Cultural Ecology in Action

by Ian Baker - 02/01/2010 15:36

The Himalaya present the most diverse range of environments on the planet, both geographically and culturally. Formed through the tectonic pressure of colliding landmasses, the Himalaya, as the Earth’s youngest mountain range, continue to rise, shaping the ecosystems and human communities that have emerged here over millennia. From glaciated peaks to arid, windswept plateaus, dense rainforests, and imposing river gorges, the Himalaya present an unrivaled range of environments. The cultures that have developed throughout this region are equally diverse and embody human possibilities currently threatened by an ever expanding global monoculture. The Himalayan Consensus represents an increasingly vital alternative to the 1989 Washington Consensus that proposed a set of economic policies that failed to accommodate indigenous societies or to prioritize the protection of the natural environments on which they and all humanity depend. With a paradigm of sustainable development emphasizing cultural over financial capital, Himalayan Consensus initiatives draw on the indigenous wisdom of native Himalayan communities and offer insight into adaptive strategies that are applicable in a wide range of contemporary social and cultural settings.

Throughout the Himalayan region, indigenous societies have developed in dynamic interaction with their environment and neighboring communities. As yak-herding nomads from the Tibetan plateau migrated down mountain ridges laden with high-altitude salt, they traded with sedentary, rice-growing communities with divergent economic structures, marital patterns, and myths and religions that reflected the differing ecosystems in which they lived. New syncretic, cultural paradigms emerged from the creative interdependence expressed along the trade and pilgrimage routes across the Himalayas. Yet with highways and centralized interests penetrating previously remote mountain fastnesses, ancient ways of life, languages, and beliefs are progressively being lost.

Himalayan Consensus projects preserve cultural heritage and identity while protecting local environments through sustainable co-evolved business initiatives that integrate traditional ways of life with modern market economies. This pattern of creative adaptation is implicit within Himalayan cultures and is similarly expressed within the ecosystems within which these cultures have emerged. From income generation and health care initiatives among high-altitude nomadic communities to architectural preservation projects and Montessori based schools in central Tibet and the world’s first Tibetan Medical Spa at Shambhala Source (Terdrom), Himalayan Consensus works actively to bring increased possibilities to marginalized communities and to integrate indigenous wisdom and perspectives, as well as products, into post-modern global civilization. The collaborative ventures initiated through Himalayan Consensus promote cultural identity and protect the natural resources of indigenous communities while empowering these communities culturally and economically. These initiatives simultaneously reveal that human wealth is not measurable merely in financial terms and that the global society we currently inhabit comes at the cost of a diminished range of human diversity that can nonetheless be reintroduced through effective and visionary action.

One of Himalayan Consensus’s 2010 projects focuses on revitalizing a displaced nomadic community in the Terdrom Valley northeast of Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa. This project will document the oral history of this high-altitude valley that, as a revered place of spiritual retreat, helped foster Tibet’s own unique form of Buddhism and yoga. The project will work actively to preserve traditional nomadic and contemplative ways of life that support the local ecosystem while advancing local artisan and medical traditions. The values exemplified by Terdrom’s indigenous communities will be shared through an associated cultural center, medical spa, and eco-lodge, aligned with National Geographic Society’s principle of ‘Geo-tourism’ which, analogous to the goals of Himalayan Consensus, promotes environmentally sustainable projects that enhance the lives of indigenous populations.

A further Himalayan Consensus project will be launched at the eastern end of the Himalayas in 2011. Drawing actively on the Tibetan tradition of beyul, or “hidden-land”, this project will seek to realize the idealized vision of human potential embodied in Tibetan accounts of remote regions of the Himalayas that nurtured the legends of Shambhala and Shangri-La. Situated in the Yangsang Valley in India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, this project will work initially to preserve the region’s vast wealth of botanical and animal species - including musk deer and Bengal tiger - through habitat conservation and sustainable cultivation of medicinal herbs. A training center for traditional Tibetan medicine will also serve as a Geo-tourism lodge integrating the Yangsang Valley’s tribal and Tibetan communities while developing herbal products and indigenous crafts for external markets. As innovative projects based on indigenous environmental and social ideals, both the Himalayan Consensus project in Terdrom and the one in the Yangsang Valley will invest in existing ethnic, social, and spiritual capital. They help nurture a sustainable future that merges indigenous knowledge with applied global citizenship and leads to new models for conservation, education, healthcare, and development based on traditional models and local human capital.

The Washington Consensus sought to dissolve diversity into a single paradigm for economic development. The Himalayan Consensus seeks models that emerge from the diverse geography and cultures of the Himalaya yet which are applicable globally as an alternative to standardized economic prescriptions. Culture educates us into ways that are most appropriate for a given physical and social environment. Cultural boundaries are porous, shifting, evolving. The word consensus in Himalayan Consensus does not imply an erosion of difference but rather an ideal of diversity. It implies a confluence of ideas, a widespread unanimity of opinion with the end result of harmony and accord. In the Himalayan world this consensus of cultures is shaped by the region’s ecological diversity and the patterns of adaptation that have developed in response. Sustainable development in accord with culture and environment is equally relevant outside the Himalayan region and the Himalayan Consensus promotes a view of society in which dynamic equilibrium is favored over conflict and competition. This egalitarian vision of life reveals how ancient wisdom and indigenous perspectives matter tremendously in the modern world. The projects initiated through the Himalayan Consensus propose viable ways out of our current global predicament. Through creative partnerships with like-minded individuals and institutions, both indigenous and modern, the Himalayan Consensus works avidly to realize humanity’s emerging dream of an economics in balance with nature and in alliance with the cultural wealth of traditional societies. In short, it proposes a model that honors the past so as to create a sustainable future for life in all its diverse expressions and possibilities.