For over 35 years, Visheshwar Sakiani has worked to bring greenery back to Pujar Village and its surroundings in Tehri Garhwal. With his own energy and meagre resources, Saklani has
The case of Pakistan is not different from the other countries of the region when the subject is environment. Unsustainable over-exploitation of natural resources by a fast-increasing population
The chief components of the environment – air, water and soil – are being destroyed rapidly in the mining regions of the Himalaya, particularly in Garhwal and Kumaon. The local people, labourers,
The demand for a separate state of Uttarakhand in the hills of Uttar Pradesh has been voiced off and on since 1952. The proponents of Uttarakhand believe that all the
Mining in the Himalaya has never been easy. The staggering costs of digging underneath the world's loftiest mountains involve risks. And like mountaineers, only the most intrepid entrepreneurs
When the North thinks of the South, the image is often one of hopelessness: drought and destruction, floods and debt. Weeping fathers and mothers in disaster-ridden countries burying their
When a country's tourism policy is geared to financial benefit based on numerical increases, there have been two distinct results. Tourism has brought considerable economic benefit to a
It is a chilly autumn afternoon in a herding camp above Langtang, a Tibetan community which lies at 11,500 ft. in Rasua District north of Kathmandu. Yak, Tibetan cattle
It has been almost 15 years since Erik Eckholm's book Losing Ground hit the stands and made many aware of the perils of Himalayan ecological degradation. Since then,
The lower reaches of Dolpo district in the rainshadow of the Dhaulagiri massif was opened to tourists by the Nepali Government in May 1989. Trekkers can now explore the areas
Ladakh only opened to tourists in 1974, before which it was almost completely isolated from outside influences. After the Sino-Indian war of 1962, large numbers of Indian troops were
