PLATE tectonics states, among other theories, that a collision between Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates some 50 million years ago, resulted in the formation of the world’s highest geo-ecological asset known as Tibetan Plateau (TP). Bordered by the Himalayas in the South to Kunlun, Altyn Tagh and Qilian mountains to the North, Karakorum in the Southeast, the Daxue and Handgun Mountains in the East, this enigmatic Plateau is Asia’s Water Tower with an average elevation exceeding 4500 m.
The Western Himalayas meet the Hindu Kush and Karakoram ranges in Northern Pakistan, encompassing the western edge of TP, known as Himalayas-Hindukush Region. These mountain ranges, with 4.2 million km2 area, together form the largest ice cover outside of the North and South Poles–the Third Pole. It is home to four global biodiversity hotspots, 330 important bird areas and hundreds of mountain peaks over 6,000 m.
It is central to geographic weather patterns due to its mechanical and thermodynamic reactions to Climate Change. This vast swath of glaciated lakes and mountain springs are the source for the major river systems of Asia including Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Sutlej, Indus, Tarim and Amu. Together these rivers provide fresh water to billions living in the riparian ecosystems of China, LAOS, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
The Plateau’s towering peaks block the freezing winds blowing down from northern latitudes, making the southwards sub-continental plain cozy enough to serve as an agrarian basket and subdue warm ocean winds coming from the South to regulate the Asian Summer Monsoon system. The Himalayan snowpack is the foundation of the 2400 km-long southern border of the Plateau. It serves as an arch of life for the millions living downstream in the trans-boundary river basins of Ganges-Brahmaputra, Indus and Mekong.
Factoring in the existential importance of this region’s hydrology amid rising food and energy demand for these dense populations, three nuclear powers – China, India and Pakistan – have deployed their infantry divisions in the region, creating a continuous strategic instability at the foothills of the Himalayas. Moreover, these countries installed massive communication infrastructures with cascading mountain tunnels diverting natural flows of rivers to operate run-of-the-river hydroelectric projects.
In addition to forceful displacements of local tribes, these “green” electric generation projects are destroying the ecological balance of the region due to massive underground excavations using dynamite, causing landslides, deforestation and extinction of the rivers’ biological systems. These ranges host hundreds of beautiful valleys, or Shangri-Las in James Milton’s words, where hundreds of pastoral tribes, with their unique cultural heritage, have lived in harmony with nature for centuries. The collective memories of these tribesmen contain centuries of cultural traditions that reflect the phenological, ecological and topographic cycles of earth’s history with stunning precision.
Periodically, they ramble every summer on ancient migratory corridors to find herbage and suitable climate for their herds. Due to their direct exposure to nature, these nomadic tribes are the first to realize there is a hydrological imbalance in Tibetan Plateau and allied geo-strategic stress due to several occupying armies. They not only have to stay aware of the military presence of the three big powers in these tangled mountains but face the adverse impacts of climate change on their ecological economy and culture due to water shortages, glacier melts, flash floods, low productivity, soil erosion and forced displacements.
Why don’t you buy a piece of land in the cities and live there? I asked 66-year-old Mustaqeem during my expedition to Deosai plains near the Pak-India Himalayan border. With a tacit smile on his rusted but self-actualized face, the nomad replied: “Unlike yours, our relationship with Earth is liberated from the oppressions of ownership, cavities and borders. It is intimate and organic. We travel during snowstorms, rains and sunlight. These mountains are God’s carriers to deliver us water and food. These goats are our economy. Here they eat alpine herbage, drink pure water, breathe fresh air and reproduce well.” Her daughter Gulana added, “We grow ourselves in harmony with nature, not against it. We enjoy Earth’s limitlessness. Possession is an expression of arrogance. We do not own a plot on Earth, yet we own the whole of it.”
