Photos: Climate change threatens yaks, herding culture in India's Ladahk
With her one-year-old son strapped to her back, Tsering Dolma guides a dozen yaks into a stone-walled corral as dusk settles over the stark mountains of India's isolated Ladakh region.
Across the vast, wind-swept plains where sparse grass transitions to gravelly foothills and craggy peaks, only a handful of herders tending their livestock break the solitude.
For generations, herders like Dolma have depended on mountain snowmelt to nourish the high-altitude pastures where their animals graze. But now, herders report that precipitation patterns have grown unpredictable, diminishing the grass available for their yaks.
'Earlier, it used to snow and rain, but now it has reduced a lot,' the 32-year-old says. 'Even the winters are getting warmer than before.'
In Ladakh, a region near Tibet that once formed part of the ancient Silk Route, women primarily handle the herding, milking, and wool gathering – labour that remains largely manual.
In a neighbouring valley, 73-year-old Kunzias Dolma prepares yak milk tea and inspects her yak butter while simultaneously spinning her Buddhist prayer wheel with her right hand.
Unrelated to Tsering Dolma, she has dedicated her life to working with yaks, spending countless hours creating products from their milk and crafting blankets from their wool.
'We wake up early morning, about 5am every day,' she says. 'My husband and I milk the yaks and do all of the other yak-related work until about lunch. Then we take a break and get back to work in the evening. We have been doing this all our life.'
This traditional lifestyle now faces dual threats: Climate change making Ladakh increasingly inhospitable for yaks, and younger generations pursuing alternative livelihoods.
Rising temperatures and irregular rainfall have made nutritious vegetation scarcer while subjecting the shaggy, cold-adapted animals to greater physical stress. Research indicates the average temperature in Ladakh has risen by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) over four decades, with more extreme heatwaves and unpredictable precipitation patterns.
While precisely measuring climate change's effect on yak populations remains challenging, scientists believe it contributes significantly to their decline. Government data show Ladakh's yak population fell from nearly 34,000 in 2012 to fewer than 20,000 by 2019, the most recent year with available statistics.
Though millions of yaks still exist globally, scientists warn that the Himalayan ecosystem in this region is particularly vulnerable to global warming.
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Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Al Jazeera
Photos: Climate change threatens yaks, herding culture in India's Ladahk
Published On 1 Aug 2025 1 Aug 2025 With her one-year-old son strapped to her back, Tsering Dolma guides a dozen yaks into a stone-walled corral as dusk settles over the stark mountains of India's isolated Ladakh region. Across the vast, wind-swept plains where sparse grass transitions to gravelly foothills and craggy peaks, only a handful of herders tending their livestock break the solitude. For generations, herders like Dolma have depended on mountain snowmelt to nourish the high-altitude pastures where their animals graze. But now, herders report that precipitation patterns have grown unpredictable, diminishing the grass available for their yaks. 'Earlier, it used to snow and rain, but now it has reduced a lot,' the 32-year-old says. 'Even the winters are getting warmer than before.' In Ladakh, a region near Tibet that once formed part of the ancient Silk Route, women primarily handle the herding, milking, and wool gathering – labour that remains largely manual. In a neighbouring valley, 73-year-old Kunzias Dolma prepares yak milk tea and inspects her yak butter while simultaneously spinning her Buddhist prayer wheel with her right hand. Unrelated to Tsering Dolma, she has dedicated her life to working with yaks, spending countless hours creating products from their milk and crafting blankets from their wool. 'We wake up early morning, about 5am every day,' she says. 'My husband and I milk the yaks and do all of the other yak-related work until about lunch. Then we take a break and get back to work in the evening. We have been doing this all our life.' This traditional lifestyle now faces dual threats: Climate change making Ladakh increasingly inhospitable for yaks, and younger generations pursuing alternative livelihoods. Rising temperatures and irregular rainfall have made nutritious vegetation scarcer while subjecting the shaggy, cold-adapted animals to greater physical stress. Research indicates the average temperature in Ladakh has risen by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) over four decades, with more extreme heatwaves and unpredictable precipitation patterns. While precisely measuring climate change's effect on yak populations remains challenging, scientists believe it contributes significantly to their decline. Government data show Ladakh's yak population fell from nearly 34,000 in 2012 to fewer than 20,000 by 2019, the most recent year with available statistics. Though millions of yaks still exist globally, scientists warn that the Himalayan ecosystem in this region is particularly vulnerable to global warming.
Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- Al Jazeera
On huge river island in India's Assam, annual floods threaten tribal arts
Assam, India – Makon Kumar's wrinkled fingers are covered in dried-up clay. She squats on the damp dirt outside her one-room, bamboo-stilted home and spins a pottery wheel – a palm-sized grey bowl – with her left toe. Inside the bowl is a lump of newly-bought wet clay, which Kumar slaps, flattens and curves into the pot's base. 'My grandma and her grandma passed this practice down to us. We are not farmers, we have no land, and this is our work,' 60-year-old Makon said as she pressed her fist into the clay and carved out the pot's mouth. Makon belongs to the Kumar community of about 540 people, whose women have been known for their unique pottery work since the 16th century. These women avoid machinery or a potter's wheel but rely on their toes to spin a plate or bowl with clay. The Kumars live on Majuli, an island district between the Subansiri and the mighty Brahmaputra rivers in India's northeastern state of Assam. Home to nearly 200,000 people, which includes people from other ethnic groups, Majuli has shrunk from 1,300sq km (502sq miles) to 483sq km (186.5sq miles) in a century due to erosion caused by annual monsoon rains and floods. During the monsoon season, which can stretch from May to September, the floodwaters can get more than 1.5 metres (5 feet) high, forcing Makon and the other Kumars to either seek shelter at the highway bordering the village or stay trapped inside their homes. Last week, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said there were more than 72,000 people taking shelter in 355 relief camps across the state due to the floods, which have also killed at least 24 people this year. Access to riverside clay denied During the floods, the Kumars' pottery business comes to a halt, interrupting their main source of income. Moreover, the lack of flood prevention efforts by the authorities has worsened their condition. '[Our family] used to get clay from the banks of the Brahmaputra River,' Makon told Al Jazeera. Kumar men traditionally dug 18 to 21 metres (60 to 70 feet) deep on the riverbank to extract a glutinous, dark grey clay that locals call Kumar 'maati' (soil). The state-run Brahmaputra Board, which supervises the government's response to the floods and soil erosion, began building river embankments in 2018, preventing the Kumars from digging the riverbank for clay. 'While the Brahmaputra Board deeply respects this traditional craft [of making pottery], extracting clay directly from the exposed riverbanks causes severe soil erosion, hindering the board's efforts to protect Majuli island,' a spokesperson for the board told Al Jazeera. The spokesperson said the board provided an alternative to the Kumar potters by making clay available through designated pits or boreholes that could be accessed after filling an application form. The board, however, did not say how many Kumars applied. Makon said the embankment on the Brahmaputra forced her to buy clay from mainland Assam, increasing her expenses for a business already lacking commercial value or organised marketing. November is their best month when floodwaters recede and foreign and Indian tourists take a 90-minute ferry from Jorhat, a city in mainland Assam, to Majuli's Salmora village, where the Kumar women sculpt pots with their hands and feet. The tour brings extra cash for Makon's two daughters studying in a secondary school. On other days, the Kumars sculpt and sell pots of various sizes to local vendors. Tekelis, the most popular and smallest pot used for storing milk, is sold for just 10 rupees ($0.12) to vendors, who resell them for 20 to 100 rupees ($0.23-$1.15) at shops across Majuli and mainland Assam. Salmora has long, narrow dirt roads, with rows of bamboo and concrete houses built on stilts. When the island is not flooded, hundreds of dried tekelis lie stacked on top of each other on a road bordering the village. The men bake those pots and sell them in the market. 'No money in it' However, it is not just a dying form of pottery that is under threat in flood-prone Majuli. Almost 18km (11 miles) from Salmora lies Upper Katoni village, where the silence of the nights is often interrupted by young men and boys singing and thumping hollow drums. They perform a four-hour theatrical production known as Bhaona, mostly performed past midnight. Locals come for the performance after finishing their dinner, sit on the floor, and watch their neighbours, siblings, or friends perform. The entirely male troupe of actors play characters from the Hindu epic, Ramayana. 