From Nomadness to Madness: Looking with Concern into the Environmental Impact of the 4th Nomadic Festival in Korzok
- Aparajita Goswami
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 8 hours ago
The 4th Nomadic Festival, held on the banks of Tso Moriri Lake near the village of Korzok, was the first time we attended this event. Tso Moriri is a high-altitude glacial lake, surrounded by wetlands and rich in wildlife. It is a designated Ramsar site, one of only 100 such sites in India, protected for its ecosystem and biodiversity.
Our primary intention in attending the Nomadic Festival was to see how the waste generated at the event was being managed—or rather, mismanaged. From past experience, we were aware that waste generated from such large-scale events is usually burnt or buried in pits. Stories from last year’s Nomadic Festival spoke of massive littering at the event venue. So, this year, the choice of venue—on the banks of Tso Moriri Lake, in an area known as Lpal Do, on the way to Chumur village—aroused our utmost interest and concern.
The two-day event drew a crowd of around 2,000+ cars, with no headcount available, according to unofficial estimates by locals tracking the entry-fee area. Tents were pitched in a large semi-circle at the venue and cars were parked all around. A large cluster of tents were also pitched away from the venue, on meadows meant for animal grazing.
Arrangements and Amenities at the Festival What struck us first was a government waste collection vehicle, with separate compartments for dry and wet waste, stationed at the venue. It announced that “waste should not be littered at the venue, but should be disposed of in the truck, from where it will be taken to a government waste management facility, sorted into different categories, and used or processed further.”
It was a somewhat positive sight. Though, once again, we knew from experience that many such clean-ups are merely an eyewash, with the waste eventually burnt or dumped in a pit. Yet the fact remained that, for two days, the truck stood there, changing its position from one side of the event space to another. On the whole, things looked encouraging.
Assuming that the waste collected by the truck would be taken to the nearest government Solid Waste Management Centre (SRMC), as claimed in the announcement, we took a break from the event and drove to the facility in Puga village, about 50 km from Korzok—about an hour’s drive away.
The last time we visited this SRMC, it had not started functioning yet. This time, however, we saw some waste inside its shed and what appeared to be newly arrived machinery lying outside. We took this as a positive sign and told ourselves that there was good reason to believe that the waste collected at the festival would actually be brought here.
Solid Resource Management Centre (SRMC) in Puga, 50 kms from Korzok, which is supposed to provide waste collection services to Korzok village.
Back at the event, other things we noticed did not seem quite as encouraging, such as liquid waste disposal. The professional caterers cooking food for government officials and their staff had dug a pit and were throwing liquid waste into it. But, of course, even here, as one can expect, within the very first hour we noticed plastic wrappers going into the pit meant only for liquid waste. The catering vendors and the food stalls were also leaving quite a trail of food waste in their surroundings: scraps of bread and vegetable peels.
The toilet situation was rather dismal. For a giant crowd that the event organisers had managed to attract, the bathrooms were far too few, far too makeshift and unhygienic to offer much comfort. We seriously wondered what it would have taken to direct some of the event funds towards sanitation, rather than putting the bulk of them into creating a sophisticated stage at a Ramsar site.
We already felt a mild discomfort as we could see the same mismanagement that directly impacted the environment.
Then came the pika.
Food and liquid waste disposal in pits (left) and makeshift toilets at the event venue (right).
A Fatal Incident at the Festival
While taking some footage of littered food waste, we noticed a little animal, called Pika scientifically and Zabra in Ladakhi, chewing on a piece of carrot. Pikas are tiny high-altitude herbivores with very sensitive digestive systems. Since wildlife conservationists advise us not to feed any wildlife, we felt this sight was worth capturing: the wildlife was feeding on food that had been littered as waste.
No sooner had we started filming this rabbit-like animal than we realised that it was standing directly within the range of the archery game. To make matters worse, the target was marked on a low stone on the ground. Two arrows flew past the animal. One landed solidly within a metre of it, just missing him.
We looked on nervously while the archery organisers called out to us, amidst the loud music, to move out of the archers’ range. We took a few steps back, and the pika also hopped away, much to our relief.
Our phone camera found him again. He took another large hop and landed near the wheel of a parked car. At that very instant, the car moved ahead. The pika was crushed to death, just like that, in front of our eyes.
We had come to the event looking for signs of waste mismanagement, and this scene left us at a loss for words. We had managed to capture the fate of only one wild animal. Who knows how many others were affected during the two-day event, set up next to a pristine lake, right in the middle of a meadow with hundreds of wildlife burrows?
We called out to the man who had asked us to move and showed him the dead pika, still in disbelief. He responded with indifference and instead suggested we try the game of archery. We sat silently for some time to reflect on the strange juxtaposition of events unfolding in front of us – the shock and uneasiness of witnessing the pika’s death while the crowd around us continued with the festivities.
There was continuous movement of vehicles on the meadow, and loud music played all night until early morning hours. What could the pikas be doing for two long days when their home–the meadow–was taken over by people for an event?
“Nomadic Spirit” at the Festival
Circled around the festival grounds were exhibit tents from different villages of the Changthang region. They showcased the typical interiors of a nomad family’s tent, called rebo, including a prayer altar, handwoven woollen rugs, utensils made from metal and stone, staple foods like roasted barley, and hand tools used in processing wool.
