Himalayan challenge

ECOLOGICAL disasters in the hill states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have laid bare the fragility of the Himalayan region. Landslides in Shimla and land subsidence in Joshimath have turned the spotlight on the carrying capacity of the mountain range spanning 13 states and union territories. The Supreme Court is keen on constituting an expert committee for conducting a ‘complete and comprehensive’ study on the carrying or bearing capacity, which is the maximum population size that an ecosystem can sustain without getting degraded. According to a petition being heard by the court, the Himalayan region is bearing the brunt of ‘unsustainable and hydrologically disastrous’ constructions — including hotels, homestays and hydel projects — which have taken their toll on the drainage and waste management systems.

It was in February 2014 that the Union Cabinet had approved the action plan of the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE), which was launched under the National Action Plan on Climate Change. The mission’s main objectives are to scientifically assess the vulnerability of the Himalayan region to climate change and formulate policy measures to sustain its ecological resilience. However, the health of the world’s youngest mountain range has only gone from bad to worse in the past decade or so.

An urgent reassessment of the NMSHE is required to identify the gaps in its implementation. The ever-increasing vulnerability of the Himalayan ecosystem is adversely impacting several important sectors, such as tourism, agriculture, environment and forests. With extreme weather events becoming the new normal, there is a dire need to save the Himalayas from rapacious plunder masquerading as developmental and tourism activities. A major challenge is to regulate tourist inflow so that they neither strain the ecosystem’s carrying capacity nor harm livelihoods. How much is too much — that’s the key question that policymakers and other stakeholders would have to address before it’s too late. 

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