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'The Himalayas are the Creator of Life.'
A framed photograph of the Himalayan mountain range hangs inside Dr Vishal Singh's office at the Centre for Ecology Development and Research in Dehradun.
"The Himalaya range is one of the youngest mountains which are evolving every day. It is the source of life. Our foremost duty is to preserve it," says Dr Singh, Senior Fellow and Executive Director, CEDAR.
"The Hindukush, Karakoram and the Himalayan range, directly and indirectly impact over 2 billion people -- 1/4 of the entire population of the world," he tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih in the concluding part of his interview discussing nature's repeated warning signs in Uttarakhand.
You spoke about the need to decongest towns in disaster prone areas like Joshimath, Nainital, Karnaprayag. If it is not possible to do that, how can these towns be saved? How can balance in such places be restored?
We need to decongest. We need to explore areas that are not prone to disasters where people can still have the same lifestyle.
If we can't decongest, then the alternative is to replace the current housing patterns and infrastructure with more traditional infrastructure that can withstand earthquakes and is less impacted with largescale subsistence.
Why was Kalagarh which has a lot of open space to carry out development activities not declared as the state capital? Yet Dehradun was selected and still continues to be a temporary capital. Everything has been developed around it, while other places which required development have been ignored.
For a person who lives in Chamoli or Pithoragarh, it hardly makes a difference whether s/he was in UP or Uttarakhand because Dehradun is as far as Lucknow.
The state's development has been concentrated in the four districts of Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar, Nainital and Haridwar. Life hasn't changed much in the rest of the nine districts.
Isn't there a need to have a very focussed environmental action plan for the immediate future to arrest the damage and avert disasters?
We need to go back to the drawing board in terms of what should be the strategy for the next ten years. We need to come up with solutions which are more nature based. Some amount of economy needs to be created in other districts of the state to build infrastructure and create life around sleepy towns.
Earlier, the migration was to Delhi and Lucknow, now it is to Dehradun and Udham Singh Nagar.
Migration gives access to some amount of money and a smartphone, but overall the quality of life has gone down drastically.
Medical and educational facilities need to improved. Earlier, the school headmaster lived in the village and was an important person in the community, but now the headmaster lives in the closest urban centre. He commutes to school every day. What difference can you make if you spend just a few hours in the school?
Overall, there is a huge disconnect between people and policy.
Development has to be inclusive and awareness has to be created towards the environment and the natural capital, but that is not the way we have progressed so far and the results seem to be disastrous.
We had the Malpa landslide in 1998, the Uttarkashi earthquake, the Ukhimat landslide [2012] the Himalayan tsunami in 2013, subsidence in Joshimath [2023]. Every year we have forest fires and something significant.
Nature has given enough warnings.
IMAGE: Dr Vishal Singh Photograph: Seema Pant for Rediff.comIn geological terms, can you explain why the Himalayas are so fragile?
The Himalayas are one of the youngest mountains. They are not stable mountains like the Andes [South America]. These are sedimentary rocks which have hardened over many years, but in geological time it is a very small period.
The Himalayas are evolving. Every day there is some movement going on and the Indian plate is still pushing the Tibetan plate, therefore, these processes will continue.
In terms of geology, the Himalayas are a result of disaster. Had the plates not collided and volcanoes not erupted, the Himalayas would not have existed.
The cost of not having the Himalayas would mean that there would be no Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra. There would be no northwest monsoon; or the fertile Indus and Gangetic plains with such biodiversity.
The Himalayas are the Creator of Life. The Hindukush, Karakoram and the Himalayan range, directly and indirectly impact over 2 billion people -- 1/4 of the entire population of the world -- and this is a conservative estimate.
Our foremost duty is to preserve it.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com