Addressing Himalayan problems

Environmental protection is fast becoming a serious preoccupation, thanks to organisations such as GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development (GBPIHED).
The institute was established in 1988 as an autonomous body of the ministry of environment and forests, government of India. Fifteen years down the line, it has emerged as a focal agency fighting environmental degradation in the Himalayan region.And this has been achieved chiefly through on-the-spot training camps and workshops for the public including women and students.
Says Sudhir Singh Bisht, scientist fellow with People and Resource Dynamics in Mountain Watersheds of the Hindu-Kush Himalayas (PARDYP), a research project of GBPIHED, "Various training and capacity building programmes have been initiated at various locations such as Jageshwar, Bhakyasen, Narain Nagar, Champawat and Gangolihat. From November 27, we have begun a training programme at Joshimath."
He was in Dehradun along with his team - Dr Dhyani, Dr C.P. Kala and Sachin Gupta - to participate in the 30th Jawaharlal Nehru National Science Exhibition organised by the state government and NCERT.
At the exhibition hundreds of school children were told about the significance of their role in the preservation process. "We have involved people in reviving Badrivan for which a nursery has been set up and even the army has been roped in," he informed.
The recognition accorded to the institute by the Planning Commission to work as a nodal agency for R&D programmes in the Himalayan region has enabled it to introduce multi-disciplinary activities. Today the institute has initiated seven core programmes namely Land and Water Resource Management, Sustainable Development of Rural Ecosystems, Conservation of Biological Diversity, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Ecological Economics and Environmental Impact Analysis, Environmental Physiology and Biotechnology, and Institutional Networking and Human Investment.
The main campus of GBPIHED is located at Kosi - Katarmal (Almora). The institute provides outstanding support facilities at various locations, such as plant nurseries at heights ranging from 1200m to 3000m above sea level, sophisticated laboratories for tissue culture, soil and water analyses, polyhouses and growth chambers, data processing systems. At present Dr U. Dhar is the director of the institute.