Abstract
This paper reviews environmental, biotic as well as infrastructural changes observed over the past 25 years in India’s western Trans-Himalaya, with a focus on the relatively remote, yet rapidly developing, Changthang region of Eastern Ladakh. A vast high-altitude steppe and semi-desert area, the Changthang is interspersed with lakes and streams. Tsomoriri, Tsokar and Pangong Tso, the largest lake basins of the region, are located close to the Line of Actual Control between India and China and are easily accessible from urban centres during the summer months. Off-limits to visitors, with poor road infrastructure but abundant wildlife until the mid-1990s, these water towers of Ladakh bear the brunt of modern development. In contrast to early observations (1996–1998), there are now roads, tracks, tourist and military activities all around the lakes. Wildlife, which was distributed around the whole periphery of the lakes, is now essentially confined to the more inaccessible wetlands and grasslands. Increased human disturbance coupled with extreme weather events such as floods and droughts appear to have led to a collapse in some biotic communities. Here I report on these changes using some proxies such as yearly waterbirds’ counts and community composition and attempt to link them with other proxies of environmental change such as climate warming, infrastructure development and habitat loss. In conclusion, I identify key eco-sensitive areas around the lakes and propose some urgent as well as longer-term measures for their protection.
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Notes
- 1.
The Black-necked Crane has been reported as a summer visitor in Sikkim (Kazmierczak 2000).
- 2.
A reduction in livestock’s number over the period is also reported for the Tibetan Plateau as a whole, apparently as a result of a large-scale Chinese government’s “grazing withdrawal programme” aimed at the restoration of degrading grasslands (see Chen et al. 2014).
- 3.
The Indian Roller had been reported from Western Ladakh prior to 1960 (Pfister 2004).
- 4.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the restrictions it placed on people’s movement and the reduced willingness of tourists themselves to travel, the first year of the present decade has seen visitors’ number plummet to less than 1% of what they were in recent years. A similar scenario started to play out in 2021 with infections peaking in May; however, tourist numbers increased rapidly in summer, reaching near-pre-pandemic levels but for the absence of foreign visitors.
- 5.
- 6.
For conservation areas connectivity, especially for migratory birds, in an international framework, see Xu et al. 2022.
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Humbert-Droz, B. (2023). Environmental Change in Ladakh’s Changthang: A Local, Regional and Global Phenomenon. In: Humbert-Droz, B., Dame, J., Morup, T. (eds) Environmental Change and Development in Ladakh, Indian Trans-Himalaya. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42494-6_9
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