What the Himalayas need

Protecting the Himalayan ecosystem is crucial for the 2047 goals, and it's time India adopted an integrated approach to safeguarding its fragile ecology

The Himalayas are often called the third pole, since after the Arctic and Antarctic, they hold the largest store of snow and ice on the planet. This pole is inhabited: Roughly 50 million people across 13 states and Union Territories live in the region and depend on its glaciers and rivers. When such a system is destabilised, the damage arrives immediately, as Nepal learned last month when a glacier collapse unleashed catastrophic flooding along the Trishuli Valley. India’s ambition for Viksit Bharat rests, in no small part, on the stability of this third pole.