Sandipa captures in her camera a heart-wrenching migration of a community forced to make survival choices due to the fury of nature. What we see through her work is an unavoidable, tough goodbye for those hoping of a better life. A fragile environment is breaking apart families who were never responsible for its change in the first place. Driven to take harsh steps in search of an unknown, “climate migrants are not only those who have lost their homes, but also those leaving their homeland to secure a safer future for their children,” Sandipa explains.
There is a staggering depletion of the age-old tradition of making Pashmina, an extremely fine type of cashmere wool derived from a special breed of goat found in high altitude. Freezing temperatures and dwindling pastures has forced the goat herders to make painful decisions, migrating to cities to escape the instability. Such is the condition in Ladakh, a Union Territory in the north of India, where environmental degradation affects the mountain dwellers deeply, forcing migration and displacement. The “profound complexities of survival and adaptation” are visible as families gradually shift their entire lives from the beautiful mountains to bleak, congested cities, clinging to a faint hope of stability and acceptance.
The “climate issue changes the core of a community”; parents live apart from their children but continue to support them with meagre earnings. The separation of families and the loss of tradition weigh heavily on their hearts, while the polluted air makes even breathing a struggle. Yet, their resilience and hope persists. The dying climate that erases old traditions cannot extinguish the innocence of their children or their warmth. “They embraced me not just as an outsider documenting their lives, but as someone belonging to their extended family,” Sandipa says. It is moving to witness how, despite every hardship, their spirit endures through the “strength of their connection to land, culture, and heritage”. Hopefully, one day, the world will truly see the human cost of climate change.
