In a remote valley of Chitral, the conservation programme turns local women into artisans, helping them generate extra income. Shameem Ara, a housewife in remote Chitral valley, spends most of her leisure time drawing colourful decorative thread work on locally prepared handwoven Chitrali wool through embroidery. This helps her generate additional income to get her two children educated. Due to …
Displaced from their land by multinational mining companies, nomadic herders defied the odds to preserve their heritage for future generations by Rod Austin Just 10 years ago, the district of Khanbogd, in southern Mongolia’s Omnogovi province, was a barely known region of eastern Asia. That changed with the discovery of gold and copper deposits below the seemingly endless Gobi desert, home to a …
Saad Sayeed ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Friday that he would not hesitate to make more changes to his cabinet if required a day after a major reshuffle that saw the appointment of a new finance minister and nine other ministerial switches. The cabinet shakeup, which comes eight months after Khan took office, included the replacement of …
Herald Report Experts, academics and government representatives have called for sustainable exploration of mineral deposits and safeguarding the interests of indigenous communities and environment. They discussed the environmental and economic challenges in mining sector at a roundtable conference organised by the University of Central Asia’s Institute of Public Policy and Administration (IPPA) of the Graduate School of Development in Bishkek, …
ALAN TAYLOR As the Northern Hemisphere begins to warm once more and the spring equinox has passed, flowers and trees finally appear to be in bloom—especially in California, blessed by a very wet winter. Gathered here today is a small collection of images from the past few weeks from North America, Asia, and Europe, of poppies, sunshine, and cherry blossoms—surely …
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.–Hermann Hesse. …
Arley Titzler Recent advances in remote sensing and computational power have allowed scientists to overcome a stubborn obstacle, which limited their ability to calculate the total volume of glacier ice in the world. Since satellites look down on the world’s glaciers, total area is simpler to measure. But to estimate volume, it is necessary to know how thick glaciers are. As climate …
Shisper Glacier surge in western Karakoram range creates fear among people of Hunza Sitara Parveen As the people of Hunza are reeling from the 2010 Attabad disaster, another potential disaster is looming large in the valley. This time at Hassanabad Nullah, about 22km of Attabad. Reports in mainstream and social media about the surging of Shisper Glacier in the western …
Trophy hunting has introduced a market ethic whereby the animal is seen in purely utilitarian terms. Shafqat Hussain The recent news about trophy hunting of markhor and ibex in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) has sparked intriguing public debates. Many have questioned the ethics of this practice, while others have asked about its social, ecological and economic impact. The question of ethics in …
By Peter Deneen This week’s video digests the sobering findings of the Hindu Kush Himalaya assessment. The montage was published by the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), one of the institutions responsible for compiling the report. As GlacierHub reported last week, the assessment is likely the most comprehensive climate assessment of the area: It includes input from over 300 experts, researchers, …
