One of the most populous areas on earth, South Asia is rich in its production of food commodities and, as per World Bank estimates, over 70 per cent of the region’s population dwells in rural areas where agriculture is their livelihood. Unfortunately, this sizable food production might be under threat if the unprecedented rate of retreat of the gigantic glaciers in the region is not arrested.

In the years 2000-2001, Pakistan has faced severe food scarcity due to diminished rains in Balochistan and Sindh. The famine affected around 1.2 million people in 26 districts; 127 people died in Sindh. The Nushki district of Balochistan had not seen a single drop of rain in five years, which claimed two million livestock. Then, in late July 2010, the country was suddenly inundated by floods. The rains were unprecedented since it was a cloud burst at the Himalayas.

Glacial retreat is a phenomenon scientists normally attribute to global warming caused by escalating greenhouse gases resulting from deforestation and burning fossil fuels.

Climatologist Arshad Abbasi says, “Most of the glaciers like Siachen are losing their ice more rapidly because of human activity, and more critically the excessive dependence of countries like China on coal-based energy”. Abbasi claims that the coal India is using to meet up to 70 per cent of its energy needs contain 30-40 per cent ash content while international standards do not permit this content to be over eight to 10 per cent.

But there may be a more direct way that we humans are accelerating the melting of the glaciers. Abbasi says, “One cannot rule out human activity on glaciers.”

Siachen with its unique human activity at its summit bearing 40,000 Indians and one battalion of Pakistani troops, as per ISPR — the only battlefield at such an altitude in the world — has experienced enormous military development in the past 30 years to maintain logistic supplies to their military camps.

“This is a very sad story; they have developed so many preliminary infrastructures like ports and helipads, and for the supply of kerosene oil, they laid down a 165km long pipeline”, shares Abbasi. He asserted that environmentalists of both the countries are consistent in demanding that this region be declared a ‘peace park’ because confronting each other at every five kilometres is madness.

In 1999, the Indian government engaged Military Engineering Services to estimate the quantum of glacier melt which revealed that their military presence is a death knell for the Siachen since satellite images confirmed cracks in Saltoro Ridge. A number of lakes have emerged from the glacier; clear evidence of its accelerating melt.

Pakistan is already a water-stressed country which carries huge implications for the lives of the 70 per cent population directly dependent on agriculture. Qazi Sajjad, a farmer who cultivates wheat in Rajanpur told us that the authorities stopped supplying water in the exclusive Dajal canal in 2008. As a result, wheat cultivation on thousands of acres was destroyed and in the next three years, annual crop production dropped by a significant 40-50 per cent.

Punjab Water Council’s director Rabia Sultan attributes this to shrinking water share between provinces due to decreasing water table in the Indus river, corresponding to its increased usage. “This is the reason we may not achieve our wheat productivity target of 2012-13 in Punjab”, she said.

A regional strategy is the need of the hour to combat future threats of climate change as discussed in the recently held Climate Change Conference in Islamabad. Pakistan and India have yet to decide whether to fight more wars on water to harm glacial treasures or to protect them so as to ensure prosperity of their agriculture and food security of the region.