Shalini Dhyani: Writes about hill agriculture, agro-forest and such ecosystem practices from Indian Himalayan region. She emphasizes on improving the socio-economic condition of mountain people by adopting a range of animal husbandry, agro-forestry and traditional agriculture practices through better scientific and technical inputs. Entire Himalayan ecosystem is undergoing rapid land-use and climatic changes in last

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Dr. Madhav Karki discusses about sustainable mountain development- SMD agenda that was adopted during 1992 Rio Earth summit, and how the socio-economic and environmental issues were taken by countries in the Hindu Kush Himalayan- HKH region during last 20 years in terms of achieving the goals as envisioned in SMD document. He argues that mountain

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Dr. Madhav Karki writes about the commitments made by the member countries during Rio+20 summit on various sustainable development goals (SDGs) on low carbon green economy principles and good governance practices, in socio-economic and environmental perspectives. He argues that post Rio+20 actions should be more cohesive, participatory, multi-disciplinary and simple in approach, so that they

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Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma’s opinion piece on an an ongoing discourse on ‘Flaw of Big Aid‘ at Climate Himalaya’s discussion platform . There are reasons why James Rinaldi article ‘Flaw of Big Aid’ did not provoke strong emotions from either those who provide ‘aid’ or those who are its recipients. Most of those to whom the

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K N Vajpai: This article is in the series of responses to ongoing discussion on ‘Mountain Perspective’ at Link . It looks in to the aspects of mountain perspective and specificities as mentioned by Dr. N. S. Jodha during 1992s, and compares them in present  context. For the reference of readers and forum discussants, I

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The James Rinaldi article ‘Flaw of Big Aid’ raises questions about the efficiency and honesty of aid money pouring into mountain countries like Nepal, which, some feel, has been turned into a political playground by powerful neighbours in the north and the south and a holiday destination by far away interests in the west and

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Suman K Apparusu: COP18, Doha participation and interfacing with several constituencies; especially the gender and women constituency was a great learning as well as a humbling experience. There were some women who braved difficult circumstances to make it to the COP18 and make their voices heard; some were there to push hard for climate justice;

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Suman K Apparusu: The warmth and the hospitality of Doha are truly unforgettable! A wonderful combination of the old and new, tradition and modernity, ambition and receptivity struck me in all that I experienced during my one week sojourn of COP18 at Doha. But as the plane touched the tarmac in India, I was left

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Taylor Wilmot: In the twentieth century big dams and other development projects were often associated with progress and prosperous economic development for many countries, including India (Khagram, 2005). Dam development projects entice governments with the promise of hydroelectricity, irrigation, and drinking water for their growing populations. They represent an abundant resource to developing countries (Khagram,

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Cassie Denbow: The Hindu-Kush Himalayas (HKH) is one of the most diverse ecological regions in the world. Stretching from Afghanistan to Myanmar, the mountainous region encompasses the world’s highest peaks, 30% of the world’s glaciers[1], and provides between 1.3-1.8 billion[2] people with water and other natural resources. The Western Indian Himalayas are the segment of

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Mountain Voice: In the series of Mountain Voice project the Climate Himalaya’s team interviewed Dr. T Ramasamy, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST) who heads the National Mission for Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) and National Knowledge Mission under the National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC) of Government of India. Dr. Ramasamy talked about the

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Mountain Voice: In the series of Mountain Voice project the Climate Himalaya team interviewed Dr. David J Molden, Director General of International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD, Nepal) and discussed about the climate related issues in Himalayan region and about scientific communications and policy making processes. Climate Himalaya: Barring exceptions, it is business as

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A two days stakeholders workshop that was attended by over 130 stakeholders from 37 different institutes of 12 Indian Himalayan states, representatives of 7 State Governments, 27 Experts from various national and State level institutions, members of DST’s Expert and Steering committees, representatives of NGOs/Civil Society organizations, Senior officers of Central Ministries concluded at CSIR-

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Mountain Voice: In a series of Mountain Voice, the Climate Himalaya team captured the voices of mountain people from the western Himalayan region of India. Our team came across the real situation while interacting with various people in this region.  The team witnessed that the people are not aware about the statistics on the level

