Farewell to Yak and Yeti?
Author : Ruedi Baumgartner
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 10,16 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Globalization
ISBN : 9789937623421
Hindu Kush-Himalaya Watersheds Downhill: Landscape Ecology and Conservation Perspectives
Author : Ganga Ram Regmi
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 890 pages
File Size : 24,74 MB
Release : 2020-05-04
Category : Science
ISBN : 3030362752
Book Description
This book describes the myriad components of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region. The contributors elaborate on challenges, failures, and successes in efforts to conserve the HKH, its indigenous plants and animals, and the watershed that runs from the very roof of the planet via world-rivers to marine estuaries, supporting a human population of some two billion people. Readers will learn how the landforms, animal species and humans of this globally fascinating region are connected, and understand why runoff from snow and ice in the world’s tallest mountains is vital to inhabitants far downstream. The book comprises forty-five chapters organized in five parts. The first section, Landscapes, introduces the mountainous watersheds of the HKH, its weather systems, forests, and the 18 major rivers whose headwaters are here. The second part explores concepts, cultures, and religions, including ethnobiology and indigenous regimes, two thousand years of religious tradition, and the history of scientific and research expeditions. Part Three discusses policy, wildlife conservation management, habitat and biodiversity data, as well as the interaction of animals and humans. The fourth part examines the consequences of development and globalization, from hydrodams, to roads and railroads, to poaching and illegal wildlife trade. This section includes studies of animal species including river dolphins, woodpeckers and hornbills, langurs, snow leopards and more. The concluding section offers perspectives and templates for conservation, sustainability and stability in the HKH, including citizen-science projects and a future challenged by climate change, growing human population, and global conservation decay. A large assemblage of field and landscape photos, combined with eye-witness accounts, presents a 50-year local and wider perspective on the HKH. Also included are advanced digital topics: data sharing, open access, metadata, web portal databases, geographic information systems (GIS) software and machine learning, and data mining concepts all relevant to a modern scientific understanding and sustainable management of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region. This work is written for scholars, landscape ecologists, naturalists and researchers alike, and it can be especially well-suited for those readers who want to learn in a more holistic fashion about the latest conservation issues.
Alpine Rising
Author : Bernadette McDonald
Publisher : Mountaineers Books
Page : 385 pages
File Size : 25,66 MB
Release : 2024-03-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1680515799
Book Description
The name of Maurice Herzog, the first man to reach the summit of Annapurna, is widely recognized, but how many know Ang Tharkay, the Sherpa who carried the seriously frostbitten Herzog on his back for miles? Although rarely mentioned in published accounts of early expeditions, local climbers have long been significant members of first ascents on the world’s tallest and most challenging peaks. In Alpine Rising, award-winning writer Bernadette McDonald sets the record straight by shining a light on these too often forgotten heroes. Now, in the 21st century, it is often local climbers who are setting records. A Nepali team was the first to climb K2 in winter; they reached the summit while singing their national anthem. Pakistani climbers like Little Karim and Ali Sadpara devoted their lives to helping others survive and succeed on and off the mountains and their stories deserve to be more widely known. Not only a timely reminder of the need to recognize the contributions of local climbers and the importance of correcting the historical record, Alpine Rising is a celebration of a region’s local heroes. Sales benefit the Khumbu Climbing Center (Nepal) and the ASCEND climbing program for girls (Pakistan)
From a Trickle to a Torrent
Author : Geoff Childs
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 247 pages
File Size : 27,41 MB
Release : 2018-12-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0520971213
Book Description
What happens to a community when the majority of young people leave their homes to pursue an education? From a Trickle to a Torrent documents the demographic and social consequences of educational migration from Nubri, a Tibetan enclave in the highlands of Nepal. The authors explore parents’ motivations for sending their children to distant schools and monasteries, social connections that shape migration pathways, young people’s estrangement from village life, and dilemmas that arise when educated individuals are unable or unwilling to return and reside in their native villages. Drawing on numerous decades of research, this study documents a transitional period when the future of a Himalayan society teeters on the brink of irreversible change.
