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himal
Nepal is a landlocked country that lies in the southern slopes of the Himalayas. The country's Himalayan region lies in the its northern range and boasts several of the largest mountain peaks in the world such as Mount Everest. Prior to the 1950s, the land was left untouch and was perceived as forbidden due to various political and geographical reaosons.
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It is now home to only 8% of Nepal's population and occupies 15% of the country's total land area. This small percentage is a result of the region's extremely harsh terain and limited transportation and communication facilities.
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percent distribution of population
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Despite the extremely low population, the region is extremely important to Nepal since the country's economy is dependent on two major aspects of the Himalayas: tourism and agriculture.
One of Nepal's most important sectors of economy is tourism, which contributes 9.1% of total foreign currency and provides over 257,000 people with jobs.
Tourism
Agriculture
The Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry announced that over 30% of Nepal's total land is used for agricultural purposes due to agriculture accounting for 36% of Nepal's GDP.
Life in the Mountains
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More than 60% of the population in the Himal region are reliant upon agriculture.
melting glaciers
Himalayan glaciers are already rapidly melting. As climate change progressively becomes worst, these extremities will only continue to escalate. Himalayan glaciers are already rapidly melting. The melting glaciers have impacted the region's precipitation system and are contributing to the development of glacial lakes—critically dangerous lakes that could violently burst at any moment and flood torrents of water and debris throughout Nepal.
The ourbursts of glacial lake is a new climate-related threat that poses an extreme threat in the Himalayas. The video below depicts an avalanche occurring in the Kapuche lake located in the Kaski District of Nepal that occurred in January 2021. The Kapuche lake is the world's lowest glacial lake due to its extremely low elevation.
The increase of black carbon, a dangerous substance produced due to the incomplete combustion of biomass and fossil fuel, is speeding up the melting of glaciers in the region. A report made by the United Nations Development program revealed that the Himalayan mountain ranges are estimated to lose up to two-thirds of their ice by 2100.
Deaths and morbidity associated with extreme and erratic weather are increasing. Even food scarcity and malnutrition diseases, such as dengue fever and malarie, are progressing to higher altitudes. Water-borne diseases are visibly amplifying due to the area's lack of access to basic sanitation and safe drinking water. The melting will affect food security, access to drinking water, water available for agriculture, hydroelectricity production, tourism, and other significant components that are essential in sustaining and supporting human life in Nepal.
Women in Mountains
The lifestyles of over 240 million people in the mountains will become excruciatingly difficult due to climate change in climate change in the Hindu Kush Himalaya.
People on Mountains
Even the livelihoods of over 1.9 billion people living downstream will also be affected by climate change's effects on the Hindu Kush Himalaya.
People near Mountains
The region's poor infrastructure, physical isolation, and the high cost of food production and transportation put agricultural workers at a disadvantage. It is essential to take into account how gender intersects with climate change on the already low productivity rates of the region's difficult lifestyle. Though climate change is going to harm everyone in Nepal, not all of the citizens have been given the same capacity to adapt. The most affected are the women in the most remote mountains due to their inability to access resources, information, or developing the needed skills to adapt. These inequalities in the distributions of rights, resources, assets, and power make the women more disproportionately affected and vulnerable
Living in the mountain region means constantly dealing with severe obstacles. Women's mobility is physically and culturally restricted due to the various misogynistic cultural norms in Nepal. Social infrastructure and government services are inaccessible for many. The remoteness from other civilizations creates isolation and places a barrier on women's access to gain imformation, develop skillsets, and adapt to new challenging changes such as climate change. Only a small amount of mountain women have opportunities to receive an education which has resulted in their literacy level being very low. All these factors of inequality are further grown by poverty, health issues, vulnerability to violence, and more. Their fragile, harsh surroundings and placement in communities that are marginalized makes their lived experiences far different from women in the lowlands.
In the Himalayas, policies overlook the various forms of exclusion and oppression women face since they focus on the functional components rather than the structural components of gender relations. The policies create inefficient, technocratic fixes that tend to place unrealistic burdens on the women who are already trapped in poverty. Though the policies may offer women economic opportunities, they fail to address women's unequal power relations with men. ​They neglect the creation of repressive cultural rules and norms that have established structural inequalities in the distribution of women's rights, resources, and power.
But aren't there policies and responses established in the Himal region to help the women there?
Climate change will further skew the unequal gender division of labor since women have to travel further to access essential natural resources such as water, crops, food, and fuelwood. Though women are in the frontline of climate change in the Himalayas, they are still left behind and are excluded from decisions around climate change in their region. However, women in the mountains tend to have a greater say in decision-making and overall independence compared to women in the lowlands. Men in the mountains are often migrating, leaving women to become involved in managing community resources and their households. The fragile mountain ecosystems have made the women learn how to maximize their use of natural resources and develop survival skills that help them in taking care of their families. This has also given them more experience in understanding how to adapt to extreme situations such as natural disasters, displacements, and conflicts. Despite this, their skills and knowledge are not valued. Women are only perceived as mothers and housewives by policymakers. People in the mountains also often tend to be forgotten about so their issues are never addressed. It is essential for people to care for the lives of women in the Himal region and recognize how gender-specific conditions have led to the vulnerability and obstruction of women's abilities to adapt to climate change.
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