Where are The Mountains? : Article published on Weeklynepal.com
Where are the Mountains ?
KATHMANDU : The mountains- A home to 13% world’s population, a chunk of 24% of global land coverage, a supporting system to numerous ecosystem and people, and a most vulnerable natures heritage to climate change. But still an issue waiting for its turn to be highlighted, an issue waiting to be discussed upon , the place waiting to be conserved, the Himalayas- a place looking for continuation of its existence. And Nepal, the land of mountains, still, a country powerless of raising mountain issues in global platform.
Nepal is a mountainous country situated at the central Himalayas has 23 % of land lying in snowline. 3.6% of Nepal’s total area is covered with glaciers and about 10% of Nepal’s precipitation falls as snow. Climate here is influenced by mountains and south Asian monsoon, while Eastern Himalayas of Nepal is considered to be biodiversity hotspot, which indicates to be very rich in biodiversity falling in 25th position globally and 11th position regionally. But various reports indicate decline in snowline and glacier retreat in addition to loss in the biodiversity due to climatic reason.
But the question is the loss, a loss to Nepal only?
According to Shrestha and Aryal(2011), the average temperature between 1977 and 1994 increased at the rate of 0.06 Degree Celsius , the rise in temperature was greater at the higher altitudes and increasing in temperature were more pronounced in the winter. It indicated that the warming was more observed in the higher altitude as compared to Terai belts.
Various Assessment and research has shown Nepal to be highly vulnerable to climate change and is ranked to be fourth vulnerable countries in the world from climate change vulnerability (Maplecroft, 2010).
Mountain provides ecosystem services to people living down streams and plains, where about more than 1.9 million people are estimated to be highly vulnerable, but still mountain issues hasn’t been addressed. Mountainous countries has been raising their issues at their level but are not able to deliberate in international level in context of climate change conventions and Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA’s). The case is no different for Nepal.
Here every affected Nepalese ask, won’t the people who live downstream in Ganges plain and Bay of Bengal share plight of losing mountains? Shall the gene pool in the Indian land across Eastern Himalayas prevail despite loss of biodiversity in Nepal?
But again the question is loss of mountain concern of Nepal only?
During COP 15, in 2009 which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, the then Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal appealed to all mountainous countries and stakeholders to form a common platform to make sure that mountain concern receives attention in international conferences, which was followed by 16th SAARC summit in Bhutan, the regional leaders welcomed Nepal’s initiative to organize the conference of mountainous countries in Kathmandu.
As trying to make some effort to raise the issue, the Government of Nepal had organized three side events in Bonn, Germany and Mexico in 2010, and one in South Africa in 2011 during UNFCCC meeting and COP to share information on mountainous countries. In 2012 the international conference on mountainous countries on Climate Change in Kathmandu was held bringing together Environment ministers of mountainous countries which provided opportunity to share knowledge and experience on the impact of climate change on mountains and to deliberate as a common voice.
But has the conference been any good to “ACT” in favor of mountains?
Nepal has experienced 24 GLOF events in the recent past, several of which have caused considerable damage and loss of life, for example, the Bhote Koshi Sun Koshi GLOFs of 1964 and 1981 and the Dig Tsho GLOF of 1985. The 1981 event damaged the only road link to China and disrupted transportation for several months, while the Dig Tsho GLOF destroyed the nearly completed Namche Small Hydroelectric Project, in addition to causing other damage farther downstream.
Glacier melted near Mount Annapurna
About 21 glacier lakes are already reported to have reached sizes larger enough to be critical. Twenty glacier lakes are highly vulnerable. Out of the 2323 glacier lakes inventoried, 330 lakes have expanded to become larger than 0.02 sq. km and are still expanding (Bajraacharya et al.2005). Many photographic evidences in the main Ronbuk glacier in mount Everest shows that it has lost 330 feet of vertical ice, at a rate of more than four feet a year, between 1921 and 2007. Snow and glacier melt might increase Nepal’s river system by 5.7 percent till 2030(chaulagain, 2007), Last year the horrific flood in Nepal and Uttarakhanda, India took many lives and settlements. On 18 April 2014, an avalanche on Mount Everest near Everest Base Camp killed sixteen Nepalese guides.
Isn’t this a serious issue to be discussed and acted upon so that any disaster and climate change impacts wouldn’t bring any serious damage to lives and infrastructure, “Save the mountains, don’t melt the lives of the people”.
By: Sagarika Bhatta
Program Associate, Powershift Nepal
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