Conscious Conservation

: Tashi Gonpo

Tashi Gonpo is 78 years old. He remembers a time when, as a young boy, he used to travel with his father on horseback from Manali to Leh loaded with sacks of rice, tea and spices to sell in the busy markets. In those days the journey over treacherous high passes would take up to 18 days; the journey’s dangers are indicated by the fact that the main pass is called the Rohtang pass: Rohtang literally means ‘pile of dead bodies’. Now the same route takes about 11 hours and the winding road is threaded with taxis and buses carrying tourists across the breathtaking landscapes that connect the different high altitude trekking resorts.

The first waves of tourists arrived here in the late 1960s, bringing a wave of economic development and a dilemma for local people: how to take advantage of these new economic opportunities without letting their traditional culture be swallowed up in the process?

Tashi’s village now boasts a unique initiative to help the local community preserve aspects of its traditional way of life. On the edge of the village a new building houses an ‘eco-tourism’ centre.

On the top floor a rural museum displaying a range of traditional artefacts – paintings, cooking pots, wood-burning stoves, herbal medicines, traditional weaving looms – is open to visitors throughout the summer for a small entrance fee. On the ground floor is a space in which local women are trained to use traditional craft skills to generate extra income for their families. Tashi Gonpo donated an antique religious painting to the exhibition. He explains why he feels these activities are important:

‘The artefacts here represent our link with a traditional way of life going back thousands of years – a way of life based on sharing and supporting each other. In our culture we always work together so that everyone’s fields are harvested in time. If anyone gets into difficulty then the whole community will come together to support them. Now many people are leaving these communities and going to the cities in search of a better life. But often they become isolated and are easily exploited by people who are better educated.’

The project is initiated and run by a Delhi-based organisation called Pragya. Its approach is to work with communities, helping them to discover their own solutions to the issues facing them – rather than imposing inappropriate development models from the outside. Atula, one of the project workers, explains. ‘Every project we set up comes about through dialogue with local people and in some ways that process of discussion is every bit as valuable as the project itself. We believe that when a community commits to an initiative, a shift in attitude occurs, then the project has a good chance of becoming sustainable. It’s human nature that when we feel something is our own idea we’re much more likely to commit to it and take care of it over the long term.’

The success of this approach is illustrated by a women’s self-help group in Keylong. The group was set up eight years ago and is now generating a sizeable profit from the sale of craft goods – such as socks and woven shawls with intricate traditional designs.

Karuna began funding Pragya to carry out cultural conservation work in 2001. Since then we have given a grant of £30,000 per year, which has funded the set up of eco-tourism centres, dance troupes, rural museums, rural libraries and resource centres. In 2007 we secured a grant from the UK’s Department for International Development of £80,000 per year to support rural libraries, resources centres and alternative livelihoods across 5 Indian Himalayan states.

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