Скачать или смотреть Archives@NCBS Public Lecture - Himalaya: People, Place, Ecology

Talk by: Shekhar Pathak (PAHAR)
Introduction by: Ramchandra Guha
Delivered on: Wednesday, 4pm, Apr 17 2019
Delivered at: Lecture Hall - 1 (Haapus), NCBS

Abstract:

The Himalaya, the 'largest physical mass on earth', is home to immense geographical and biological diversity and a multitude of human concerns and constructs, from hunting-gathering communities to agrarian societies to the economies of modern trade and industry. This mountain system, which connects the tropical rainforests of Myanmar, Arunachal and Bhutan with the sparse and cold semi-deserts of the Ladakh-Karakoram region and the North Indian plains with the Tibetan plateau, has evolved a distinctive ecology that has become the basis for the existence of the natural as well as socio-cultural and political systems of South Asia.

The Himalaya stands like a dynamic and active sub-continental arc. It makes a formidable barrier for the monsoons, resulting in heavy rainfall. It indeed creates and controls the climate of South Asia. The existence of the people of this large region is also deeply connected with it. Today this mountain and its communities are in crisis. Its resources are being exploited at an unsustainable rate. 'Development' has evolved a new form of colonialism. The ongoing projects have failed in minimising the burden on women and children, pressure on bio and cultural diversity, addressing livelihood issues, and monitoring the out-migration of mountain communities.

The Himalaya sustains human creativity and gives us chance to understand the dialectics of nature. This talk is one attempt to understand and share historical aspects of Himalayan society and ecology with more depth and dedication. Only then can we understand the ecological centrality of the Himalaya in the Asian context.