“You must take action. You must do the impossible. Because giving up is never an option.” Greta Thunberg
Nature has endowed Kashmir with incredible beauty and is rightly called “Paradise on Earth”. Kashmir has stunning landscape with Chinar trees that turn the entire valley yellow and red during autumn, silver lakes that turn golden at the crack of dawn, and crystal blue rivers that are sourced from the icy mountains.
The beautiful scenes and the unspoiled nature provide a mesmerizing view of paradise. The valley has sustained and evolved this amazing ecosystem over thousands of years and displayed remarkable resilience to global warming. The increasing pressure of human activity has led to deforestation, encroachment of wetlands and pollution. The pollution from fossil fuels consumption, construction and mining activity, irresponsible waste disposal and unsustainable tourism has seen an exponential rise in the recent times. It is important to curb the damage before it breaches capacity of nature to self-heal and preserve this paradise for our future generations.
Contradicting requirements of economic opportunity for locals reeling under terrorism from Pakistan and COVID 19 pandemic vis-à-vis sustaining environment pose a challenge. The silver lining to every crisis is an opportunity to collaborate with multiple stake holders, breach the status quo and achieve self-reformation.
We have reached this stage due to lack of serious thought by far too many for too long. A belief that global climate change will not impact my house or business has prevailed amongst majority of stakeholders globally. However, we have seen how shifting weather patterns have impacted crops, rise in temperatures have led to forest fires, unpredictable rains cause flash floods & mudslides which impact lives and livelihood. This phenomenon is not limited to one city or country which is accentuated by the supply chains of essential commodities spanning across the planet.
A war in Ukraine has dented every pocket and caused doom for fragile economies, melting of arctic ice impacts oceanic countries and coastal areas while unpredictable seasons adversely impact food production. It will be an interesting case to put figures to the crisis we are discussing. An average tourist couple travels to Gulmarg by taxi, stays in a hotel and consumes meals at local restaurants amongst other tourist activities. How does this 13 kms trip from Tangmarg to Gulmarg impact nature? An approximate assessment of carbon footprint caused by taxi travelling 26 kms round trip, stay in a non-luxurious hotel room and consumption of three meals a day by one couple is tabulated below.
Gulmarg biosphere reserve is spread across 180 sq kms with altitudes varying from 7000 to 13000 ft. These 18,000 hectares of biosphere can offset 3515 tourists daily in terms of carbon footprint if we ignore the carbon footprint from all other activities in this area. Clearly this mode of tourism appears to be unsustainable for nature. It generates a large revenue and puts Kashmir on global tourism thus such activity cannot be wished away. It is pertinent to understand the real cost of tourism income. In the above-mentioned activities, the couple is likely to spend about Rs 9000/- out of which a maximum of Rs 4500/- is income to stakeholders. The cost of offsetting carbon footprint has been ascertained at $5 USD per tonne by most conservative estimates. Thus, the real income stands as Rs 4500/- minus cost of carbon offset. The negative burden of offset cost accumulates due to limited forest cover will impact the residents as long-term loss of livelihood and habitat.
Everything in nature comes for free! But the real cost of this nature has been borne by planet in form of thousands of years of evolution. The cost of nature is ‘Time’. Efforts to restore nature by any other resource will cost money and land to increase the carbon sink. Globally, many countries have adopted sustainable way in form of eco-tourism, reducing fossil fuel dependency for energy and efficient disposal of waste. Kashmir is a right case since natural resources for
renewable energy is abundant and natural way of living is still prevalent in most of the households. Sharing these rich traditions with tourists in sustainable form generates huge opportunities for eco and adventure tourism in valley. It is essential to preserve and present this paradise to future generation as a model of hope.
