The HKH Snow Update 2025 highlights a significant decline in seasonal snow across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, with snow persistence 23.6% below normal — the lowest in 23 years. This trend, now in its third consecutive year, threatens water security for nearly two billion people. All twelve major river …
The setting up of a high-powered Himalayan Development Authority has run into rough weather. A committee headed by Planning Commission member S Z Qasim, set up in March 1992 to address the problems of the Himalayan region, has recommended the setting up of the Authority to check the ecological destabilisation …
A NEW variety of a human-made cereal called triticale that is nutritionally superior to wheat will be planted in India's hilly tracts in the next rabi, or winter crop, season. Developed after 7 years of efforts by a team of scientists of the Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute, the new …
CAPITALISING on more than 100 years of expertise in plant product chemistry, Dabur, one of India's largest Ayurvedic formulation manufacturers, has now ventured into modern pharmaceutical research and product development. Dabur recently announced that it had perfected a method to extract taxol -- a potent drug used to treat ovarian …
IN JANUARY, Doordarshan aired a documentary called The Green Brigade, which despite a typical Films Division tone, was informative, interesting and even balanced. It was on the Ecological Task Force (ETF) set up by the army to take up reforestation and ecological stabilisation in inhospitable regions. The ETF consists of …
The environment ministers of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma and India are likely to meet soon to work out a clean-up programme for the Himalaya. The idea for the 'Save Himalaya' meet was mooted by Edmund Hillary, the first person to conquer Mount Everest, and M S Kohli, chairperson …
The ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has asked for an urgent clarification from its Nepalese counterpart on a Sino-Nepalese proposal to set up a natural reserve around the highest Himalayan peaks. China and Nepal have been working on the project for about 18 months and a US-based organisation, the …
SCIENTISTS are using the latest equipment and most modern techniques to measure to an accuracy of 10 cm the height of Mt Everest and test the validity of an American astronomer's announcement in 1987 that Mt K2 (Godwin Austen) is the world's highest peak. Giorgio Poretti, who is implementing a …
SOME HIMALAYAN species of Ficus -- the genus to which the pipal and the banyan belong -- yield fruit that have high nutritive value and are excellent for making into jams and jellies. Scientists say these species should be considered favourably for social and agroforestry programmes. P P Dhyani and …
WHEN I first visited the Alaknanda valley in the 1960s, there were few footprints on the path leading to the Hemkund-Lokpal shrine and the Valley of Flowers and nature was resplendent in all its pristine glory. But by 1969, when I set up a research station at Joshimath to study …
INEXPENSIVE and plentiful Himalayan hydroelectric power remains a dream, with Nepal's total installed capacity standing at only 250 MW. Most Nepalese lack electricity and those linked to the grid suffer periodic power cuts. However, judging by a recent seminar in Kathmandu on Cooperative Development of Himalayan Water Resources, turning the …
THE SPITI area of Himachal Pradesh is a cold desert, but surprisingly, agriculture is its mainstay. Transforming Spiti's lunar-like terrain into an agrarian success story was made possible by an ingenious system devised centuries ago to tap distant glaciers for water. But short-sighted developmental policies, though well-intentioned, now threaten both …
GROWING piles of garbage in the mountains have led the Himalayan Environment Trust to release a code of conduct for climbers. With the rise in the number of Himalayan expeditions, Jarge amounts of waste that are left on mountain slopes are becoming a major source of pollution. The new code …
IMAGINE dunking one's head in a rapid Himalayan stream and coming up with a mouthful of chemicals and weeds, instead of pristine water. This is not a totally unlikely scenario, according to the editors of this volume, a compilation of 26 articles on the freshwater ecology of the Himalayas. If …
THE AVERAGE height of the Himalaya was once much higher, the Ganga flowed much further north along the foothills and the Indus flowed east into the Ganga. All this changed about two million years ago -- not all that long ago in geological time. In the early 20th century, German …
THE HIMALAYAN-Tibetan rivers have been found to be a major source of marine uranium and scientists estimate they contribute about 3,000 tonnes, or, about 25 per cent of the total, worldwide marine uranium. The Ganga and the Brahmaputra together, they estimate, dump about 1,000 tonnes of dissolved uranium annually in …
THE traditional gharat (water wheel) has caught the technologist's eye and deceptively simple modifications to its design have made it at least 40 per cent more efficient and also enlarged its capability so that it can power several machines simultaneously. The gharat, in use for centuries in the Himalayan region, …
IN A RADICAL departure from earlier policy, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) will now look beyond the Hindu Kush region and establish links to study other mountain regions of the world. This is in line with its strategic plan for the 1990s, titled "Towards 2000", which also …
THREE YEARS after the National Wasteland Development Board (NWDB) launched the "Greening the Himalaya" project in the Jadhera panchayat of Himachal Pradesh, the balding hills of the panchayat are turning green once more. But this achievement is not so much due to the NWDB as because of the villagers of …
SEABUCKTHORN, a multi-purpose shrub-tree, can improve the lives of millions of marginal farmers living in the Himalayan wastelands. The shrub-tree, found almost all over the Himalaya, has the potential to transform both the economy and the ecology of the region, say scientists at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development …
LOFTY afforestation goals come to grief on a very mundane issue: the survival of people in and around the project area. One such is a US $30 million reforestation programme in the Chopta region of the Himalaya, funded by the World Bank. The government blamed the villagers for the failure, …
