Ladakh-Changthang

Ladakh - Changthang

near winter grazing camp, Gya village

Leh Market

Gya Village, traditional tools for combing and shearing goats and sheep

baby goat

goats and sheep at one of the winter pastures of Gya village

Tibetan woman weaving a carpet at Samed

Tsho kar (lake)

A hypersaline lake, Tshokar was until recent years a source of salt for nomads of the Changthang.听 The lake and its surroundings are habitat for bar-headed geese, ruddy shelducks, kiang and wolves, among other species, as well as prime pastureland.听 Residents say that the effects of climate change are noticeable in the shrinking of this lake.听 A 5 GW mega solar PV project is reportedly now being planned near Tsokar, along the Leh-Manali highway, with electricity transported to the national grid (rather than used locally). This threatens access to a signficant amount of prime pasture land for pastoralists.听

Kindergarten children singing and dancing at Sumdo TCV

"When tanks lead: PLA retreats"

On the highway close to Nyoma. Military听camps are ubiquitous across the Changthang landscape, many established in the past five years with growing border tensions between China and India after the clash in Aksai Chin. The establishment of military camps and their requisitioning of land for training areas has, together with the curtailment of access to previously used grazing lands due to the conflict, put significant stress on herders.听 The area is also experiencing significant road-building activities by the Border Roads Organization (BRO) which is providing temporary wage labor opportunities.听听In Hanle, feral dogs living on the open garbage dumps of the military camps are now seen as a more signficant threat to domestic livestock than snow leopards and wolves.听 They also threaten wild bird species.听

The BRO is known for road signs with messages such as "It is always better to be Mr. Late than Being Late Mr." and "If you want to stay married,听divorce speed."

Black-necked crane in the distance

Black-necked crane in the distance in a wetland. Listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, black-necked cranes are the state bird of Ladakh. Migratory birds, they spend their summers on the central and northern Tibetan Plateau.听

A couple of kiang in Hanle

Kiang (Equus kiang), or Tibetan wild ass, are found abundantly in Ladakh, where they compete to some extent with livestock for forage.听

View from Hanle Monastery

Hanle monastery was built in the 17th century under the patronage of Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal and was associated with听the Drukpa Kagyu lineage.听

Indian Astronomical Observatory in Hanle

Operated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics,听the Astronomical Observatory was located in听Hanle due to its high altitude (4500 meters) and arid climate.听 The Hanle Dark Sky Reserve, established in 2022, is focused on 'astrotourism,' including an 'ambassadors' program with villagers who are trained to identify stars and constellations, and provided with telescopes for tourists.

signs for the growing number of homestays in Hanle

Thiksey Monastery

A Gelug monastery located around 19 kilometers east of Leh, Thiksey monastery was founded in the mid-15th century by a disciple of Je Tsongkhapa. It is said that the design comes from the Potala, which was carved on a radish which shrunk on the way, leading to a smaller version of the Potala.听

"Jule" - the ubiquitous term meaning hello, goodbye, thank you, and please

Ladakh-Changthang

Published: June 22, 2024 • By Emily T. Yeh

In June 2024 I visited Ladakh (see also the photo essay by Sierra Gladfelter and Eben Yonetti)听as a participant in a short program run by the Modern Tibetan Studies program at Columbia University focused on 鈥渞ural green entrepreneurship.鈥� 听From Leh, the capital, we drove along the Leh-Manali highway to the village of Gya, staying at the guest house of filmmaker Stanzin Dorje.听 There we had the opportunity to visit his sister Tsering, the subject of his award-winning documentary , at their winter pasture.听

We then proceeded to drive toward Hanle, in the Changthang region of Ladakh, stopping at several Tibetan villages and Tibetan Children鈥檚 Village schools on the way there and back to Leh.听听Livelihoods are shifting rapidly throughout the region as education draws children away from home and towards Leh or other urban centers in India. 听听This trend is even more pronounced for Tibetan refugee communities, who in some cases must pay their host villages a grass fee for the livestock they raise, and who face barriers such as the inability to own land and obtain government jobs. The Tibetan settlement at Nyoma, for example, counts 223 community members, but only around 50, all elderly, reside in the village, with the remaining away at school, working in Delhi or elsewhere in India, or abroad. 听One young Tibetan woman explained that youth like herself don鈥檛 even want to return to the grasslands on summer holidays. 听Specialists in fiber arts on our trip asked middle-aged women about whether they had passed on their skills in weaving carpets but were told that their children had no interest.

The decline in labor availability as children leave for other places has contributed to changing herd composition. Many households have given up horses and yaks, once used for transportation, now that motorized vehicles are available.听 Sheep, once useful for making woolen clothing and carpets, are on the decline as well given globally low market prices for wool, and the influx of commodified synthetic clothing.听 On the other hand, the number of goats has significantly increased due to the growing demand for pashmina shawls.听 At the same time, seasonal mobility has been significantly reduced as tourism and service provision have encouraged sedentarization, and as traditional grazing areas have been lost due to the border conflict, military use of land, and soon, solar PV plants.听 Declining precipitation due to climate change exacerbate these challenges, making herding ever more difficult.

We spent two nights at Hanle, a large village close to the border with Tibet, which is now doubly gazetted as part of the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary as well as the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve. Tourists are attracted to Hanle for bird and other wildlife viewing, astrotourism, and in many cases to drive on what is billed听as the world鈥檚 highest motorable world, over the 5883 meter (19,300) feet Umling La pass close to the border. 听Tsewang Namgail, director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust, took us to look for Tibetan gazelles and Pallas鈥檚 cat (alas, we spotted neither), and introduced us to a group of young Ladakhi nature guides, who are seeking to lessen听the impact of tourism on wildlife. 听Homestays are seen as both useful for attracting tourists and generating income, but also potentially harmful.听 A new government program to promote homestays provides subsidies, but also enforce requirements which are ecologically inappropriate for the area.

Our trip to Ladakh took place during the last phase of the Indian general election. 听This was the first election since the BJP鈥檚 2019 abrogation of Article 370, which revoked the special status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.听 Ladakhis briefly celebrated their long-standing demand for separation from Jammu and Kashmir, but skepticism quickly grew as Ladakh was turned into a Union Territory without a legislative assembly or elected government. 听The BJP has also reneged on its initial promise to give Ladakh autonomous tribal district status. Thus protestors called for statehood in the name of climate change, and the need for local control to put safeguards on the types of development and land grabbing (eg through mass tourism or mining) that could further exacerbate the vulnerabilities already created by global climate change. 听Reflecting these concerns, an independent candidate won the Ladakh seat, beating both the BJP and Congress party candidates.

听

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