For the last three hundred years, Mustaqeem’s tribe has been traveling between Punjab’s agrarian Indus basin and Deosai, the highest Himalayan peak in Pakistan while passing through Neelum Valley, another alpine, lush green valley sandwiched in the Kashmir section of Himalayas. ‘’I do not know what Climate Change is, but glaciers are depleting very fast. The snowfall last year is less than half of what it was 40 years back. Many small freshwater springs between Taobat and Minimarg Valleys have disappeared in my lifetime. I can see the consequent change in vegetation patterns. Our cattle and crops face water shortages. Before the 1947 partition between India and Pakistan, our tribe had other choices like Gulmerg which falls in India now. The border has limited our choices”, Mustaqeem added. A similar observation was made by Muhammad Afzal of Gujjar tribe from Kaghan Valley. “Our pea and potato crops per acre have decreased due to uneven rain cycles in summer. The average snowfall last winter was nearly half of what it was thirty years ago. We miss the generosity of Neela Glacier among others. It is just half of what it was when I was a child” His wife Asia interrupted our conversation while frying some pieces of chèvre on a stone-made camping stove, “Now It is no easier for us to find wood for cooking during halts in our journey. Every year I find a large number of trees missing there when I count them. There was a forest some three decades before but now it is almost barren.” She sounded nostalgic while pointing towards a peak visible from her tent in the Rati Gali direction.
Glaciers are anchors of hope, fertility and beauty for these Himalayan tribes. They cherish the glaciers and see them as living entities. They classify them into male and female glaciers. The male glacier, the po-gang, is solid snow mixed with debris and coal. The female glacier, mo-gang, is soft and blue snow. They join almost 35 kg from both glaciers in a cave or a mountain pit that comes by way of an avalanche at an altitude higher than 4000 meters. They put them where temperatures remain below zero throughout the year and cover them with a mixture of mud, ash and charcoal just before snowfall arrives in November. They call this process glacier wedding (grafting) and the locals offer special prayers and animal sacrifices on this occasion. Abdul Ahad Azad, romanticizes glaciers in his Himalayan poetry.
It is you who injects life in the amort streams, lakes and rivers
Oh ambrosian glacier, it is you who glorifies our existence
Oh beauteous glacier, when you roll down from the peak like a curvaceous deer
Make a pause in your journey and listen to my melodies for you;
You sacrifice yourself to distribute love among the foes and friends
Oh my charming glacier, God has acknowledged your silent sacrifice!
During the second part of my expedition, I visited the ancient Dardic Indo-Aryan, the indigenous tribe of Kalash. Almost 7000 Kalashes reside in the Chitral district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in three separate valleys. Their valleys are sandwiched between the mighty Hindukush Mountains located at the border of Pakistan, China and Afghanistan. Their many travels include an ancient, nomadic route from Badakhshan through the Darwaza pass, across southern Chitral, and through the Lowari Pass to the ancient Buddhist monasteries located downstream in the Basin of Indus River. Among the many legends of the Kalash, is that their blonde hair and blue eyes prove they are the descendants of Alexander the Great’s army, many of whom settled there centuries ago. Nature is the religion of the Kalash. They believe every soul receives divine signals that are the true expressions of nature, such as the blossoms of spring, the snow of winter and the fruits and flowers from the rains. Their unique religious rituals create synchronization between themselves and the pureness of nature, which make them value-oriented, compassionate and spiritually fulfilled. I had a conversation with Tikka Khan, a community elder with a good sense of what is going on around the world. He sums up his argument as: “Nature is God’s prophet on Earth. We extract divine symbols from changing seasons like you do from the Quran or Bible. Our religion provides a sense of normalcy and aesthetic mythologies for every season, so we celebrate the change of season with new dresses, foods, songs and home-made grape wine. When I was young, we rarely saw flash floods from Nuristan glaciers. But now after every two or three years we witness a devastating flood in this narrow valley of Bamburait. These fast moving, random floods sweep away whatever comes in their way including fruit trees, livestock and houses. Rains have no timetable now and snowfall has decreased significantly. Our young generation is desperate and gradually leaving our centuries old religion to settle in cities.” His voice shattered with grief. “We are being punished for a crime we did not commit. We live in mud and wooden houses, make money from cattle and fruit trees, fulfill our souls with nature as an embodiment of divinity, yet we have to pay the cost for the lifestyles of those living in the world’s major cities. It is a crime, and nobody talks about it. Please convey our message to the policy boardrooms that there is no compensation for our loss. We are forced to repudiate our religion and civilization. This is our SoS call for climate justice.”
—The Author is a columnist and member of UNFCCC and ICAN. He taught Public Policy in the National Defence University of Pakistan.
