‘The happy days are now just nostalgia’
In the high mountains of the eastern Himalayas in Arunachal Pradesh, the nomadic Brokpa community is sure that climate change is threatening their very survival, yet they are coming up with coping strategies based on traditional knowledge and local materials.
The Brokpa, the nomadic herders within the larger Monpa tribe (of around 64,000 in Arunachal notes Census 2013), have for centuries reared yak and tend them at mountainous grazing grounds. During the harsh winters, they live in the lower regions, and in summer they migrate to higher altitudes – moving between 9,000 and 15,000 feet. Climate change and a complete lack of state regulations, has rapidly weakened such communities, with little technology and resources to find alternatives. Grazing pastures, water sources and the fauna of Arunachal Pradesh is changing, yet mostly unreported during the last two decades, forcing many nomadic herders to abandon their native economy. This story is part of the PARI series on climate change funded by the Ramnath Goenka Award in the Environment Reporting category.
The researchers note other strategies too – ‘herd-diversification’, migration to higher altitudes, changes in the migrations calendar. Their paper speaks of “10 coping mechanisms” to counter “the negative impacts of climate change.”