Kanjirowa Blues: An Exploration of Environmental and Climate Consciousness in Lower Dolpa, Nepal
“At what point had these living beings of carbon, mostly water, molecular marvels, stopped looking like that from which they had come?”
Abstract
“It has been scientifically demonstrated that high altitude, mountainous regions such as the Himalayas are extremely susceptible to and at accelerated risk of the effects of climate change. The regions of Lower Dolpa discussed in this work, Juphal, Dunai, Chun, and Dapu, lie in a glacial watershed, and are at present risk of landslides, floods, wildfires, and rely on agricultural
and transhumant livelihoods that are uniquely susceptible to the impacts of changing temperature and weather patterns. People in this region are being forced to incrementally adapt and reframe their understanding of their surroundings due to both aforementioned severe events as well as gradual climactic changes such as warming temperatures and changing weather patterns,
which influence a multitude of local factors. This work seeks to creatively explore these themes, and illuminate an extremely understudied region of Nepal, Lower Dolpa, the towns of which gaze upon the mountains undergoing such rapid change, and ask what the true impact of climate change is for people in their everyday lives.”