Traditional Vernacular Architecture of Kumaon: The Case of the Hill Towns of Munsiyari, Uttarakhand

Munsiyari is a region located at an altitude of 2,200 meters in the hilly state of Uttarakhand, India. The eponymous town is surrounded by twenty-two villages mostly inhabited by Bhotiya tribes, who once formed a community that traded with those crossing from India to Tibet, though this trade came to an abrupt end with the 1962 Sino-Indian war. Owing to the region’s prosperity, the villages exhibit a very interesting typology of hill architecture. This architectural identity is also a manifestation of a geographical and cultural response to a difficult terrain. Our study was carried out as part of the preparation of a dossier for inventorying the Kailash sacred landscape with the aim of documenting the present state of the traditional vernacular heritage of the selected indigenous community for the UNESCO nomination of the wider region. That thorough documentation process was used as a means of analyzing local vernacular heritage and its current situation, and with a view to offsetting the rapid transformation of the past two decades.

Ageratina adenophora and Lantana camara in Kailash Sacred Landscape, India: Current distribution and future climatic scenarios through modeling

The Himalayan region is one of the global biodiversity hotspots. However, its biodiversity and ecosystems are threatened due to abiotic and biotic drivers. One of the major biotic threats to biodiversity in this region is the rapid spread of Invasive Alien Species (IAS). Natural forests and grasslands are increasingly getting infested by IAS affecting regeneration of native species and decline in availability of bio-resources. Assessing the current status of IAS and prediction of their future spread would be vital for evolving specific species management interventions. Keeping this in view, we conducted an in-depth study on two IASs, viz., Ageratina adenophora and Lantana camara in the Indian part of Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL), Western Himalaya. Intensive field surveys were conducted to collect the presence of A. adenophora (n = 567) and L. camara (n = 120) along an altitudinal gradient between 300 and 3000 m a.s.l. We performed Principal Component Analysis to nullify the multi-colinearity effects of the environmental predictors following MaxEnt species distribution model in the current and future climatic scenarios for both the species. All current and future model precision (i.e., Area Under the Curve; AUC) for both species was higher than 0.81. It is predicted that under the current rate of climate change and higher emission (i.e., RCP 8.5 pathway), A. adenophora will spread 45.3% more than its current distribution and is likely to reach up to 3029 m a.s.l., whereas, L. camara will spread 29.8% more than its current distribution range and likely to reach up to 3018 m a.s.l. Our results will help in future conservation planning and participatory management of forests and grasslands in the Kailash Sacred Landscape–India.

An Offering of Grain: The Agricultural and Spiritual Cycle of a Food System in the Kailash Sacred Landscape, Darchula, Far Western Nepal

Foodscapes are commonly embedded in spiritual landscapes, making the spiritual dimension of local and indigenous food systems an important element of food sovereignty. However, this dimension is often overlooked in food systems research and policy making. Based on ethnobiological fieldwork conducted in the Kailash Sacred Landscape of far western Nepal, we show how religious festivals and rituals reenact the covenant between people and the land through the numinous intercession of Hindu gods and landscape deities. To demonstrate this, we present the local calendar of the agricultural and ritual year based on data collected through household surveys and participation in festivals and agricultural activities. The complex fabric of the local agri-food system is revealed as articulated in the warp and weft of interwoven agricultural and spiritual cycles. These cycles contribute to respectful and sustainable landscape management practices by shaping the relationship people have with the land. In the annual women's festival of Gaura, the fertility and well-being of people and land is affirmed through the offering of locally produced pulses and grains. Furthermore, local gastronomic identity is enriched by the incentive to cultivate heirloom varieties of crops that are prescribed in rituals performed during Gaura and other major festivals. We conclude that spiritual practices should be considered key elements of biocultural diversity, and recommend that they receive more attention in the implementation of sustainable development that aims to embody the principles of food sovereignty.

An annotated bird checklist of community-managed lands in Kailash Sacred Landscape-India, Kumaon Himalaya

In the Indian Himalayan region, community-managed lands such as community-managed forests and agriculture lands play an important role in conserving native biodiversity. Our avifaunal surveys done between 2013 and 2016 recorded 205 species belonging to 52 families. Two species were first records from Pithoragarh district. Six species are classified as Threatened and five as Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List. Six are Schedule-I species under the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. In total, 63 migratory (local/altitudinal and long-range) and 81 Himalayan endemic species were observed. Overall, our observations reveal a niche providing both transient and perennial havens for resident and migrant avifauna in our study site’s landscape. Our findings suggest that despite human persistence in the landscape, diversity within avifaunal guilds is rich in the community-managed lands. We recommend further research to focus on understanding the factors governing the bird distribution and co-occurrence in the landscape.