K N Vajpai: This article is in the series of responses to ongoing discussion on ‘Mountain Perspective’ at http://bit.ly/yYlbpl . 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Amrit Banstola: The climate change is disrupting to human health as it causes various health effects. The health effects are vivid in developing countries like Nepal. The precautionary principle, as articulated at the 1998 Wingspread Conference, http://www.sehn.org/wing.html holds that “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay:Water as a resource from management perspective needs to be managed in the mountains very differently as compared to plains. This requires handling few uneasy questions. This essay attempts to see water management of the HKH debunked from global culture] If you live in Hindu Kush Himalayas, most likely you have grown stoic to [...]

Suman K A: The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), one of the eight missions under the NAPCC, lays emphasis on four key functional areas and ten important dimensions. Through these, the mission seeks to target both; the imminent challenges from the likely impacts of climate change on Indian agriculture and the more fundamental ones [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: The importance of Climate Himalaya’s knowledge banking and outreach building efforts, one expects, should be portrayed in our essays. An appeal for a pan Himalayan co-operation is already expressed by Noreen, which apart from making good sense for Himalayan people shines a hope for redemption of the long troubled relationship of two neighboring [...]

Shalini Dhyani: Well developed agro-forestry systems have been integral to traditional hill agro-ecosystem for the innumerable techno-socio-economic benefits that they provide. Farmers in the rural areas of Indian Himalayan Region have integrated and practiced agro-forestry based agriculture, reaping rich benefits, individually and for the community as well. Therefore, agro-forestry has been a part of peasants’ [...]

Suman K A: The National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change (NMSKCC) seeks to build a dynamic knowledge system that would inform and support national policy and action in addressing the climate change challenges while not compromising on the nation’s growth goals. This, it seeks to achieve through a combination of knowledge infrastructure, institutional [...]

Noreen Haider: It was an amazing sight for me as I reached Kasur District on the Indo Pak border.  After fifteen years the gorgeous River Sutlej had returned, full force, to run in its native course with around eighty thousands cusecs of water flowing in its bed. For most people in Kasur this Sutlej was [...]

Amrit Banstola: Harsh weather and extreme climatic events are expected to become more common as a result of climate change in Nepal (LI-BIRD, 2006). Extreme weather events such as floods, landslides, heat waves, storms, extreme cold, fires, and droughts are among the well-established consequences of climate change in Nepal. Health conditions like heat stroke, injuries, [...]

Suman K A : In the earlier article series we saw a strong case for synthesis thinking to draw upon and integrate the perspectives of vulnerability, adaptive social protection and climate smart disaster management approaches to concrete ground level action – both short and long term. Is this thinking being taken seriously and put into [...]

Anamika Barua: The significance of Himalayan waters cannot be underestimated as it is the lifeline of a huge section of  people which include people from countries like Nepal, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tibet and China. In spite of such a huge dependency on Himalayan water unfortunately our understanding and knowledge regarding the impact of climate [...]

Image via Wikipedia Suman K: The river Ganga is sacred to India and holds immense spiritual, social, cultural, recreational, and economic value to Indians. It originates in the Himalayas and traverses through a stretch of 2500 km across the north and eastern plains of India serving as a life force for close to 40% of [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: The gentleman in the payment kiosk swiped the card and gave it back to me. Then he asked my wife for the carry bag to pack the month’s provision. Carry bags? What?? You are not packing this into plastic bags? My wife looked puzzled. No ma’am, we are not giving away plastic bags [...]

Shalini Dhyani: With depletion of agricultural lands due to shift in monsoon patterns, landslides, run off, regular leaching of nutrients, and drying up of natural springs and lack of irrigation facilities has resulted into uneconomical agriculture in the mountain regions of India. Most of the villages in mountains are witnessing migration at a very large [...]

K N Vajpai: Much has been said about Himalayas and its beautiful mountains, rich biodiversity and rich culture. But, sometime it seems that the inhabitants in the region are not cognizant about this richness. Are they? Let me take one of the factors that contributed to such situation in Hindu Kush Himalayan region and that [...]

