SAMJUNG – The Himalayan village of Samjung didn’t die in a day.
Perched in a wind-carved valley in Nepal’s Higher Mustang, greater than 13,000 toes (3,962 meters) above sea degree, the Buddhist village lived by gradual, deliberate rhythms — herding yaks and sheep and harvesting barley underneath sheer ochre cliffs honeycombed with “sky caves” — 2,000-year-old chambers used for ancestral burials, meditation and shelter.
Then the water dried up. Snow-capped mountains turned brown and barren as, 12 months after 12 months, snowfall declined. Springs and canals vanished and when it did rain, the water got here suddenly, flooding fields and melting away the mud houses. Households left one after the other, leaving the skeletal stays of a group remodeled by local weather change: crumbling mud houses, cracked terraces and unkempt shrines.
A altering local weather
The Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain areas — stretching from Afghanistan to Myanmar — maintain extra ice than anyplace else exterior the Arctic and Antarctic. Their glaciers feed main rivers that assist 240 million folks within the mountains — and 1.65 billion extra downstream.
Such high-altitude areas are warming sooner than lowlands. Glaciers are retreating and permafrost areas are thawing as snowfall turns into scarcer and extra erratic, based on the Kathmandu-based Worldwide Centre for Built-in Mountain Growth or ICMOD.
Kunga Gurung is amongst many within the excessive Himalayas already residing by means of the irreversible results of local weather change.
“We moved as a result of there was no water. We’d like water to drink and to farm. However there may be none there. Three streams, and all three dried up,” mentioned Gurung, 54.
Local weather change is quietly reshaping the place folks can stay and work by disrupting farming, water entry, and climate patterns, mentioned Neil Adger, a professor of human geography on the College of Exeter. In locations like Mustang, that is making life tougher, even when folks don’t at all times say local weather change is why they moved. “On the on a regular basis foundation, the altering climate patterns … it is truly affecting the flexibility of individuals to stay specifically locations,” Adger mentioned.
Communities pressured to maneuver
Across the globe, excessive climate because of local weather change is forcing communities to maneuver, whether or not it is highly effective tropical storms in The Philippines and Honduras, drought in Somalia or forest fires in California.
On this planet’s highest mountains, Samjung is not the one group to have to begin over, mentioned Amina Maharjan, a migration specialist at ICMOD. Some villages transfer solely brief distances, however inevitably the important thing driver is lack of water.
“The water shortage is getting continual,” she mentioned.
Retreating glaciers — rivers of ice shrinking again because the world warms — are probably the most tangible and direct proof of local weather change. As much as 80% of the glacier quantity within the Hindu Kush and Himalayas might vanish on this century if greenhouse fuel emissions aren’t drastically minimize, a 2023 report warned.
It hasn’t snowed in Higher Mustang for practically three years, a dire blow for these residing and farming in high-altitude villages. Snowfall historically units the seasonal calendar, figuring out when crops of barley, buckwheat, and potatoes are planted and affecting the well being of grazing livestock.
“It’s critically vital,” Maharjan mentioned.
For Samjung, the drought and mounting losses started across the flip of the century. Conventional mud houses constructed for a dry, chilly mountain local weather fell aside as monsoon rains grew extra intense — a shift scientists hyperlink to local weather change. The area’s steep slopes and slender valleys funnel water into flash floods that destroyed houses and farmland, triggering a wave of migration that started a decade in the past.
Discovering a spot for a brand new village
Transferring a village — even one with fewer than 100 residents like Samjung — was no easy endeavor. They wanted dependable entry to water and close by communities for assist throughout disasters. Relocating nearer to winding mountain roads would enable villagers to market their crops and profit from rising tourism. Finally, the king of Mustang, who nonetheless owns giant tracts of land within the space practically twenty years after Nepal abolished its monarchy, offered appropriate land for a brand new village.
Pemba Gurung, 18, and her sister Toshi Lama Gurung, 22, don’t keep in mind a lot in regards to the transfer from their previous village. However they keep in mind how onerous it was to begin over. Households spent years gathering supplies to construct new mud houses with brilliant tin roofs on the banks of the glacial Kali Gandaki river, practically 15 kilometers (9 miles) away. They constructed shelters for livestock and canals to deliver water to their houses. Solely then might they transfer.
Some villagers nonetheless herd sheep and yak, however life is a bit totally different in New Samjung, which is near Lo Manthang, a medieval walled metropolis minimize off from the world till 1992, when foreigners had been first allowed to go to. It is a hub for pilgrims and vacationers who wish to trek within the excessive mountains and discover its historical Buddhist tradition, so some villagers work in tourism.
The sisters Pemba and Toshi are grateful to not must spend hours fetching water every single day. However they miss their previous dwelling.
“It’s the place of our origin. We want to return. However I don’t assume it can ever be attainable,” mentioned Toshi.
___
The Related Press’ local weather and environmental protection receives monetary assist from a number of personal foundations. AP is solely accountable for all content material. Discover AP’s requirements for working with philanthropies, an inventory of supporters and funded protection areas at AP.org.
Copyright 2025 The Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials might not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.
