Crossing Thresholds: “The Land Is Life” with Biswash Chepang – Walk Talk Listen (Episode 5)

Welcome to Episode 5 of Crossing Thresholds: Religion, Resilience & Migration, a special mini-series of Walk Talk Listen produced in connection with research by the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith & Local Communities (JLI) and Christian Aid on faith and climate migration. In this episode, Maurice Bloem speaks with Biswash Chepang, an Indigenous rights advocate from Nepal, about what climate change, displacement, and faith mean for communities whose identity, spirituality, and survival are inseparable from land. Biswash reflects on Indigenous worldviews in which land is not a commodity, but a living relationship that connects birth, death, culture, and belief. Their conversation explores how climate pressure affects Indigenous communities long before migration takes place. As forests disappear, land rights are denied, and livelihoods erode, people can become displaced without ever moving. Biswash describes how the loss of land ownership and access creates forms of silent displacement that are often overlooked in policy discussions about climate migration. Faith runs throughout this conversation, not as an abstract concept, but as something embedded in land, rivers, forests, and daily life. Biswash speaks about spiritual practices rooted in nature, as well as the complex role of religious change in contexts of poverty and exclusion, where faith can offer both support and profound cultural disruption. Biswash’s reflections echo findings from the JLI–Christian Aid evidence review, which shows that climate migration is frequently preceded by prolonged environmental and social stress, that strong spiritual ties to land shape decisions not to migrate, and that displacement often takes emotional, cultural, and spiritual forms that are difficult to measure. His story gives voice to these dynamics, grounding research insights in lived Indigenous experience. Rather than a formal interview, this episode is a listening dialogue about land, belonging, faith, and the quiet thresholds people are forced to cross when their relationship with place is put under pressure. Learn more about the research behind this series: [link to JLI–Christian Aid report] During our conversation we experienced some challenges with our connection and therefore you will hear a couple of hiccups that we couldn't get edited out. Our apologies for at least two moments where it seems that Biswash his answers were cut short. Listener Engagement:

• Learn more about Biswash via his LinkedIn and Facebook. Follow his writings via his WorldPress site.
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