Documentation & Conservation of the Himalayan Horses

Along the trails of the most treacherous and lengthy trade routes on earth, where many horses and horsemen have lost their lives, I have painstakingly been travelling the Himalaya and weaving together narratives of an uncertain land. The harsh, rugged region engulfed by the sacred peaks of Kailash Parbat in Upper Tibet and lower Nepal, is the birthplace of austere horses and the Himalayan cowboys. 

Several years ago, I started travelling with horse trading caravans to the most isolated, extreme passes on earth. Today, both the horses and the men riding them are like family to me. Understanding their way of life and creating a future for it has become the focus of all my work here. 

Tales of the horse herders have barely ever made it beyond these close-knit communities. Thousands of ethnic Himalayan herders live and die on horseback. The unusual stories and secrets of horse behavior are known only to these highland men, among the last of their kind to roam the vast grasslands.⁠ 

I have meticulously built a grassroots conservation project over the last four years from Kathmandu to study and support the nomadic horse herders of Nepal. My special focus is on the fast-disappearing ponies from the areas of Northern Nepal, around the holy Mt. Kailash, all the way down to South of Nepal, in valleys surrounding Mt. Everest.

Roads are now arriving in the remote Himalaya, areas like Humla, Dolpo, Dhorpatan, Manang etc., raising critical concerns over the survival of the now-threatened horses in previously inaccessible regions of Nepal.

Today, many horsemen suffer from poverty and debt, turning to desperate measures like alcoholism and domestic violence, eventually migrating for cheap labour work to Kathmandu.

Tractors are overtaking horses on the narrow mountain trails. Chinese sports bikes are cheaper than the horses.

Their traditional ponies are at risk; there has been no study or census on them, no research on horse conservation. Horse trading has come to a standstill after the Covid lockdowns.

Lack of affordable feed/water/supplies, especially during winter are severe challenges here. 

Predatory attacks of horses by snow leopards have grown up to an extent that the breeding of horses has largely been discontinued since a decade.

My project sheds a light on these important issues and laboriously records the legacies of the rich and unique Himalayan horse culture.

My aim is to incentivise local labour related to horses and to keep local expertise alive. By doing so, I wish to help promote and validate traditional

knowledge systems about Himalayan horse husbandry. 

I aspire to use indigenous knowledge and social change to preserve their ecological significance. This knowledge of the indigenous horse communities is vital to framing conservation efforts and has previously been rather undocumented in the wild.

Along with native horse herders of the Himalaya, I am designing practical interventions for making horse habitats healthier and more resilient.