Field teams from HFMN have begun the ground-truthing exercise for the first wave of 10,000-ropani silk clusters. Working with district cooperatives, land records offices and community forestry groups, the mapping covers hill and Terai belts across the seven provinces.

Each cluster is being scoped as a self-contained sericulture ecosystem — mulberry plantation, farmer groups, silkworm rearing units, cocoon production and collection, reeling and spinning, yarn and weaving linkage, and a training and demonstration center.

The first pilots are Tokha (Kathmandu), Panauti/Kushadevi (Kavrepalanchok), Dang and Amchok (Bhojpur). A national inventory will follow later this year.

HFMN’s wool programme has begun its first high-altitude pilot in Mustang, working with herding families on the fine-grading, washing and spinning of indigenous wool from Chyangra and cross-bred flocks.

The pilot is small by design — a single collection point, a mobile washing unit and a spinner cooperative — but it will inform the roll-out of wool clusters across Nepal’s high-altitude districts.