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Hiking
towards Biafo Glacier
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Village
elders, their heads together, intensely discuss and go on to decide arrangements
for a unique marriage ceremony. The task at hand is to choose a male and a
female piece of ice, setting in motion a series of rituals. Two chunks of ice,
one each from a female and a male glacier, are then transported to an
appropriate location. Doing so, porters carrying the pieces shall observe
complete silence. Pieces of ice will then be placed side-by-side, close enough
for both chunks to eventually produce 'offspring' in the shape of fresh water
– a new source of irrigation and drinking water.
No, this is not
an excerpt from the folklore of a primitive tribal society; this is, in fact, a
water tradition being practiced even today in the 21st century, in small
villages of the Karakuram in the Northern areas of Pakistan. Already there are many
communities that have bred small glaciers in the Gilgit and Baltistan regions.
Breeding
Glaciers in Ancient Times
As
the stark reality of unpredictable water flow is dawning on the mountain
communities of Pakistan, the age-old tradition of breeding glaciers is being
revived with a fervor. Traditionally, village elders would gather to
select a suitable site and large blocks of equal sizes of one male and one
female block of ice were then taken from two different glaciers and carried on
to the appointed location.
The
gender of the glacier was determined by taking into consideration factors such
as the characteristics of the people living in the nearby areas, where male
glaciers were thought to produce a higher yield and fertility as well as a
strong male population. Female
glacier areas were said to have opposite characteristics, and were the home to a
significant number of beautiful women.
According
to the tradition, it is vital to transport both blocks in one go, and those
carrying the ice were to do so in complete silence. Once
moved to another location, the blocks of ice would be allowed to
accumulate snow in the winter, thereby increasing in size and density.
In summer, they were covered with a canopy to shield them from the
heat of the sun. A few years later the blocks of ice would be
transformed into new glaciers, providing a new source of
irrigation and drinking water for the community.
Ancient
Tradition Comes to Life
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Chogolisa
Glacier
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Only
last year, a community-based organization known as Parbat Social Welfare
Organization (PSWO) in Chilas, district Diamir, transplanted glacier seeds in
six different locations. Continuous drought-like situations in many
villages in the district forced villagers to think of innovative ideas to
harness water.
A
social activist, Mr. Manawar Khan, after reading about this
tradition, motivated a bunch of volunteers from PSWO to initiate the breeding of
glaciers as a sustainable alternative to offset water scarcity
in the villages. He constituted a committee to look for an appropriate
location in the mountains; the committee members identified six such
locations. Searching a location where snow and ice could not melt for eight
to ten months of the year was not an easy task. The surveyors had to sit
and wait long hours at various parts of the mountains to check the intensity of
sunlight and length of shadows over them.
This
was followed by another technical part of the project: identification of male
and female glaciers and arranging for their transportation. In this case, PSWO
volunteers traveled 230 kilometers to Bagrot Valley near Gilgit, from where they
transported male and female glaciers in separate vehicles all the way to Babusar
in Chilas. These were then transported non-stop to Babusar, Babusar Shoti,
Batogah, Plaelot, Shregalihador and Gohar Abad. The volunteers carried pieces of
ice on their backs up to the locations that were more than 14 thousand feet
above sea level. At the breeding locations, volunteers had already dug up
sixty-feet-round and nine-feet-deep ditches. They then placed male glaciers in
the hole, swiftly followed by the female ones, the union of two producing a
whizzing sound, confirming to the experts that the marriage had been
consummated!
The
Only Option
Although
the practice of breeding glaciers was dying out, rapidly vanishing glaciers and
water springs provided a new impetus for drawing on the traditional wisdom of
the communities. "I moved here some 20 years ago along with many other
families, as at that time this was a very fertile village with abundance of
water for growing wheat and fruit trees. Today the glacier that was feeding
water to the village has dried up, and during the last couple of years we have
not been able to grow anything. Our trees are dying and some of the
families have already moved out," says 70-year-old Gul Hafiz, a resident of
Dadrapuke village in Ghizer (Oral Testimony Panos SA, 2003).
The
huge frozen water bodies have shaped peculiar traditions among people frozen in
time for centuries. They nurtured their social norms, beliefs, customs and the
means of livelihood in harmony with nature, learning from the nature and
bestowing on nature their own exuberance.