'We've been rehearsing for the last three weeks,' said actor Jyoti Bhuyan, who plays a king in the dance drama. 'Even in the hotter months, we're able to perform.' The Bhaona dates back to the 16th century and is performed at Namghars, open prayer houses unique to Assam. The island has more than 384 Namghars, according to a spokesperson from the Majuli District Office. 'I've been doing this since I was a young boy,' said Karunav Bhuyan, a Bhaona actor and political science professor at a college on the island. 'What doesn't change is that anyone from any background can come and watch us perform.' Bhaona actors wear special masks, made from bamboo and a mix of clay and cow dung. The masks typically have wide, almond-shaped eyes; thick, furrowed brows; and a mouth flaunting a full set of teeth or bright red lips. The mask's sharp, angular facial features, paired with contrasting eye and hair colours, are often displayed inside the houses of Majuli residents. 'At first, no one wanted to make masks because there was no money in it,' 67-year-old mask maker Hem Chandra Goswami told Al Jazeera. Goswami, who lives in Majuli's Samaguri village, started making smaller, easy-to-hang masks and has been teaching the art to high school students since 2012. He was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian honour, in 2023 for promoting the art form. Traditionally, only men made masks and used them for Bhaona performances. But that is changing. Brishti Hazarika, a 25-year-old theatre student, is learning mask-making at Majuli University of Culture, an institution dedicated to preserving the local art forms. 'Whether we get financial help from the government or not, it doesn't stop us from putting on shows or enjoying our festivals,' Hazarika said. The island's more well-known tourist attractions are the Satras – the cultural and religious centres where celibate male monks, draped in white cotton cloth, reside. Known as Bhakats, these monks join the Satras during preadolescence and spend their lives worshipping Lord Krishna, unlike the polytheistic pantheon of numerous gods in mainstream Hinduism. But annual floods and land erosion have reduced Satras from more than 65 to just 35 in the past decades, according to the Majuli District Office spokesperson. Worse, not every Satra is properly maintained. Unlike Makon, the Samaguri Satra is located away from the Brahmaputra River and has, therefore, been spared the devastation caused by annual floods. That explains why Pradip Goswami, another local mask artist and a cousin of Hem Chandra, wishes there were more opportunities to produce the masks commercially. 'The way for mask making to continue spreading is by having a bridge over the river to connect us to the mainland,' he said. 'This is all we know' In 2022, the Assam government announced the construction of an 8km (5-mile) bridge connecting Majuli to Jorhat. But the $70m project was halted in September last year after Uttar Pradesh State Bridge Corporation Limited (UPSBCL), a state-run entity tasked with building the bridge, withdrew from the project over payment disputes, according to local media reports. Al Jazeera reached out to the UPSBCL for its response to such speculations, but did not receive any reply. In May this year, the Assam government said it was looking for a new contractor to construct the bridge. But Majuli residents say the government has been apathetic towards their lives and livelihoods affected by the floods. The Majuli Cultural Landscape Management Authority (MCLMA), created in 2006 to oversee the island's development and protect its cultural heritage, has not held a meeting in more than a decade, alleges MCLMA executive member Sanjib Borkakoti. Even the office where he used to attend meetings twice a year does not exist any more, he says. 'There is no [government] supervision,' Borkakoti told Al Jazeera. He said the Indian government tried at least twice – unsuccessfully – for a UNESCO World Heritage Site status for Majuli, a tag that would have brought 'international attention and pushed the local government to protect what's remaining'. Al Jazeera reached out to a government spokesperson and Majuli's local officials for their response to Borkakoti's allegations, but did not get any reply. Meanwhile, for Majuli residents like Makon, art goes beyond just preserving a cultural identity. It is rooted in survival. 'We just don't know if we will have a home tomorrow,' Makon says as she gives shape to a clay pot, using a wooden bat. She spins the pot one last time to check for any bumps and says, 'This is all we know.' This story was funded by a Reporting Fellowship grant from the South Asian Journalists Association.
