Dear Supporters,
If there’s one thing we want you to take away from this page, it’s this: each Rupee you give to us at Himalayan Advocacy Center, will be used to ethically strengthen community claims to environmental justice in the third pole—a region that supports a quarter of the world’s population, with its water, forests and land.
How? We leverage our location at Dharamsala, and the power of law—to secure strategic & irrefutable environmental information from the Indian state, meant to protect this majestic region. We then work overtime to organize this information and put it in community hands across the third pole, from Tajikistan to Myanmar: showcasing what Indian democracy can achieve, if used intentionally!
Find all the context you need, from our story to what we’ve done till now here, and do follow us on X/IG/Substack @hiadce.
Our story:
The Center began as a website in the summer of 2021 in the midst of the pandemic in India. We decided early on to invest in first understanding ongoing environmental issues of the Himalayas, whilst making a commitment to locating ourselves in this region. We achieved this by seeking out information made available by community members & Government, and systematically recording our findings, from Dharamshala in beautiful Kangra valley.
This process, now covering the larger third pole region, continues to attract talent from South Asia towards our internship program—leading to extensive and credible knowledge resources that form an irrefutable basis for community action to protect the environment. We have been equally focused on leveraging different formats to communicate our work with the world—google docs, letters, paperbacks, quick response codes and stickers, right here from Dharamshala. We are proud to have our work carried at Oxford, Princeton, Cambridge & Yale, in the hands of the public, lawmakers, judges and bureaucrats, and accessible from some of the most remote parts of the third pole.
Our journey till now has equipped us to partner with individuals, communities and organizations to address complex environmental issues of the third pole in an agile, authentic, bold and unique way that balances legal action with community advocacy. We are proudly building in India, with Indian money and for + from the Himalayas. We document our story on “The Dhauladhar”, our newsletter.
Do reach out to us at [email protected], on here, or via any of our socials with your questions, feedback or thoughts!
Warmly,
Utkarsh Jain
Founding Member