e-Bulletin

Message from programme coordinator

Dear friends,

Greetings from ICIMOD, Kathmandu!

It always brings me great joy to share updates about our activities with friends and partners in research and development. This bulletin issue recaps our activities from January to June 2022.

During this time, we organised three training events for our partners, engaged with key stakeholders on promoting sustainable hydropower development in Nepal, and continued regular field data expeditions with our partners. We also brought together permafrost experts to discuss the strategy for monitoring permafrost in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. The group is currently developing a comprehensive strategy for monitoring permafrost in the region.

Several high-impact publications continue to be published based on the data collected during the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition. We were happy to interact with leading scientists involved in the expedition and learn about the effects of climate change on the world’s highest mountain during our first bi-annual CryoDisussion webinar of 2022.

I am pleased to report that as we work towards enhancing cryosphere research in the region, our scientists are constantly producing materials to inform the public about the significance of the research, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with local communities, and the need to address social issues in mountain communities. My colleague, Tenzing Sherpa, and I wrote an Op-ed highlighting the importance of monitoring glaciers at higher elevations, which was published in the Kathmandu Post.

While a steady inflow of visitors to any mountain community helps strengthen the local economy, it increases pressure on already fragile mountain ecosystems. My colleagues Sunita Chaudhary and Finu Shrestha wrote about the growing waste issue in the Langtang National Park and called for holistic waste management through their Op-Ed published in Nepali Times.

I would also like to direct your attention to a blog written by my colleagues, Tenzing Sherpa and Chimi Seldon, that emphasises the importance of collaborating with local communities when researching mountain areas, which not only contributes to the sustainability of research practices but also taps into the vast store of traditional knowledge that can complement scientific effort.

Finally, we have Arbindra Khadka as our ‘Researcher in the Spotlight’ for this issue. Khadka is a PhD scholar at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development and a visiting PhD scholar at ICIMOD. He was part of the team of scientists who installed the automatic weather station at Bishop’s Rock (8810 masl), close to the summit of Mt Everest, in May 2022.

We hope you enjoy going through our updates and continue following our work. We share our progress regularly on our website and social media (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) using the handle #cryospherewednesday. The data we collect and the journal papers we publish are open access; they are regularly updated on HimalDoc and the Regional Database System. Please check them regularly.

Thank you for your continued support. If you have any comments and suggestions, write to us at info@icimod.org.

Best regards,
Miriam Jackson
Program Coordinator
Cryosphere Initiative
ICIMOD