India, Feb. 6 -- In Uttarakhand's mountain areas, people have always shared information about the environment through oral cultural systems instead of through official groups. Pahadi hymns and folk songs are an important source of ecological knowledge, but most people don't pay attention to them. These hymns are not only cultural expressions; they also provide interpretive frameworks for how communities have historically understood land use, forest governance, water management, and climatic risk.

Uttarakhand is dealing with more landslides, flash floods, forest destruction, and water shortages. By looking at these hymns, we can see how local environmental knowledge has been pushed aside in favour of technocratic development models.

Hymn...