In Our Care

At Jipo Tso, we met an elderly man. He spoke of the lake, the snow-covered mountains around it, and his family’s life here across three generations.

"My family has lived here for three generations now. These mountains and waters have always been clean.

The elders used to say that on the eighth day of each lunar month, the sounds of drums and conch horns would ring out by the lake. That is what has been passed down to us. Even now, we sometimes hear the sounds of horns and drumming.

Over the years, we have seen the mountains change. In the previous generation’s time, the snowline was much lower, and there was far more snow and ice. As the climate has changed, the glaciers have melted year after year, and the snowline has slowly moved higher.

We have lived here for generations. We hope the lake and grasslands will stay as clean as they once were. Every year, people come from different places, and sometimes rubbish is left by the lake. Whoever leaves it, if we see it, we collect it, load it onto a vehicle, and take it to a place where it can be properly disposed of.”

The landscape has its own time; we have our lifetimes. While this place is in our care, we do what we can to protect it.