Muddam Vijay Dixit Reddy: Mukteshwar in an ecological flux
Staring at the Nanda Devi peak on a warm winter morning, Lal Singh, a magnificent 93, could never have imagined the change his region has undergone in the last two decades. He points towards the Kumaon Himalayas and says, “I’ve never seen these mountains naked in bare rock at this time of the year. Until a few years ago, my village used to be covered with a blanket of snow in January”. In the larger narrative about the Himalayas that people hold on to, glacial melting attracts public imagination. What’s equally important but fails to garner enough national attention is the haphazard anthropogenic interventions these young fold mountains are being forced to undergo. This column highlights the case of a lesser-known Himalayan region, the area around the hill station of Mukteshwar, and its plight in the face of rapid urbanisation aided by uncontrolled tourism.
What does one instantly remember of a hill resort in the Uttarakhand Himalayas? Or what is it that pushes people out of Delhi to hill stations like Shimla, Nainital and Mussoorie? Snow, touching the clouds, rivers, streams, forests, clean air, etc. In a nutshell, it is the beauty of being in ‘nature’ that attracts most people to these places. Mukteshwar is also one such place, fortunate enough to command a wider view of snow-clad peaks, harbouring large areas under oak and deodar forests, apple and peach orchards. But what one sees is just the tip of a fast-disappearing iceberg. The economy of the landscape is booming: with an increasing numbers of tourists, people from the plains buy vacation homes, creating a larger land market which was once not known to this agrarian and horticultural landscape.
This sort of uncontrolled urbanisation is coming at a huge
ecological cost.
https://www.thehindu.com/thread/mukteshwar-in-an-ecological-flux/article33954563.ece
This
obscure energy treaty is the greatest threat to the planet you’ve never heard
of