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Flood situation in the state remain unchanged. The Brahmaputra River is above the danger level at Dibrugarh, Nematighat, Tezpur, Dhubri, Guwahati and Goalpara. Similarly, the Burhidehing is flowing above danger level at Khowang in Dibrugarh district, the Subansiri at Badatighat in Lakhimpur, the Dhansiri at Numaligarh in Golaghat and the Jia Bharali at N T

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On 13th September 2012 night in Chwanni, Mangoli and Kimana villages of Okhimath block in Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand (India), heavy rains completely inundated over 4 villages and eroded 2 more villages, while there are no clues about 20-25 families in these villages. One can see the aftermath of erratic rainfall over the night in

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Nature: Glaciers are among the best indicators of terrestrial climate variability, contribute importantly to water resources in many mountainous regions1, 2 and are a major contributor to global sea level rise3, 4. In the Hindu Kush–Karakoram–Himalaya region (HKKH), a paucity of appropriate glacier data has prevented a comprehensive assessment of current regional mass balance5. There

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India Water Portal: This article provides a brief background of the situation of floods in Assam, their impact and possible solutions, through a video interview with Dr. Partha J Das, Programme Head, ‘Water, Climate & Hazard (WATCH)’ Programme, Aaranyak. Background The north-eastern region of the country receives a large share of the summer south-west monsoon’s

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  Plan India/ SBMA:  On August 3rd and 4th night incidences of cloudbursts occurred in Uttarkashi area. It was around midnight when suddenly people noticed increasing water level with debris in the local rivers. People immediately started shifting from their houses  and tried to move to the safer locations. Some people were able to shift

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On an article published on 6 Aug 2012 at Livemint (reproduced below), Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma raises a few questions. He says, “whether or not the trend co-relates to climate change, it is clear that there has virtually been an absence of a well thought-out strategy to overcome it. Job opportunities and local markets haven’t been

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We are updating the News on Daily Basis on this page. The heavy and erratic rains in western Himalayan region of India is taking toll in its form. Thousands of pilgrims and Tourists are stuck in places due to huge landslides that has blown road networks..! The life in the region is at stand still,

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Mountain Voice: In a series of Mountain Voice, the Climate Himalaya team interacted with authorities working on energy renewable energy issues in the western Himalayan region of India, to understand that how much scope such mountain states have in energy security and how people could be involved in such processes. What is the scope of

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Mountain Voice: We interviewed a number of farmers in one of the most backward and remote district Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand state of India, about the kind of changes they now face in agriculture production and how they are adapting to it. The farmers mentioned that they feel climatic change for last 10-20 years in the

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Mountain Voice: During this series we interacted with a youth journalist working for an Indian news daily for over 10 years in Indian mountains.  He writes on issues related to natural resources, people’s rights, environment and developmental issues in the region on regular basis. We interviewed Mr. Deepak Benjwal on issues related to climate change

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Mountain Voice: In a series of our Mountain Voice, the Climate Himalaya team interacted with youth in western Himalayan region of India to understand that how aware and concerned they are about various environment issues and how involved the Youth’s are in various developmental processes. As per our interaction with Youth in western Himalayan region

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Mountain Voice TV: Ms. Geeta Gairola of Mahila Samakhaya, India talks about. A community in the mountains that is dependent on forest will be quite stressed due to climatic changes, as their livelihood and life support system revolve around mountains, forests and rivers. The changes will increases their vulnerability and directly affects the lives of

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Mountain Voice TV:  Dr. Anil Joshi of HESCO, India talks about. Majority of the land in the mountains is under forest cover, therefore the present economic model doesn’t apply to the mountains. Due to present economic model mountain people have major suffering to compete with urban dwellers in terms infrastructure and lesser income. It’s also

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Mountain Voice TV: Dr. Amba Jamir of The Missing Link, India talks about. There is a disconnect between science and policy making with fact that the policy whichever exist many of them are not informed. Like Shifting cultivation is an issues in North Eastern mountain states of India, which has never ever been supported by

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Mountain Voice TV: Mr. Cyril R. Raphel of SBMA, Uttarakhand India talks about. It’s evident that despite the higher rates of literacy and better indices of primary, secondary and higher education, the economic growth in the mountains are not matching.There is a disconnect between the quality of education and measures we adopt in judging the