Suman K: The Hindu Kush Himalayan Region spans eight countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, Nepal and China. It is home to around 1000 living languages, 4 global biodiversity hotspots, 60 eco regions, 27 Ramsar wetland sites, and as many as 13 UNESCO heritage sites. The region covers 10 major river basins from [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: When it becomes clear that the increasing risk of GLOFs is the outcome of a global trend in climate change and when it is known that the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region has far too many retreating glaciers leaving far too many glacial lakes that may turn into GLOFs, two realities emerge:  No single [...]

Noreen Haider: Disaster are far more dependent on the processes surrounding vulnerability, including asset depletion, deforestation, soil erosion, population growth, poor planning, coping capacities of population, climate change, bad governance and corruption to state a few. The flood effectively proved once again that unless Risk Reduction strategies are incorporated in the overall planning at the [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: On August 4, 1985 the Dig Tsho (Tsho-lake), in the western section of the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Khumbu Himal, Nepal breached the moraine releasing 8 million cubic meters of water that rushed downstream. The lake burst destroyed the Namche Small Hydel Project on its wake and claimed 5 lives. The world [...]

Shalini Dhyani: Changes in the fragile mountain ecosystems affect local people who are very much dependent on agriculture and forests. The economy in major mountain regions of the world is mostly dependent on women, and they are among the important actors of change and holders of significant knowledge and skills, which makes them crucial actors [...]

Anamika Barua: Liverman (1994), who is a Professor of Geography and Development, in University of Arizona, once stated that “The most vulnerable people may not be living in the most vulnerable places-poor people can live in productive biophysical environments and be vulnerable and wealthy people can live in fragile physical environment and live relatively well” [...]

In December 2009, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 64/134 proclaiming the International Year of Youth from 12 August 2010 to 11 August 2011. By doing so, the international community demonstrated the importance it places on integrating youth-related issues into global, regional, and national development agendas. Under the theme “Dialogue and Mutual Understanding”, the [...]

Suman K A: Sustainable Mountain Development (SMD) we believe is fraught with significant challenges despite increased recognition of the mountain issues and concrete results in the direction of their resolution. Predominant among these are mountain communities vulnerability to growing scarcity of water, expanding tourism, climate change , increased incidence of natural disasters, out-migration, food insecurity, [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: Dr. Kelvin Klemm’s post Indian study shows climate change is probably caused by natural factors is what scientists call false positive. It apparently praises an Indian perspective and may turn out to be quite popular for Indian readers but I have few reservations about the enthusiasm it apparently invokes. I feel that it [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: When the jungle safari of Chapramari National Park organized by Forest Department of West Bengal concluded without a sight of Gaur or (thankfully) Royal Bengal Tiger and our Land Rover cruised into the disembarkation point, I was up for a pleasant surprise. The tourists were given a complementary tea with a throw-in tribal [...]

Noreen Haider: The rivers more than any other physical feature demonstrate how nature knows no boundaries. The rivers are the lifeline of civilizations, custodians of cultures, song, music, dance, food, dress and poetry. Rivers are like the eternal guardians of cities, of cultivation and growth, of sustenance and hope, of joys and sorrow, of ebb [...]

Shalini Dhyani: The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) is home to 40 million people, which is 3.8% of the total population of India. Since independence, the system of democratic governance ushered in new institutional arrangements with some specific arrangements to protect and maintain socio-cultural identities of the mountain societies in the Indian Himalayan Region. A wide [...]

K N Vajpai: In one of recently held international seminar in Pakistan, experts from various institutions of the world highlighted concerns related to various developmental processes, natural resource crisis and ignorance towards local governance system in the mountainous part of Himalaya. The experts highlighted the dependence of over 1.5 billion people in South Asia region [...]

K N Vajpai: We boast, we host, and we are lost! It sounds the legacy of mighty Himalaya and its people. Here, agencies seem boasting the urgency and the welfare of mountain ecosystem (!), while people in the region are hosting their dialogues with utmost care, and then they are lost somewhere. The remains of [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: Do you guys remember the school in Leh where Fungchook Wangdoo went back to – in the popular movie ’3 Idiots’ by Amir Khan? I am talking about the Druk Padma Karpo School where the movie was partly shot and the school that was devastated in the 2010 cloud burst. I guess you [...]

Pabitra Mukhopadhyay: For a young man or lady from the hills of Himalaya, it does not matter profoundly how unique their home is. Life draws them into the more immediate concerns of need, and I understand that there are many of those – basic infrastructure, healthcare, education and a much sought after peace from the [...]