Monday 15 December 2014

DETERIORATING CONDITIONS OF HIMALAYAS

Himalayas have been a part of india's rich culture.but today because of human beings the condition of them is deteriorating. The heap, which includes biodegradable plastic, can be found just four kilometers from Shimla in the reserved forest of Lalpani. And this is not an isolated pocket either. The amount of plastic and other bio-degradable waste in the Himalayas is growing at an alarming rate and wreaking havoc with this fragile ecosystem. Trekkers and tourists have become litterbugs, who don't think before tossing a juice can or wafer wrapper by the mountainside.

To save the fragile ecology of Himalayas, the Himachal Pradesh government on October 2, 2009, banned the use, storage, sale and distribution of all types of polythene bags. On October 2, 2011, the government imposed blanket ban on the use and storage of non biodegradable disposable plastic cups, plates and glasses and warned that violators would be fined up to Rs 5,000. Himachal Pradesh was the first to ban plastic and polythene bags. This photograph is, however, proof that the law is totally ineffective.

The disrespect for the Himalayas is capable of causing a time bomb of water. Biodegradable waste absorbs heat, which along with global warming, raises the overall temperature in the mountains, melting glaciers and creating glacial lakes thus posing the threat of glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in the future. Continuous storage of huge quantities of water has turned these lakes on high mountains into "water bombs" for the population living downstream in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Nepal. The Himalayan range extends for approximately 2,400km within the 3,500km length of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan ranges, and has about 33,000sqkm of the estimated 110,000sqkm of glaciated area.

No comments:

Post a Comment