(30 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ladakh, India – 07 July 2025
1. Various of a herder walking with yaks
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ladakh, India – 08 July 2025
2. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Thering Norphel, former yak herder:
“These mountains here are now completely barren, earlier it used to be covered with snow (this time of the year) unlike now when only rocks are showing. That is why the number of yaks has depleted due to lack of snow and water during summers resulting in barely any grass.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ladakh, India – 07 July 2025
3. Various of Kunzang Angmo, a yak herder, walking with her son towards yak
4. Various of Angmo milking a yak
5. SOUNDBITE (Ladakhi) Kunzang Angmo, yak herder:
“Earlier, there were a lot of yaks, but now there aren’t as many. There isn’t as much grass available as there used to be. It used to snow a lot before, but now the snowfall is decreasing, and due to less water, we have less grass available.”
6. Mid of Angmo cooking in her tent
7. Wide of a yak herder carrying away a yak hide for drying
8. Various of a woman weaving a blanket outside her tent
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ladakh, India – 08 July 2025
9. Wide of Tsering Angchok, yak herder, outside of a tent
10. Mid of Angchok entering a tent
11. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Tsering Angchok, yak herder:
“Earlier we used to be 8-10 (families) who used to pitch similar tents, we used to stay in these tents only there was no other arrangement. Many have died due to age and their children did not care for them. Now I am all alone here."
12. Mid of a woman sieving curd using cheesecloth
13. Various of a woman milking a yak
14. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Punchuk Namdol, yak herder:
“I learned yak herding here as there isn’t much else to do here, I take care of yaks, sheep, and goats. The practice of herding has reduced considerably as children want to study, they go away, and this is a very laborious work. So, the number of yaks have reduced as well as its caretakers.”
15. Various of yaks grazing
16. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Thering Norphel, former yak herder:
“It is getting difficult now (to find people for yak herding) as people go away to work in army and children go for studies, slowly yaks will become extinct.”
17. Various of yaks grazing
STORYLINE:
Carrying her 1-year-old son on her back, Tsering Dolma herds a dozen yaks into a stone-walled corral as evening approaches in the desolate mountains of India’s remote Ladakh region.
A few herders tending livestock are the only people visible for miles on the wind-swept plains where patchy grass gives way to gravelly foothills and stony peaks. For generations, herders such as Dolma have relied on snowmelt that trickled down the mountain folds to sustain the high-altitude pastures where their herds graze. But now, herders say, the snow and rain are less predictable, and there is less grass for yaks to eat.
Much of the herding, milking and gathering of wool is done by women in Ladakh, an area near Tibet that was part of the ancient Silk Route. It’s work mostly done by hand.
In another valley, Kunzias Dolma is busy making tea with yak milk and checking her yak butter, while spinning her Buddhist prayer wheel with her right hand. The 73-year-old, who’s not related to Tsering Dolma, has spent her life around yaks, working long hours to make products from their milk and sewing blankets from their wool.
But that way of life is threatened as climate change makes Ladakh less hospitable to yaks and many in the younger generation seek other jobs.
AP Video by Rishi Lekhi
Produced by Julián Trejo Bax
___
AP Video by Dar Yasin
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