Mustang, 21 March: The climate crisis is having a direct/indirect impact on the religious, cultural and various activities of the Himalayan district. Due to climate change, the life of the people of the Himalayan district of Mustang is also being greatly affected. There is a situation where the problems of natural disasters such as uneven weather changes, natural disasters, irregular snowfall and no snowfall in some years are being faced.
Due to climate change, the mountains have recently started turning into black rocks, and the sources of glaciers have also started drying up. Thus, the climate crisis has started to have negative effects on agriculture and animal husbandry in the Himalayan districts.
Samjung village in Mustang is suffering from the same climate crisis. Samjung village in Upper Mustang, located in Lomanthang Rural Municipality-2, has been uninhabited for the past one and a half decades. There were 18 households there. Now, the old-style traditional houses are still alive. Although the houses in Samjung are still in their original condition, the people there have been displaced for about one and a half decades. It has been found that some households, who take care of sheep and yak herds, live there during the rainy season. Apart from that, Samjung settlement in Lomanthang-2 is empty and uninhabited.
(Jomsom-Korla) Samjung village in Mustang, which can be reached by walking for about five hours from the main highway, is located in a very backward and remote place geographically. A decade and a half ago, local households used to live there by doing agriculture and animal husbandry. When problems began to appear in agriculture and animal husbandry there, the local households chose the path of settlement relocation. As the glacial sources started drying up due to climate change, problems began to arise in the irrigation, drinking water and grazing areas there. Due to this, the local citizens chose the path of migration from there to adapt to the climate.
The Samjung settlement in Upper Mustang, located at the foot of a very high plateau and bare mountains, has been facing a severe climate crisis, forcing the local people to face enormous challenges in their daily livelihoods. This climate crisis has led to the settlement being deserted due to the lack of irrigation, drinking water, and grazing land.
Where did the climate-affected Samjung village move to?Â
Samjung village of Lomanthang-2 in Upper Mustang has been shifted to a place called Namasung in the same ward for a decade and a half. All the citizens of a total of 18 households there have moved to Namasung and a new settlement has been built. Samjung settlement has been shifted to Namasung, located east of the Chhosar River, near the national pride Jomsom-Korla main road, informed Lopsang Chomphel Bista, chairman of Loghekar Damodarkunda Rural Municipality.
According to Bista, the chairman of Loghekar Damodarkunda Rural Municipality, a new settlement has been established there after around 100 ropanis of Lalpurjawala barren land in the name of the Mustangi cultural king Jigme Palbar Bista was donated free of charge to the Samjung village, a settlement displaced by the climate change. Chairman Bista mentioned that each household in the Samjung settlement displaced by the climate change has been provided with the facility to build a hut on an area of ​​four to four annas and cultivate the remaining area.
After the Mustangi Raja made the vacant land he owned available to Samjung village, all 18 households there had built similar-sized huts. The new settlement structure was built there with the coordination and cooperation of Nawangkunga Lama Bista, former ward chairman of Lomanthang Rural Municipality-5 Lomanthang. According to former ward chairman Bista, the new settlement was built by sharing the cost with local households to manage the resettlement of the displaced settlements from Samjung. According to former ward chairman Bista of Lomanthang-5, the settlement was relocated there a decade and a half ago with a 50 percent cost sharing between a Swiss organization and the local households.
Ward Chairman Bista revealed that he personally took the initiative for the relocation of the settlement. Lomanthang Rural Municipality Acting Office Chief Bikash KC said that the climate crisis has directly/indirectly affected the agriculture and animal husbandry systems there, leading to the relocation of the settlement to Namasung. He said that he understood that the households there had shifted to Namasung due to the scarcity of natural resources and the intention to settle in some more convenient place.
Lomanthang Acting Administrative Officer KC mentioned that the households relocated to Namasung sometimes take their livestock to Samjung village and stay in the cowshed there. He said that the newly relocated settlement, Namasung, can be reached by a 15-minute walk from the Jomso-Korla road.