A Jewish Mother in Shangri-la
Author : Rosie Rosenzweig
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 50,39 MB
Release : 1998-09-08
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0834826348
Book Description
An old joke tells of a Jewish woman who treks to the Himalayas to seek an audience with a guru sitting in seclusion on a mountaintop. When at last she comes before him, she implores: "Sheldon, come home!" Rosie Rosenzweig became that Jewish mother—but in real life, the story has a different ending. Instead of asking her Buddhist son, Ben, to come home, Rosie accepts his invitation to find out about Buddhism firsthand. Together they visit retreat centers in Europe and Asia and meet leading meditation masters who are Ben's gurus: Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and Tibetan lamas Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. While struggling to come to terms with Ben's choice of a spiritual path so different from everything that she cherishes, Rosie finds that she is learning more about herself than she anticipated. The adventures of Rosie recounts take her from her Boston suburb to a Zen hermitage in France, an enclave of Tibetan Buddhists in Nepal, and finally to her own spiritual home in Jerusalem. Whether she is practicing mindfulness meditation, sharing a cup of tea with a Zen master, or worrying about bowing down to idols, Rosie is intent in her quest to find common ground between two ancient traditions, to deepen her understanding of her son, and to find a way to her own authentic experience of truth. Hers is a mission of peace that seeks to build a bridge of understanding between cultures and faiths while remaining true to her own Jewish identity.
Ecology of Himalayan Treeline Ecotone
Author : S P Singh
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 575 pages
File Size : 15,82 MB
Release : 2023-02-21
Category : Science
ISBN : 9811944768
Book Description
This book brings together comprehensive multi-disciplinary knowledge on diverse aspects of the Himalayan treeline ecotone which is considered one of the most sensitive ecosystems to climate change. The contents of this book are based on the results of extensive research and provide a holistic understanding of the treeline ecotone in Himalaya. The book will serve as an important reference manual and a textbook on treeline ecology. The book is unique in the sense that it provides an engaging account of almost all the aspects of the treeline ecotone, such as taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic species diversity, temperature lapse rates, tree phenology, water relations, and stress physiology, tree ring width chronology, and climate relationships and the role of treeline ecotone in human sustenance in the Indian Himalayan region The treelines in the Himalaya, being the highest in the Northern Hemisphere (up to 4900 m), are among the least investigated systems and hence this book is timely and fills all-important knowledge gaps vis-à-vis treeline shifts, physiognomic, structural, and functional changes in mountain landscapes and ecosystems, particularly under the changing climate This book, for the first time, summarizes evidence-based knowledge about various aspects of treeline ecotone in Himalaya that was largely generated through a well-coordinated a team science approach. The book will be of interest to ecologists, climatologists, dendrochronologists, foresters, plant physiologists and resource managers and policy planners for a better understanding of the organization and dynamics of this fragile ecosystem in relation to climate change and other anthropogenic stresses that are rampant in the Himalaya. The book lays a solid foundation for further investigation of the ecology and dynamics of the treeline ecotone in the Himalayas and provides a rationale for pursuing a team science approach for macroecological investigations.
Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia
Author : Jelle J.P. Wouters
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 33,73 MB
Release : 2022-08-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1000598586
Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia is the first comprehensive and critical overview of the ethnographic and anthropological work in Highland Asia over the past half a century. Opening up a grand new space for critical engagement, the handbook presents Highland Asia as a world-region that cuts across the traditional divides inherited from colonial and Cold War area divisions - the Indian Subcontinent/South Asia, Southeast Asia, China/East Asia, and Central Asia. Thirty-two chapters assess the history of research, identify ethnographic trends, and evaluate a range of analytical themes that developed in particular settings of Highland Asia. They cover varied landscapes and communities, from Kyrgyzstan to India, from Bhutan to Vietnam and bring local voices and narratives relating trade and tribute, ritual and resistance, pilgrimage and prophecy, modernity and marginalization, capital and cosmos to the fore. The handbook shows that for millennia, Highland Asians have connected far-flung regions through movements of peoples, goods and ideas, and at all times have been the enactors, repositories, and mediators of world-historical processes. Taken together, the contributors and chapters subvert dominant lowland narratives by privileging primarily highland vantages that reveal Highland Asia as an ecumune and prism that refracts and generates global history, social theory, and human imagination. In the currently unfolding Asian Century, this compels us to reorient and re-envision Highland Asia, in ethnography, in theory, and in the connections between this world-region, made of hills, highlands and mountains, and a planetary context. The handbook reveals both regional commonalities and diversities, generalities and specificities, and a broad orientation to key themes in the region. An indispensable reference work, this handbook fills a significant gap in the literature and will be of interest to academics, researchers and students interested in Highland Asia, Zomia Studies, Anthropology, Comparative Politics, Conceptual History and Sociology, Southeast Asian Studies, Central Asian Studies and South Asian Studies as well as Asian Studies in general.
Mount Everest - Only the Sky Above
Author : Helga Hengge
Publisher : Helgahengge.com
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 28,13 MB
Release : 2018-10-16
Category : Sports & Recreation
ISBN : 3982034116
Book Description
ONLY THE SKY ABOVE Mount Everest, 29,028 feet—on May 27th, 1999, Helga Hengge reaches the top of the world, the highpoint of an exciting career between the extremes of creative work and outstanding mountaineering achievement. In her inspiring account she takes her readers on an adventure through Tibet and up to the summit of Mount Everest with emotional and authentic insights into the dynamics of tackling the ultimate challenge. Accompanied by spectacular images of her two-month long ascent via the Northeast Ridge in Tibet she shares her story of pushing physical and emotional boundaries in the face of challenge. She talks about the step-by-step ascent, the power of a team, dealing with setbacks, and about trusting your inner strength. The highlight of her account is the ascent to the summit and the fulfillment of a great dream. The moment, when there is only the sky above. Helga Hengge, who has dual citizenship, was the first German woman to successfully summit Everest and the first American woman to do so from the North side.
Under the Painted Eyes
Author : Ferd Mahler
Publisher : Motilal Banarsidass Publishe
Page : 444 pages
File Size : 26,14 MB
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 9788120816831
Book Description
The three novels of Under The Painted Eyes are set in the shadow of the great Himalayan Mountains and against the background tapestry of Nepal's fascinating history and rich culture. Fictional and historical characters live, love, fight and worship under the watching eyes of the Adi Buddha, which are painted on the torans of the Swayambhunath and the Bodnath and other ancient temples. The novels tell of romance and love over the centuries and the happiness and tragedy they bring. There are the golden-roofed pagodas and the exotic festivals, intrigue, war and massacre, and the abuse of power and finally the successful struggle for democracy in modern times.
The Serpent's Garden
Author : Richard C Loofbourrow
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 37,89 MB
Release : 2007-06
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0595441831
Book Description
The Serpent's Garden is a crime/thriller about the macabre and mysterious murders of five female graduate students at UCLA. A charismatic but controversial philosophy professor has been falsely charged and convicted of the ritualistic murders. All the women were found posed and clutching a Bible; the murderer left several clues including coins wedged in the victim's eyes bearing a crucified serpent, an open Bible, a novelty snake, and an eight-inch crucifix buried in the victims' birth canal. Professor Chance Carpenter ends up on death row because of a rush to judgment orchestrated by the diminutive FBI agent Laura Lamb. Her ambitions and nefarious secrets cause her to cross the thin blue line and also become a serial killer. She is captured but manages a miraculous escape from the confines of Quantico's FBI headquarters and heads west on a revenge crime spree of her own. She is now on the lam; her crimes are featured in the tabloids and a new dance craze is named after her. College kids are doing the "Laura Lamb". The true killer of the UCLA coeds, however, has blended in with average "Joe College". The thriller follows a trail of evil, surprise, and suspense.
