Mapping Resilience
Ghulkin and Hussaini in Gilgit Baltistan have been reported for frequent incidents of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF). In the past 10 years, GLOFs have damaged infrastructure, crops, trees and properties of the local people living around these streams and rivers. Laajverd Visiting School aims to map indigenous and traditional resilience strategies that have developed over time in response to GLOF occurrences and explore their sustainability.
Taking a participatory approach in our workshops on Environmental Security, Audio-Visual Cultures, Built Environment, Material Culture and Mountain Economies, we will engage with local community to understand how life is arranged and re-arranged around frequent GLOFs in order to map possibilities of alternate livelihoods and practices of co-existence amidst this hazard. Our focus lies on (but not limited to) the following developments:
1. Climate change, particularly GLOFs and effects on agriculture, physical, social and economic infrastructure.
2. Exponential increase in tourism, and sustainable ways of managing the influx.
3. Rapid development due to CPEC and other initiatives
We tried to engage with all three in detail and built a picture of how they affect nature, society and culture, and the overall ecology, both locally and downstream, with a view to developing pragmatic, holistic proposals for the regions future.