Only a few tents had handicrafts made from wool on sale, such as rugs and shawls. Thus, income generation for the exhibitors was clearly not a motive of the festival. And how could it be, because nomadic families are not producers of finished goods; hence, they do not, as such, have products to sell directly to customers.
The people manning the exhibit tents were dressed in traditional attire, showcasing the uniqueness and ruggedness of the nomadic way of life. The tents and the people within them certainly drew the awe of the tourists, who were enjoying their time sitting in the tents and photographing all that they saw. Tourist presence at the event was not too high, though; the bulk of the crowd consisted of local people themselves.
This made us wonder about what the concept of the event was, organised as it was by the Tourism Department as one of its many tourism-promoting activities across Ladakh.
The nomadic communities are currently facing some of the greatest challenges in terms of the degradation and loss of pasturelands, and the low value of their produce—Pashmina and other types of wool. Even though the nomads rear the animals at the cost of tremendous human labour, their income from the sale of their produce remains limited, as the prices of the various types of wool are determined by the wool cooperatives and collectives, and these prices are fixed and locked for the time being. But the same raw materials, once turned into finished products by brands and designers, sell in national and international markets at sky-high prices.
If this festival was a celebration of the ‘nomadic spirit’, as printed on the event posters, then the truth about the nomads is that theirs is a disappearing way of life. While Pashmina and wool products from Ladakh are increasingly gaining popularity, the hardships of the people at the bottom of the supply chain remain unknown and untold, and they do not receive rightful returns for their precious raw materials.
Thus, the display of tents, with smiling faces of women and old men, struck us as incorrectly conveying the realities of the nomadic communities. But for these two days, the impression given to outsiders was that all was well.
Fast-forward to the End of Day Two
The VIPs had left. The speeches and big talks about funds—which we often hear at events and meetings ever since Ladakh became a Union Territory—were over. The fun and frolic had ended. The tents and cars were gone.
The waste collection truck that had spent two days collecting waste was now supposed to transport it to the nearest government waste management facility, which, if we may remind you again, was in Puga—where, according to the announcement from the vehicle, the waste would be segregated into different categories and channelled in different ways...
...That waste collection truck was tipped onto the festival ground. The ground along the banks of a glacial lake. The high-altitude wetland. The Ramsar site. The home of the pikas.
The heap of waste was set on fire, as is common in such remote locations, so that no evidence remained—except in the handheld cameras of some unsuspecting onlookers.
All of this, in spite of the fact that the new Solid Waste Management Rules, 2026, of the Government of India prohibit the open dumping and burning of solid waste, and the Supreme Court has issued directions for the strict implementation of these rules. Who are all these rules for? When government departments want to organise an event, graced by their own high officials, then apparently, no rules apply.
What is the True Cost of the Festival?
On the way back from the festival, we felt bad about the tragic death of the pika who was innocently roaming in its home, and so we stopped to photograph all the little pikas along the way who had been crushed on the road under the wheels of vehicles.
We had seen crushed pikas on this route in the past, but this time the numbers were distressingly higher due to the movement of those 2,000 or so vehicles, speeding along to make their way to the great Nomadic Festival.
At least a dozen pikas lay crushed on the road on the approach to Tso Moriri Lake–and no one seemed to mind.
What is the rationale behind all of this? How does our local administration come up with plans for organising giant events in ecologically fragile, supposedly protected areas—wildlife areas, wetland areas, sacred areas, and what not?
Was the Wildlife Department consulted about this? If they consented to the selection of the venue, they must be held accountable. They are answerable to the local community for the destruction of wildlife and pollution caused by waste, especially when the event appears to have no tangible value for the nomadic herder communities, except for them to come together and enjoy themselves for two days in a row.
If the event boosted tourism in the area for two days, the nomadic herders were not the economic beneficiaries, as they are not involved in tourism businesses. If the event will boost tourism in the region in the long run, they still may not stand to benefit from it, as their lives revolve around the mountains, seasons, animals, and tents. In other words, what do nomads have to do with tourism, except, of course, if they give up nomadism and set up tourism businesses, as several have done, much to the detriment of the pastoralist way of life?
If the Wildlife Department did not give consent or was not consulted, then the onus still lies with them: how is it not their business when other government departments enter protected areas and conduct large-scale public events with intentions and outcomes that are not clear and convincing?
The onus equally lies with the organising departments—in this case, the Tourism Department and its executive agency, the Ladakh Academy of Art, Culture, and Languages (LAACL)—for organising two days of fun and frolic at the cost of significant wildlife deaths and a lasting environmental footprint.
Our Concluding Thoughts
Once again, from past experience, we know that many of these events are organised to so-called ‘utilise’ funds, which simply means to spend available funds, so that government departments can show on their report card to authorities higher than them that ‘they did their job’.
The questions that demand an answer: Who gave permission to organise such an event on a wetland next to the lake? Who allowed hundreds of vehicles to enter the wetland area? Who is responsible for the affected wildlife? Who is responsible for the mismanagement of the solid waste and wastewater generated during the event? Are the nomadic communities the real beneficiaries of the two-day festival? What was the funding of the event?
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