tourism

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Mountain Livelihoods

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2021

Mountains and valleys evoke beautiful images in the mind of big city dwellers, of peace and quiet, lightness of being, and the absence of the madding crowd. We presume the life of the people who live inside the fascinating landscape to be as blissful. Once you are there, it does not take much to realise that the people living at the edge — where the land merges into mighty mountain ranges — face immense hardship.

Mountain people depend on subsistence agriculture, wage labour, circulatory labour migration, tourism and mountaineering services for survival. Opportunities for government employment are limited. Most households survive on a combination of livelihoods. The people of Shigar and Ghanche districts, whom I met during a trip to Skardu, talked of many challenges. These included the absence of livelihood opportunities except tourism, scarcity of water, poor road networks, inadequate social infrastructure, climate change and frequent landslides.

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Exploring Hunza Valley: Part II

Read Part I here.

Central Hunza

A beautiful view of central Hunza

After four nights of stay in upper Hunza, we came down to a resort in central Hunza. Central Hunza, the administrative region of the valley with capital Karimabad, is famous for Baltit and Altit Forts and ancient settlement Ganish. Starting from Murtaza Abad, central Hunza region ends at the edge of Attabad Lake. Central Hunza is most populous sub-region of the valley Center where the majority of people speak Burushaski. Central Hunza, I came to know, is impacted by climate change. It is facing drinking water shortage as most settlements depend on two glacial melt streams (at Hassan Abad and Ultar) as their primary source of water. The recent glacial lake outburst floods from both glaciers have reduced water supply.

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