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Mountain Voice TV: Mr. Pankaj Kumar Srivastava of Oxfam South Asia Regional centre talks about. To design climate adaptation related interventions one needs to first understand various kinds of natural flows in terms of hydrological, energy, bio-mass, among others in the mountain agriculture. The interventions should go in integrated manner, while mountain people should develop

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Mountain Voice-TV: Dr. Malvika Chauhan of Himmothan Society in India talks about. How resilient the mountain women are towards climatic changes in the Himalayan region and the kind of adaptation focus should be their in this region of South Asia. Though women in this region are facing such changes for years, but there are areas

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Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma: I’m indeed grateful to all the members who made written submissions to the discussions on ‘rewriting mountain perspective‘. At bilateral level, many others have contributed their unwritten thoughts and reflections. While many have gone public with their inputs, others have restricted themselves to drawing-room conversations such that they remain ‘unidentified’ in the

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J.C.Moore: Science is about using observation and reason to understand the physical world. Some people are suspicious of computer models and theories; so here is some of the the basic data in pictures and graphs. Ice core data gives a good picture of what has happened to the Earth in the last several ice ages. Please

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Mr. Cyril R Raphael: In this article Mr. Raphael writes the agony of mountains in general by taking an example of overall development in one of the Indian mountain states called Uttarakhand. His discourse covers the social and economic development, governance, leadership, availability of basic amenities, health, education, livelihood, effectiveness of information and communication, role

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Benedicto Q Sánchez: And so our Kathmandu dinner discussions continue, but this time virtually and through the internet. Five days ago, Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma asked me for my comments on his article “Need to rewrite the mountain perspective” that was posted at Climate Himalaya’s website. Mountains are described as “fragile, remote and marginal,” these three

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Sudhirendar Sharma Tagged as fragile, remote and marginal, these three aspects have featured prominently in discussions and deliberations concerning development in the mountains in our part of the world. Retired but active academician N S Jodha, a former senior staff with the Kathmandu-based Integrated Center for International Mountain Development, has been credited for using these

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Noreen Haider: It has been more than six years when the Northern areas of Pakistan were hit by one of the most devastating earthquake in the history of the region. The earthquake measured 7.6 on the Richter scale and within the very few first seconds created an unimaginable devastation in an area of more than

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Sudhirendar Sharma: By strange coincidence two unrelated developments had surfaced at the time when environment ministers from several countries were mulling over reams of text to resolve the climate conundrum at the port city of Durban in early December  - one, that the branded chocolates were getting costly and two, diapers sales were plummeting across

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K N Vajpai: This UN conference on climate change (COP) remained a place where the people from around the world discuss, debate and come to a conclusion on various confronting issues our communities  face around the world on climate change. In this note I am  trying to discuss three important aspects of this conference on

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Durban Post by Dr.C. S. Silori*: This note is on the major happening during COP 17 at Durban in South Africa during UN Climate Change Conference on December 4-5, and how the ‘equity’ issues has emerged as major challenge for the world leaders in context to future development and climate change.  December 4, Sunday, was

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Durban Post by Dr. C. S. Silori direct from United Nations Climate Change Conference at Durban 2011. “We don’t’ understand the message God has sent us…..”, this is how the mountain communities of Peru react to the recent signs of climate change they observe in their day to day life. There is enough to indicate

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Durban Post: Dr. C. S. Silori* writing from Durban on Day-II & III, 29-30 November 2011 I had promised to come back, and here I am again with a short report of what happened on day 3 of the ongoing conference of the parties (COP 17) in Durban. It was a hectic day, as I

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K N Vajpai: Writes on the expected outcomes from Durban Climate Change Conference (CoP 17)in terms of growing momentum of action and alarm bells from new researches. His discourse is about the meager role played by the leaders from most vulnerable regions like Himalayas and Andes during this important global conference.   With the representation

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Durban Post: Dr. C. S. Silori* writing from Durban on Day-I, 28 November 2011 The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP 7) to the Kyoto Protocol,

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Suman K A: The UNFCCC Secretariat in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will create a series of platforms to encourage adaptation and mitigation projects that have promise to deliver high resilience and low carbon growth. This will be done through the Momentum for Change Initiative to be launched in Durban at CoP17. The

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Noreen Haider: Writes from her visit to the beautiful Naran valley of Khyber Pakhtunkwa province in Pakistan, where she observes various dimensions of social and environment development. Noreen came across various developmental projects and activities in the region and finds that poor education and poorly planned social and environmental projects lead to acute poverty natural

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Amrit Banstola: It is surprising to see that after 61 years of initiation of improved cook stove (ICS) by Government of Nepal (such initiative dates as far back as 1950 with the introduction of Indian models of Hyderabad and Magan stoves) traditional and primitive chulas (stoves) are still in extensive use in Chidipani rural community.

