China-India border conflict can be resolved with Himalaya nature reserve, says scientist

Indian environmentalist argues rare wildlife under threat as both countries build infrastructure along contested border

Ecology trumps geopolitics as Himalaya rivers supply water to more than 1 billion people, scientist says

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An Indian fighter jet flies over Leh, the joint capital of the union territory of Ladakh, on June 26, 2020. India acknowledged for the first time on June 25 that it has matched China in massing troops at their contested Himalayan border region after a deadly clash this month. The Himalayas region, which includes Mount Everest, is home to endangered animals. Photo: Agence France-Presse

Published: 7:00pm, 30 Jun 2020Updated: 7:46pm, 30 Jun 2020

China and India could resolve their deadly border conflict in the Himalayas by turning all the disputed areas into a nature reserve, an Indian scientist wrote in Nature magazine.

Maharaj Pandit, a professor of environmental science at the University of Delhi, said both India and China were building roads and other infrastructure that were destroying the flora and fauna in the Himalayan mountain range, according to the article published on June 23.

Pandit cited examples such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a “flagship” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative according to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, as well as the Indian Border Roads Organisation that began building a road close to the border with China in April 2019.

Analysts say the strategic implications of these infrastructure projects has irked both sides and contributed to the current conflict at the border, known as the Line of Actual Control. Pandit wrote that neither side wanted war, and efforts from conservationists to establish nature reserves in the Himalayas should be considered as a possible diplomatic solution to the border conflicts.

The Himalayas region, which includes Mount Everest, is home to endangered animals such as the snow leopard and musk deer and stretches 2,410km (1,500 miles) across several countries, including China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bhutan. Pandit’s vision for a giant nature reserve would require the cooperation of all these nations, he said.

“I want to extend the discussion to the entire mountainous region of the Himalaya, the Trans-Himalaya and Hengduan mountains in China and the mountain ranges of Indo-Burmese region,” Pandit told the South China Morning Post in an interview.

“These are three most critical global biodiversity hotspots of immense conservation significance and share millions of years of biotic exchanges,” he said.

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