Antagonisms between Indian and Chinese troops high in the Himalayas are taking a dire toll on traditional goat herds that supply the world's finest, most expensive cashmere. Pictured above: A Changpa nomad shepherd puts pashmina goats out to pasture near Korzok village in the Leh district of Ladakh.
Image Credit: AFP
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The months-long military standoff between the Asian giants is hurting local communities due to the loss of tens of thousands of Himalayan goat kids died because they couldn't reach traditional winter grazing lands, officials and residents said.
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Nomads have roamed these lands atop the roof of the world, around the undemarcated borders with China and Tibet, for centuries, herding the famed and hardy goats that produce the ultrasoft wool known as Pashmina, the finest of cashmeres.
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Cashmere takes its name from the disputed Kashmir valley, where artisans weave the wool into fine yarn and exquisite shawls that cost up to $1,000 apiece in world fashion capitals in a major handicraft export industry that employs thousands. Above: Gulzar Ahmed Want, a Kashmiri artisan, weaves a pashmina shawl on a loom inside his home in Srinagar.
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This latest bout of friction between the rival nuclear powers is adding to pressures from climate change and longer-term losses of grazing land for the Changpa, the nomadic herders who rear the Pashmina goats.
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With access to the usual breeding and birthing grounds blocked by militaries on either side, newborn goats are perishing in the extreme cold of higher elevations, herders say.
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"Denial of pastureland has led to high mortality of goat babies. It's so scary, it has never been like this," said Sonam Tsering, the general secretary of All Changtang Pashmina Growers Cooperative Marketing Society. He said thousands of newborns died this year because most of the 300,000-strong herd of goats, which yields around 45 tons of fine feather-like wool each year, remained trapped in the extreme cold.
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Demand for the cashmere, which is painstakingly combed from the goats, sorted, cleaned and hand woven, has always outstripped supply, so shortages are a certainty, said several people working in the trade. Above: An artisan checks the quality of a pashmina shawl inside his home in Srinagar.
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"It's going to be catastrophic for wool production," said Namgyal Durbuk, a village official in the region. Above: Pashmina threads spun on plastic straws lie inside a wooden box near a loom in Srinagar.
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A Changpa nomad weaves pashmina wool with a loom in a nomadic camp, about 1 km from Korzok village. For most of the year the Changpa raise their herds in the vast cold desert of the Changtang plateau of Ladakh, which straddles Tibet at over 5,000 meters (16,404 feet) above sea level.
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Abdul Later Allie, a Kashmiri artisan, checks the quality of pashmina shawls inside his home in Srinagar.
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A vendor displays pashmina shawls in a store in Srinagar.
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