What the Mountains Can Teach Us: A Dangerous Climate Lesson Pakistan Can No Longer Ignore

What the mountains can teach us is not a poetic question — it is a policy challenge Pakistan can no longer afford to ignore. The recent debate in the National Assembly over the cutting of a few thousand paper mulberry trees in Islamabad came as a rare and pleasant surprise. Members from across the political divide expressed concern, signalling that parliament may finally be paying attention to substantive public interest issues rather than symbolic gestures.

If genuine, this concern must be expanded into a national conversation on the accelerating environmental degradation unfolding across Pakistan’s ecological chain — from the melting glaciers of Gilgit-Baltistan to the floodplains of the Indus basin.

Parliament’s Wake-Up Call on Environmental Neglect

The reaction to the tree-cutting incident revealed something deeper: a growing public anxiety over environmental collapse. While urban tree loss is visible and emotive, it represents only a fraction of Pakistan’s ecological emergency. Far more dangerous is the silent destruction of mountain ecosystems that regulate water, climate, and food security for the entire country.

Pakistan does not merely face a climate challenge; it stands at the front lines of the global climate crisis.

Pakistan at the Front Lines of Climate Breakdown

Glaciers are retreating at alarming speeds. Floods are becoming deadlier and less predictable. Water scarcity is intensifying, while weather patterns that sustained the Indus basin for centuries are collapsing. Governments respond with reports, donor-funded projects, and international pledges — yet disasters continue to escalate in frequency and intensity.

What remains absent from policy discourse is a simple truth: the land that is now Pakistan once possessed a functioning climate civilisation of its own.

A Forgotten Climate Civilisation in the Mountains

For over 2,000 years, communities in Gilgit-Baltistan — particularly Baltistan, Gilgit, and Chilas — survived in one of the world’s harshest environments with remarkable stability. Long before Buddhism and Islam, the region followed an indigenous belief system known as Bön.

This was not merely a religion. It was a comprehensive environmental philosophy.

Nature was understood as morally alive. Mountains, glaciers, rivers, forests, and wildlife were not resources to be exploited but participants in a shared living system. Protection of nature was a collective moral responsibility, not an administrative function.

Indigenous Environmental Governance Before Modern Policy

What modern experts now call environmental governance existed organically in these societies.

• Upper watersheds were sacred and protected
• Glacier zones were restricted
• Forest use was regulated
• Grazing followed strict seasonal cycles
• Hunting was controlled
• Community enforcement ensured compliance

Violating nature meant violating social norms. Accountability was cultural, not bureaucratic.

Seasonal Festivals as Climate Regulation Systems

At the heart of this system were seasonal festivals, which structured life in the mountains. Events such as May Fang (December 21) and Nauroz were not symbolic celebrations — they were regulatory mechanisms.

• May Fang reinforced survival discipline during harsh winters
• Nauroz reset agricultural schedules, irrigation systems, land use, and social contracts
• Other rituals governed pasture access, glacier protection during peak melt, harvest storage, and famine preparation

Society moved in rhythm with ecology, not against it.

Even today, these traditions survive among diaspora communities, preserving a living memory of ecological order.

Islam and the Ethical Reinforcement of Ecology

When Buddhism arrived, and later Islam, this environmental civilisation was not destroyed — it was ethically transformed.

Islam reinforced environmental discipline with extraordinary clarity. The Quran warns humanity not to “transgress the balance” of nature and appoints humans as stewards of creation. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) forbade waste of water even beside a flowing river and declared planting a tree an act of charity.

In the mountains, Islamic ethics merged seamlessly with existing ecological customs, strengthening conservation through moral obligation.

How Modern Development Dismantled Mountain Wisdom

This balance collapsed over the past 60 years.

• Roads, dams, mining, and unregulated construction erased sacred geography
• Seasonal rules collapsed under market pressures
• Community authority weakened under centralised administration
• Nature lost moral meaning and became raw material

Mountain towns are now sprawling, unplanned settlements discharging toxic waste into pristine streams.

Climate Consequences of Ignoring the North

The consequences are devastating:

• Accelerated glacier melt
• Intensifying floods
• Drying springs
• Rising food insecurity
• Escalating conflicts over water and land

This is not a regional issue. Pakistan’s entire climate future depends on its mountainous north, yet policy continues to neglect it.

What the Mountains Can Teach Us About Climate Governance

What the mountains can teach us is that climate resilience cannot rely on technical planning alone.

Lesson 1: Culture Is Climate Infrastructure

People protect what they believe in. Environmental law works only when anchored in social values and enforced by communities.

Lesson 2: Ecology Is Seasonal

Nature functions in cycles. Treating resources as permanently available is a dangerous illusion.

Lesson 3: Communities Are Not Obstacles

Indigenous institutions are foundations of sustainability, not barriers to development.

A New Direction for Pakistan’s Climate Policy

Pakistan’s climate policy must undergo a fundamental shift:

• Localised, culturally grounded environmental governance
• Protected climate zones in watersheds and glacier buffers
• Valley-level councils regulating grazing, forestry, and water
• Indigenous festivals integrated into disaster planning
• Education restoring the moral relationship with nature

For guidance, Pakistan can look to UNEP climate adaptation frameworks and IPCC mountain ecosystem assessments.

Learning From Our Own Civilisation

The mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan are not relics of a backward past. They are a library of climate knowledge, written over centuries of coexistence with glaciers, avalanches, droughts, and floods.

Pakistan can continue importing climate solutions from abroad — or it can relearn from its own civilisation.

The choice will determine the future of its rivers, farms, cities, and survival itself.