ABSTRACT
The implementation of the REDD-plus (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) program in Nepal is part of the current global climate change rhetoric, dominated by scientific, political, policy and economic discourse, repackaged in the form of media-talk. Western myths of climate change and the associated mobilisation of knowledge, expertise and power is changing village ontologies. The culture of the thulo manche, along with the Western myths of climate change, neoliberal development and expert knowledge exists at the village level. Myths of the future of development and modernity, of climate change, expert knowledge, and thulo manche come together to build momentum for the myths of climate change and are changing currently experienced ontologies. Climate change should be framed more clearly within a broader notion of environmental change, as it is by villagers, in order not to exclude and subordinate local knowledge. Western myths of climate change and the associated mobilisation of knowledge, expertise and power is changing village ontologies.
