Ladakh’s glacier man
Chhewang Norphel has created artificial glaciers in Ladakh
Millions of famers in Jammu & Kashmir, especially in Ladakh and Kashmir Valley live with the constant fear that if the region’s glaciers disappear, their livelihoods will be lost. Their fears are rooted in the fast melting ice sheets that lend the region its legendary weather. One of the fallouts of the global rise in the temperatures is that these Himalayans glaciers are melting at an alarming rate.
The picture is grimmest in Ladakh, where most of the population relies on water from glacial melt to irrigate their crops. All low level glaciers that were near the Himalayan villages have melted and this has sounded an alarm bell among the villagers. “For example, the Khardung La glacier has melted completely in the past few years,” said Rajinder Singh Raina, director, DD Leh station and a keen nature watcher.
Away from government claims and environmentalists’ hue and cry, Chhewang Norphel, a local Ladakhi is quietly trying to answer the concerns that haunt his people by building artificial glaciers. In 1987, Norphel build his first artificial glacier in Phuktse Phu village of Ladakh. It spread quickly and brought a silent revolution in many villages by allowing farmers to irrigate their crops in the summer.
Norphel’s technique is simple – he diverts glacial run-offs during the autumn and winter into a series of large rock lined ponds. As the days become colder, the ponds freeze and become a growing glacier. This icy reservoir melts in early June just at the time when Ladakhi farmers need water for their crops. “I started this as an experiment, as I could not bear the pain of farmers waiting for the water to irrigate their crops. They needed water in April and May, while the natural melting process of the glaciers used to give them that water in June and July.” He feels that artificial glaciers are the only possible answer to the problems of this mountainous region.
Norphel is now a household name in rural Ladakh and his technology has become popular in the region as it needs no major effort or expenditure. But his simple formula is yet to be applied to other areas in the state such as the Lidder Valley where the Kolahoi Glacier is melting at an alarming speed and may create problems for the farmers during the summers. Kashmir Valley has lot of worries on the environment front, as experts say that there is 70 per cent of short fall in the rains and snow in the past few years, adding to the worries only.
Chhewang Norphel is sought after in all of J&K as his answer to rising temperatures and glacier melt is bringing hope to the people of Ladakh that by making artificial glaciers, they can save themselves from the looming threat of drought.
