Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
Who owns the common land?
The shift to clean energy appears to be coming at the cost of those who rely on these pastures. The herders have no ownership papers, no legal recognition of their rights over land where their livestock have grazed for centuries. These are common lands. Under the law, the local council — in this case the LAHDC — must agree to hand them over to the government and it has done so. Without land titles, nomads fear displacement without compensation.
“This isn’t barren land,” Thargies says, pointing to the plains where Tibetan wild asses drink from large puddles. “It’s our home. If they take it, they take our future too.”
The LAHDC’s agreement empowers the Ladakh government to hand all the land to SECI without considering the impact on people who depend on it. “They say there’s no question of rehabilitation because we don’t own any village,” says Thargies. “But we belong to this land. We keep moving across Changthang all year, following our herds and hearts.”
Like Thargies, most Changpas (as the herders are called) have no land deeds. They follow ancient migration patterns, passing on oral knowledge and lived experience. Without legal documents, their ties to the land are being ignored.
An international study on pastoralism and large-scale energy projects notes that across Africa, Asia and Latin America, solar and hydrogen schemes often bypass traditional communities, disrupting grazing access without consultation or consent. This phenomenon is known as “green grabbing”, seizing land in the name of climate goals. The report argues that such actions violate international human rights, including the right to land, livelihood and cultural survival.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted in 2007, calls for protecting indigenous communities’ political, economic and spiritual systems, especially their rights to traditional lands and resources.
In these pastures, those rights are under pressure. “Our life is tied to the land. We don’t worship money. We worship mountains, wind, water,” says Thinless Norbu, a herder from Debring. “If you take the land, you take our culture, gods and stories from us. This community can’t survive that.”
Norbu sees the land not as a commodity but as a sacred partner. Life here is adapted to the extreme climate: poor soil, thin air, wild temperature swings. The Changpas have survived here for centuries through inherited knowledge like how to pitch a tent before a snowstorm, navigate dry winters, shear goats without damaging their fleece and remain content in this terrain.
Military build-up, road construction and expanding tourism have already eaten into this pastoral life, according to a 2012 study. The renewable energy project threatens to accelerate this disruption.
Only three major nomadic communities remain in eastern Ladakh, in Samad-Rakchan, Korzok and Kharnak. Some younger families have moved to villages or taken government jobs, but most still depend on livestock, especially the pashmina trade. With thousands of acres earmarked for other use, they are under unprecedented strain.
On the way to Kharnak, a group of nomads rests by a rivulet, discussing the looming project. “We have no information about this scheme,” says Tondup, a herder. “There are about 15 families in one place in Kharnak with 7,000 pashmina goats, sheep and yaks. We just want to preserve our life, livestock and culture.”
The anger is building. In Pang and even in Leh, many locals say the process behind the renewable energy land deal has been anything but transparent.
Seeking justice
“No one knows how this land was allotted and on what terms and conditions,” says Sonam Wangchuk, Ladakh’s most prominent climate activist. At his Himalayan Institute of Alternatives Ladakh, in Phyang around 20 km from Leh, Wangchuk shares his experiences and knowledge about climate action. “If the LAHDC isn’t disclosing how it handed over thousands of acres, it may have broken the law.”
Wangchuk says the LAHDC has weakened over the years, though it once had real autonomy. “Back then, the Council had teeth. Now it’s being sidelined,” he says.
He is not opposed to clean energy. “I support moving beyond coal and diesel. But this isn’t the way to do it,” he says. “If Ladakh can supply solar power to the rest of India, it’s great news. But not by wiping out a traditional way of life that has survived for thousands of years.”
Herders, he says, are being pushed into a corner, with no clear answers. “Some are being offered jobs or infrastructure. Others are told their goats can continue grazing, but it’s all verbal. There’s no paper, no law backing it. How do you trust that?”
He suspects the promised grazing area will be no more than 10 per cent of the space used for panels, with the rest fenced off. “Once the panels are in place, that land will be fenced. There’s no way they’ll let goats roam near high-value infrastructure.”
Repeated RTI queries to SECI and the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) about grazing rights have gone unanswered. SECI officials say they are still finalising designs.
A possible win-win?
“We’re considering both standard photovoltaic and agri-photovoltaic models,” a SECI official in New Delhi says, requesting anonymity. “The Agri-PV model involves installing panels on elevated structures, about three feet high, so that grazing or limited agriculture can happen underneath.”
Agri-PV is common in Europe, where farming and grazing happen among solar panels and wind towers. Several pilot projects have begun in India.
But there’s a catch. “Agri-PV needs more steel and logistics,” the official adds. “In Ladakh’s terrain, transporting materials from mainland India is costly. That drives up the entire project’s cost.”
Since 2018, SECI teams have visited Ladakh over a hundred times for research and risk assessments. “We’re studying the climate extremes like landslides, flash floods, cloudbursts,” the official says. “All that has to be factored into how we install and protect these panels.”
Wangchuk warns that technical fixes do not address Ladakh’s deeper vulnerabilities. He estimates the full-scale project would need around 60,000 workers for operations and maintenance, about a quarter of Ladakh’s population.
“The standard rule is two to three people per megawatt after installation,” he says. “That includes engineers, guards and support staff. During construction, the numbers balloon. There will be hundreds of thousands of workers.”
Locals fear the pressure this influx will bring. “Ladakh’s carrying capacity is limited. Its water, waste systems and fragile ecosystem can’t absorb this kind of human influx,” Wangchuk says. “The worry isn’t just environmental. It’s about who gets to stay. If workers settle down and claim domicile, it changes our culture, politics and future.”
As bulldozers roll into Pang and rows of polyester tents for workers rise along ancient grazing trails, many here feel they’re being asked to sacrifice too much for a solar future offering little in return. “We are not against development,” Wangchuk says. “We’re against being invisibilised and erased in the name of development.”
Shifting project, threatened lives
The clean energy project looms over a fragile economy and it’s not the first time. “This solar project isn’t new,” says Gyurmet Dorjee, a representative of the Changpas. “It started in 2013, when Ladakh was part of Jammu & Kashmir and Farooq Abdullah was Union Minister for Renewable Energy. It was supposed to be set up in Hanle.”
The community then proposed three conditions: free electricity for Ladakh, jobs for locals and half the project’s revenue invested in local welfare. “Nothing came of it. The project was shelved. This new version was revived after 2019. And this time, nobody asked us anything.”
Dorjee believes LAHDC shifted the site from Hanle to Skyang-Chu-Thang. “If they take this much land here,” he says, “they should give us land in Delhi. Let them turn the old Parliament building into a museum of our culture. At least then, the country will know what it erased and who we were.”
He points to a contradiction: “On one hand, pashmina is GI tagged and sold as a national pride and brand worldwide. On the other, the land producing it is being taken away.”
“This isn’t just about income,” says Thinless Norbu, watching his animals nibble at dry grass. “We only know how to rear goats. That’s our skill, our tradition. If they take that away, they’re not just stealing land. They’re erasing our existence.”
As the sun dips behind jagged ridges, the wind rises over the open plains. Thargies gathers his goats into a wire enclosure, then walks to his rebo, the cone-shaped yak-wool tent that’s been his home for decades. Inside, a kettle steams over a wood stove. Outside, stars scatter across the sky.
Ladakh may light up India’s clean energy future. But as the goats settle for the night and the wind whips through empty meadows, the question remains: can its oldest way of life survive?
“I don’t know what happens next,” Thargies says, pulling a coarse blanket over his shoulders. “But I know this land knows us. And we know it. You can’t just trade that for power.”
Reporting for this project was supported by a grant from Earth Journalism Network.
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.