Al Jazeera
22-07-2025
- Al Jazeera
Otters spotted in Kashmir waters, and residents are both thrilled and wary
Hugam, Indian-administered Kashmir – Nasir Amin Bhat, 17, was barely ankle-deep in the water when his school friend and neighbour Adil Ahmad shouted from the riverbank on a breezy summer evening in May. 'Turn back! There's something in the water.' Across the Lidder, a tributary of the Jhelum River, in Hugam village of Indian-administered Kashmir's Anantnag district, a Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) plunged into the glacial waters and started paddling furiously against the current with all four limbs. 'I had no idea what it was,' Bhat, a high school student, told Al Jazeera, 'but I grabbed my smartphone and turned on the camera.' The grainy, nine-second video shows the creature with a fur coat – classified as 'near threatened' on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List – gliding out of the water and jumping onto the riverbank. After a few clumsy steps, the semiaquatic animal, which can reach elevations of 3,660 metres (12,000 feet) in the Himalayas during the summer, disappears behind a thick grove of bushes, bringing the video to an uneventful end. Long believed to have gone extinct, Eurasian otters seem to be showing signs of resurgence in Kashmir, with three individuals spotted by Indian wildlife officers in two places since 2023. The chance sightings have excited environmentalists and wildlife conservationists while raising hopes of a better future for the Himalayan region's fragile freshwater ecosystems, which have been battered by climate change in recent years. 'Habitat has improved' Indian wildlife biologist Nisarg Prakash believes the sighting of otters in Kashmir was an indicator of high-quality aquatic habitats. 'The reappearance of otters might mean that poaching has come down or the habitat has improved, and maybe both in some cases,' Prakash, whose work focuses on otters in southern parts of India, told Al Jazeera. Protected under India's Wildlife Protection Act, otters were once widely distributed across north India, including the Himalayan foothills, the Gangetic plains and parts of the northeast. A peer-reviewed study by IUCN in November last year noted that the Eurasian otter, known among Kashmiri locals as 'voddur', was found in water bodies of Lidder and Jehlum valleys, including Wular Lake, one of Asia's largest freshwater lakes. However, over the years, their population became 'patchy and fragmented due to habitat loss, pollution and human disturbances', says Khursheed Ahmad, a senior wildlife scientist at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST-K). Ahmad said that, due to habitat alterations from human activities and the encroachment of their ideal habitats along riverbanks and other water bodies, Eurasian otters retreated and became confined to areas that were least accessible to humans. 'Although they were not extinct, sightings and occurrences had become extremely rare and they were never documented,' said Ahmad, who heads the Division of Wildlife Sciences at SKUAST-K. Less than two years ago, a research team led by Ahmad accidentally stumbled on otters during a study on musk deer in Gurez, a valley of lush meadows and towering peaks split into two by the Kishanganga River along the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the Himalayas. Past midnight on August 6, 2023, two individual otters were captured in a riverine habitat at an altitude of 2,600 metres (8,530 feet) in the valley near the 330MW Kishanganga Hydro Electric Project built by India following a prolonged legal battle with Pakistan at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. After that sighting, the research team focused on documenting the presence of otters on the Indian side of Kashmir. 'Unfortunately, due to heavy disturbance from fishing and other local and paramilitary activities, no further presence was documented,' the IUCN study notes. Ahmed said Bhat's video is only the second photographic evidence of otters in Kashmir. 'Too terrified to go there' But in the large farming village of Hugam, comprising some 300 families, residents are both excited and worried. At the crack of dawn, Muneera Bano, a homemaker, wakes to the flutter of crows cawing furiously on the willow trees lining the tributary's banks outside her home in Hugam, located some 58km (36 miles) south of the main city of Srinagar. Bano has stopped washing clothes and utensils on the riverbank after the otter was discovered, something she had done for years. 'There are underwater caves [in the tributary], and it is hiding in one of them. When it comes out in the morning, crows see it and they start screaming. I am too terrified to go there,' she said. Bhat, the teenager who filmed the video, said he often used to bathe in the tributary's glacial waters and sometimes also caught fish. 'Now I can't even think about going there,' he said. The grainy video led to rumours about the presence of crocodiles in the tributary, prompting Indian wildlife officials to set up a camera trap, which confirmed that it was a Eurasian otter – also seen in Bhat's video – and not a crocodile. Some wildlife officials even bathed in the river in the presence of village elders to demonstrate that the water was completely safe. Although otters do not pose any threat to humans, they can turn unpredictable, especially when close to humans. But scientists say these animals can grow accustomed to the presence of humans. Wildlife biologist Prakash said rather than being scared or fearful, curiosity about otters can make them a sight to be enjoyed while watching them fish or swim. 'Otters are largely active around dawn, dusk and after dark, though they can sometimes be seen during daytime as well. Eurasian otters largely prey on fish, eels, and sometimes, waterfowl,' he said. Kashmiri farmer Wasim Ahmad remembers a summer day in the early 1990s when he was on the way back from school situated along the banks of Doodhganga, a major tributary of the Jhelum River. As Ahmad, now in his 40s, turned the corner, he saw a large procession of people walking jubilantly. One man was holding a dead otter while another was walking a dog on a leash. Bagh-e-Mehtab in Srinagar is home to a community of poachers who, in the past, made a living by selling skins of animals such as cats, otters, and other animals. With stricter animal welfare laws in force in India now, the community has given up the old profession. 'Our elders warned us that otters skinned the children and ate them raw,' said Ahmad, who was in ninth grade then. 'But as I grew up, I didn't come across even one person who was harmed by otters. It was basically a tactic to keep the children away from the river.' Ahmad, the wildlife scientist, said the reappearance of otters in Kashmir was a positive sign. 'Now we should see to it that the new habitat is protected from uncontrolled pollution, garbage accumulation, increased carbon emissions and habitat degradation. Addressing these challenges is crucial for their conservation and wellbeing,' he told Al Jazeera.