Other
than building channels over mountain ridges to steer water from springs and
streams, the only way they could think of harnessing a sustainable source of
water was to develop a glacier, since lifting water up on high and rugged
terrain was a rather difficult preposition. Even with today's sparsely available
power infrastructure, it is an unaffordable wish. In numerous villages
throughout the region people planted glaciers, and a few hundred meters down the
hill they would construct a little pound or dam from where water could be
channeled to the terraced fields and gardens. Every family would then use
stored water one by one, with village headmen keeping a watch on the timely and
effective use of available water resources for irrigation and drinking purposes.
Gang
Singhe that overlooks the town of Skardu is one such hand-bred glacier. There
are many folk tales associated with this glacier, which from a distance looks
like the shape of a horse. Many in the valley believe that the year the head of
this horse-like glacier retreats away from the rest of the body, a member of the
royal family will pass away. Strangely enough, such has actually happened during
the last eighty years or so.
Global
Warming Threatens Pakistan’s Glaciers
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Shisper
Glacier is 7619 meters high
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Changing
weather patterns are massively impacting the livelihood of these nearly one
million people, whose basic mainstay is substance agriculture based on growing
wheat, maize, fruits, and raising livestock.
"Glaciers
are melting. From what I can estimate, they have retreated a mile or so. In my
village, Minapin, I recall walking over glaciers. The snowfall in December and
January used to turn into glaciers and the summer heat would melt them
gradually. The rain in summer, which carries moisture, falls over, hastening the
melting process. Now, the most dangerous thing about glaciers is that in June
and July we have stronger sunshine causing the glaciers to melt faster, and we
don't have snow stored as much as it should have been, besides the gradual
melting procedure is no more there, meaning faster melting. So rivers rise
unexpectedly creating floods, thus many human settlements on riverbanks are no
more there,” says Aga Yahya, a well-known community activist from Minapin
village in Nagar (Oral Testimony Panos SA, 2003).
Devastating
Impact on Local Agriculture
An
increasing population is exerting stress on the limited 2
percent cultivable land of Pakistan’s 72,400 sq. km, of which 1
percent is currently under cultivation while the remaining 1 percent can only be
utilized if the water supply potential is harnessed. Irrigated land usually consists of small
terraced fields, which normally rely on glacial melt for water.
Fruit
trees also constitute an important part of the local agriculture; some of the
important fruits are apricots, almonds, grapes, cherries, apples, peaches,
walnuts and mulberries. In recent years, fruits and nuts have become an
important source of income for the villagers. The farming activities thus depend
a lot on irrigation, as rainfall is low and erratic, and over the years farmers
have been using increasing amounts of water to irrigate their crops, thus
affecting the downstream flow of water. At the same time, sustained
deforestation, degradation of pastures, declining woodland and biodiversity,
soil erosion and unorganized urbanization, as well as mining practices, plus the
phenomena of global warming, are all taking their toll on mountain watersheds in
the upland.
Soaring
populations both in the mountains and on the plains continue to press demand for
fresh water, and conflicts over water rights are a real threat in the mountain
as well as in the plains. Effective conservation of mountain ecology and
promotion of sustainable harvesting of water is emerging as one of the major
challenges facing us in the upcoming years. Our ability to feed growing numbers
of people largely rests on an economy based on judicious use of water for life.
The lowland regions serve as vital catchments for the Indus River, upon which
much of the country's agriculture and hydroelectricity depends so heavily.
Around 90 percent of the lowland flow of the Indus originates in the mountains
of the Karakuram and Western Himalaya. The mountains of Northern Pakistan are
thus in the true sense 'water towers' for the rest of the country.
The
World’s Highest Battleground
The
region contains the most significant glacier systems outside the poles,including
the 72-kilometre-long Siachan glacier, famous for reasons other than being a
water reservoir. The armed conflict between India and Pakistan since the late
80s has placed this glacier on the world map as the world’s highest
battleground. One can imagine the subsequent depletion and damage to the fragile
glacier caused by over a decade of bombings. Other well-known glaciers
situated in the region like Biafo, Hisper, Batura, Baltoro, Gashabrum and
Chogolungma are also reportedly retreating at a high rate due to multiple
reasons including global warming.
Although
naturally formed, large glaciers are a gift from God and there might be no way
we could recreate the centuries old processes of gradual accumulation, breeding
glaciers could be more than a symbolic option; it will generate interest and
public awareness for the sustainable use of rapidly vanishing water dripping
from the mountains.
M. Ismail Khan is from Skardu in the Karakuram/Himalaya and
is presently associated with IUCN – The World Conservation Union,
Pakistan. He can be reached at:
ismail@k2.comsats.net.pk.
