Recent climate fast by noted activist and reformer Sonam Wangchuk has effectively put Ladakh’s climate challenges to national spotlight and it is high time that the Union Territory administration responds by taking critical short term and long term measures.
As part of the national priority and also local sensitivity, Ladakh administration has already adopted a series of climate sensitive approaches, an area largely ignored when the Himalayan desert was part of the Jammu and Kashmir State, but Sonam Wangchuk’s ‘climate fast’ has highlighted that stakeholders need more measures for protecting glaciers and ecology.
To support the government take hard decision in long term interest of Ladakh, the local activism also needs to de-link the climate issues from the politics of ‘Sixth Schedule’ and create a situation of cooperation where administration and the civil society work together as a team towards the common goal.
Along the length of ‘climate fast’, the Indus Dispatch carefully tracked the public views and noted that notable civil society members have a bunch of suggestions to make and some of those have been summarised below:
TOURISM
With its monasteries, verdant valleys, mountains, glaciers, pure culture and hospitality Ladakh is a nationwide natural attraction for holidaying and adventure but over the decades, tourism is getting reckless and irresponsible posing threat to ecology. Once an agriculture-based economy, Ladakh is fast shifting to tourism with agricultural fields largely being replaced by plush hotels and swanking restaurants. No doubt, tourism is the bedrock of Ladakh’s economy, but it is slowly leaving an impact on the region.
In the year 1974, there were 527 tourists – 500 foreign visitors and 27 domestic visitors. Five decades later, the number has grown to almost five lakhs, which is too much tourism for a region already vulnerable to the climate crisis. Ladakh currently is on crossroads of the opportunities emanating from its unique landscape elements and the cultural heritage, and the challenges largely posed by ‘overtourism’. The local administration and society must put their acts together to restrict tourism to manageable and responsible scales.
Restricting the tourists inflow is one of the ideas that can be explored. An upper ceiling could be worked out and implemented in various shapes such as average daily limit or average monthly limit, in sync with the fragile environment of Ladakh. Noting that there is huge damage to the environment in the eco-sensitive Himalayan states due to unregulated tourism activities, the National Green Tribunal recently had called for regulating the tourism. The administration must decide, before the things go out of control, and cause irreparable damage to the fragile ecosystem of Himalayas.
The administration should also devise a mechanism for evenly distributing the tourist flow. Some areas of Ladakh attract an increasingly large number of visitors, thereby placing enormous pressures on them, while many other areas remain unvisited or under-visited. In this, lies a great opportunity to diversify and deconcentrate the tourism and redirect the tourists to less visited destinations in order to mitigate pressure from excessive tourism. Not to mention, this will also eliminate the economic disparity in the region to a large extent.
Besides these, the administration must also focus on inculcating behavioural changes among the tourists who visit the region. It might prove to be a difficult task, considering the diversity of the tourists coming in, but we have proven record of how sustained awareness campaigns, in tandem with strict vigil and stricter penalties have led to a civilised tourist inflow in different parts of the country and the world over. Brief orientation sessions for the incoming tourists and effective awareness campaigns can prove miraculous.
CLEAN TRANSPORT
Emissions from the vehicles moving in Ladakh, from the picturesque highways to the cramped interior roads, is one of the biggest threat to the region’s pristine but equally sensitive environment. Ladakh’s air, already choked with the fumes from the military vehicles, whose presence is mandated in the valley due to Chinese aggression and geo-strategic requirements of the country, further takes a hit, with the tourist flow, who have over the years poetically linked their Ladakh visits with road trips.
The current dispensation at the Centre has been proactive in containing its vehicular emissions, with encouraging scrapping policies for old vehicles, and a long-term strategy to move to a complete electric mobility by the next decade. More than nine lakh vehicles, owned by Central and State Governments, transport corporations and public sector undertakings, that are older than 15 years will go off the road from April 1 this year, and new vehicles will replace them, the Centre announced recently, in its bid to further reduce air pollution to a great extent.
High levels of emissions is fuelling global warming, which in turn is fuelling an intense melt of the glaciers that have been feeding rivers in the region for centuries and therefore, regions like Ladakh, need to pull up their socks, faster than any other part of India. It makes one wonder, why this central rule should not be implemented for official vehicles used by the administration and departments in Ladakh at the earliest.
Disposal of vehicles which are more than 15 years old for Petrol and 10 years for Diesel should be ensured by devising a encouraging vehicle scrapping policy, incentivising the vehicle owners in the region with subsidies and tax rebates. The laws should be implemented where in NOC for registration extension should not be issued for petrol vehicles, which are more than 15 years old, and diesel vehicles are 10 years old.
The administration must promote sustainable mobility in Ladakh by kickstarting the sale and use of Electric Vehicles and ensure rapid adoption of EVs for all new domestic and commercial vehicle registrations. It goes without saying that the entire public transportation and government fleets must be replaced with electric vehicles. And to support this change, the administration must set up EV charging facilities in parking areas of residential, commercial, and institutional establishments.
HOSPITALITY SECTOR
Tourism and Hospitality are two inter-connected sectors. With the increase in tourist footfall, there has been a corresponding increase in construction due to demand for more hotels and restaurants in Ladakh. From 2016 to 2022, there has been a 37% increase in the total bed capacity in Leh only while the total number of hotels, guest houses and homestays has increased by almost 70% and the number of restaurants have grown by 145%.
Obviously, this has increased the demand for energy and water. And water scarcity is of a serious concern to Ladakh and its people.
Water consumption has been on an upswing in recent years due to the soaring number of tourists during summers. There has been a steep rise in the number of big hotels in the region. Most of these hotels and homestays are drawing groundwater by installing borewells to serve tourists and depositing wastewater in septic tanks, making the surrounding land barren in terms of groundwater. Needless to say, this, along with uncertainty in glacial water supply is pushing the locals to dig borewells, a phenomenon that was alien to Ladakhis, a few years ago.
Agreed, Ladakh was never a water-abundant region but Ladakhis have had an efficient community system in place. The hotels now have done away with small traditional water conservation techniques like dry toilets, obviously to serve the ever-growing tourist footfall, which has little to no care about the fragile environment of Ladakh.
Sewage treatment plants (STPs) is also an area of concern for Ladakh. A number of orders have been passed regarding the STPs by Supreme Court and various high courts. Of course, not all the hotels in Ladakh are operating with a effluent and sewage treatment plant. These must be identified. And the hotels which have an STP installed, must be checked if their capacity is sufficient to treat the entire sewage.
It is time that the administration ropes in the hotels and guest houses as well as the restaurants and make them accountable for their water usage, besides devise a monitoring mechanism for their commitment towards carbon neutrality, wastewater treatment, use of ground water, waste management, among other things.
The prominent members of Ladakhi civil society must sit with the UT administration to chalk out doable measures to be put in place to protect Ladakh’s fragile climate. The two have to work as team to ensure that appropriate measures are worked out and implemented in the region. There is every possibility that these measures can be unpopular and hard, but then the hard times demand hard measures.
