The nomadic herders of the central Himalayas today face a double threat. Pastures are increasingly fenced off to accommodate plantations, and it has become extremely difficult for them to sell their woolen goods at decent prices. Shepherds of the local Bhotia ethnic group [proche culturellement du Tibet, avec lequel elle a commercé jusqu’à la fermeture de la frontière, en 1950] must also pay increasingly high grazing fees to the Regional Forestry Office, while traditional grazing areas are gradually shrinking.
The bhotia village of Bagori, in Uttarakhand (a state in northeastern India, bordering Nepal), is just 25 kilometers from the source of the Ganges, the country’s longest and holiest river. . In the fall, the shepherds leave the pastures located at the very top, at the level of the border with Tibet, to reach this hamlet, at nearly 2,700 meters above sea level. They then go down to spend the winter at the foot of the mountains, to find fodder for their animals and sell the coats, sweaters, shawls, hats and blankets they have made in the village. Then, when spring arrives, they return to the heights.
A suspended grazing right
But this ancestral nomadic way of life is now under threat, as the Bhotias face a drastic reduction in their space, whether upstream or downstream from Bagori. The Bhotias have been grazing their herds for years in the grasslands of Chorpani, a village further down the valley, said Rajendra Singh Negi, a 60-year-old shepherd who stayed in the village for the winter. They also have “received” to bear witness to this, the first of which date back to 1964.
“When we arrived in Chorpani last November, we discovered that the Forestry Office had planted trees there. Impossible to graze”, he laments.
“There was a time when more than 50 families let their animals graze in this area. This year, there were only seven of us, and none of us were able to set up our herds.”
The receipts Rajendra speaks of relate to old fees paid for the use of land owned by the Forestry Authority. New permits are issued to shepherds each year, provided they have a receipt from the previous year. The amount is fixed according to the size of the herd.
Jaimohan Singh Rana is a shepherd in Fitari, a village west of Bagori, and has also experienced similar setbacks with the administration in Mussoorie. “The Forestry Office used to give us nearly 8 000 hectares in winter, but in 2011-2012, the authorities of the