Ladakh Towards Sustainable Development

An international development conference with a difference was held in Leh, Ladakh last fall. It was so deliberately low-key that it went wholly unnoticed elsewhere in the Himalaya. While ten nations outside India were represented, there was no international agency or national aid bureau present. Also unique was that the foreign parti¬cipants, ranging from a Swedish Member of Parliament to an ecologist from the University of California, and a Nepali major-general-turned-environmentalist paid their own travel expenses to and from Leh.

In course, eating was a secondary concern, the primary focus being on "ecology and principles for "sustainable development" – the subject of the three-day conference. The whole affair had bees sponsored by the Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG) and the Ladakh Project, two organisations founded in the late seventies by Swedish linguist Helena Norberg-Hodgc out of her concern that conventional development was threatening a centuries-old, socially and environmentally harmonious way of life.
LEDeG is locally based, while the Ladakh Project conducts international educational programmes on development issues and provides technical and financial support for LEDeg.

"Development is tough business," said Edmund Hillary, Everesteer and New Zealand´s High Commissioner to India in his inaugural address, succinctly encapsulating the prevailing view. One speaker after another stressed that traditional societies stand to lose much by^i the uncritical adoption of modern products and   technologies.

Some Ladakhi participants described some of the losses that their land had already suffered. Dr. Tsering Lhadol, a physician, said that serious health and sanitation problems were beginning to develop especially in Leh. He urged Lad´akhis to retain aspects of their traditional way of life such as vigorous exercise and a high fibre diet to ward off "imported" health problems such as lung cancer, heart disease and obesity.

The uniquely Ladakhi view of development was presented in the conference by noted poet and scholar, Tashi Rabgyias, He emphasised the ecological consciousness of Buddhist philosophy.

At the end of the conference, Ladakh´s Development Commissioner K. K. Kapur announced that, in keeping with the participant´s strong advocacy on renewable energy, the Indian Government had decided to provide subsidies for developing solar and wind energy.

"We are now going to finance, through a very substantial subsidy; the construction of Trombe walls (which trap the sun´s rays to heat houses), greenhouses…. a solar energy village…. a wind energy village…. solar water heating systems, solar cookers, driers," Kapur said.

Alternative Nobel for LEDeG

Nelena Norberg-Hodge, who joined leading Ladahki citizens seven years ago to form the Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG), on 8 December received the 1986 Right livelihood Awards at Stockholm on behalf of the Group. Known in Europe as the "alternative Nobel Prize", the annual US $100,000 award was shared by LEDeg with a North American nun who campaigned against nuclear energy, a British physician who proved that fetal x-rays can cause childhood cancer, and an Aquaruna Indian from the Peruvian rain forest who had rallied Amazonians in defense of their culture and autonomy.The      Alternative Nobels for "extraordinary acomplishments in protecting human life and livelihoods from the ravages of industrialism" were awarded by an international jury. The prizes were presented in the Swedish Parliament two days before the Nobel ceremony.

LEDeG was formed to help Ladakh's inhabitants cope with the sudden influx of foreigners when the area was suddenly opened to outsiders for the first time in 1975. It hopes to protect the region's traditional Buddhist culture and unique Himalayan environment from the onslaughts of industrialism and consumerism, without stifling change. Norberg-Hodge believes that while the people of Ladakh have an intuitive understanding of the need for ecological balance, if they are to emerge unscathed from the inevitable confrontation with modernity, then education must play a vital role. "It is crucial that people in Ladakh, who are on the brink of making enormous changes in their traditional way of life, be aware of the possibilities of a holistic, ecologically based approach to development and to be able to learn from the mistakes — and success — of others," says Norberg-Hodge.

Speaking to HIMAL, Norberg-Hodge said the three day exercise in Leh had shown that the ecological approach was being taken seriously in Ladakh and that the Indian Government was committed to Ladakh´s local development.

~Carolyn Hayes works with environmental organizations in the United States. She attended the Leh conference during her second visit to Ladakh.