nepal. He felt a deep kinship with nature. He longed to protect it. So he left his beloved village of Sikles with a mission: to bring the wider world’s knowledge together with local expertise.
He became one of just three people from Sikles who have gone to university and his PhD became the foundation of his ambition to bring local communities together with global environmental policy.
“Griffith gave me a global lens,” he says. “It wasn’t just about textbooks and academic exercise – it was about building real-world solutions.”
Going global
For him, leadership means looking outward and finding connections between people and the planet. “Theoretically, people can understand the big picture when it comes to conservation,” he says. “You can see how climate change is affecting the environment and people: 43 years ago, I could walk at Kahphuche, a day’s walk from my village, and see ice. Now, that ice is a lake. But to implement change, it’s vital to build the capacity of local people.”
In 2019, Hum won the Griffith University Outstanding International Alumnus Award, which recognised his decades-long contributions to conservation, education and sustainable development.
Now, his work spans over 15 countries across Asia. He has served as CEO of Bird Conservation Nepal and is currently Senior Asia Partnership Manager at BirdLife International. And he’s also found time to advise the United Nations Development Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), among others.
Only connect
More recently, he’s built bridges between Nepalese and Australian youth, creating networks of environmental leadership that cross borders and generations. “Nature connects us,” he says. “Through that connection, we can build a more just, sustainable world.” Indeed, the School of Sustainable Living he set up is the first practical school in Nepal where young people can learn and address conservation challenges through nature-based solutions.
Hum says that his Outstanding International Alumnus Award affirmed that grassroots conservation can inspire at a global level. “It was both humbling and energising,” he says. “It reminded me that our work matters. What we do on the ground can ripple across the world.”
And he continues to foster biodiversity and climate resilience, while mentoring the new generation of conservationists. His projects linking Nepalese and Australian youth highlight his belief that education is both a tool and a lifelong journey. “The greatest wisdom I’ve learned is that learning never ends,” he says.
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Image captions (top to bottom):
- Dr Hum Gurung pictured with the Rafflesia also known as “corpse flower” due to its foul odor at Royal Belum State Forest Park in Malaysia. It is native to Southeast Asia and known as the largest flower in the world. Found during our monitoring of forest condition (health) in Malaysia, which was a part of EU-funded and BirdLife-implemented Forest Governance Project in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, where I was the regional project manager.
- Dr Hum Gurung planting Siltimur (grapefruit pepper) with Professor Sara Parker from UK at the School of Sustainable Living. The idea is to keep the monkeys away from agricultural fields, which damage crops or eat the crops, as they don’t eat Siltimur. This is expected to reduce the human-wildlife conflict.
- Dr Hum Gurung with students at the School of Sustainable Living learning about Nature-based Solutions.
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