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Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: Writes about the history of Darjeeling town in Indian Himalayan region, its ethnicity, the administrative setup and various social, economic and ecological aspects. He talks about the fragile ecology and increasing demand for environmental resources due to  growing tourist influx and poorly planned urbanization. He feels that hill town like Darjeeling has unique

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Dr. R. S. Tolia: Writes this article as his ‘Third Inning’,  days those have been happily spent on reflecting over and about mountains and mountain people. This has taken him to various mountainous parts of India, neighbouring Nepal and recently to the beautiful city and canton of Switzerland, Luzern, in the northern Alps.  Besides learning

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Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: The pristine water quality of the mountains is under question despite bottled water manufacturers campaign to the contrary. This issue attempts to examine the dogma and the policy responses in India to protect environmental water quality of the mountains. Bottled water manufactures do a great job of enticing thirsty buyers to pick up

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Noreen Haider: On the night of eighth September 2011 unusual amount rain started lashing the districts of southern Sindh including Badin, Mithi, Mirpur Khas and Saanghar and continued unrelentingly for the next two days before it took a break. Its immediate effect was that large areas became inundated and communication was broken down.  The rain

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Sudhirendar Sharma: Writes about the potential of mountain states in India in terms of their natural wealth and kind of benchmark for the services provided by them. By taking examples from developed countries his doubts are about insignificant valuation of tangible ecosystem services, therefore the unlikely transaction of such payments in near future. His discourse

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Suman K A : Community based adaptation – CBA as it is popularly called is just that!  What lies at the heart of CBA is reducing the vulnerabilities and improving the adaptive capacities of communities that are likely to be most impacted by climate variability and change. The current body of knowledge gained from the

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Shankar Sharma:       Writes about the government of India’s low carbon emission policy and strategy in respect to climate change vulnerability. This discourse is about all relevant aspects of policy, development, poverty, industrialization, energy and carbon emission. He also gives specific recommendations to Government of India on sustainable use of natural resource, judicious use of energy,

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Shalini Dhyani: Writes about the increasing pressure on the Himalayan ecosystem in Indian Himalayan region due to tourist influx, immigrants from neighboring country, environmental degradation and increasing population pressure. She suggests Payment for Environmental Services- PES a way forward through appropriate planning.   “The most striking feature of earth is the existence of life, and the

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Anamika Barua: When in late 19th century Svate Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, first suggested that increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels could lead to global climate change, it was a radical claim. He was making a prediction about something that could happen in future, not a claim that climate change was

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Suman K A: The National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency, one of the key missions, of the National Action Plan for Climate Change has at its core – unlocking staggering INR 74,000 crore energy efficiency opportunities, reducing annual fuel savings by 23 mtoe, avoiding energy capacity addition worth 19000 MW, and achieving 98 million tCO2-e

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Noreen Haider: Nature strikes with mind blowing force at the most pristine of places and with no compassion for people or property. The Hunza Valley of Gilgit Batlistan, a paradise on earth, turned into a chaos with a catastrophic land slide. Noreen makes a personal connection in this passionate essay with suffering of her childhood

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Syed Iqbal Hasnain:Climate change and black carbon are causing the glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Karakorum, Himalaya, and Tibetan plateau to melt.  Their waters feed the river systems throughout South Asia and Southeast Asia, and are essential for drinking water and for irrigating wheat, rice, and other crops throughout the region on which the local populations

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Prakash Kumar: The impending crisis in India for water is very much foreseeable in next 5-10 years. The crisis is not going to happen because of shortage of water but its poor management. The same is true for the Himalayan region the “water kingdom” of the world. Slowly we are robbing this once mighty water

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