It is amazing to see what seemingly inhospitable areas of the world humans have settled - and managed to survive and even prosper.

This amazement is certainly justified in the case of the inhabitants of a Himalayan region south of Tibet known as Zanskar and Ladakh. People there live in valleys at an altitude of 4000 m (13,000 feet), cut off from the rest of the world for eight months of the year, and even in the remaining four months accessible only over dangerous passes. Rainfall is almost non-existent and temperatures can drop below minus 40 degrees Celsius. In this hostile environment, the inhabitants have developed a low-technology sustainable culture in harmony with nature. The ecological circle is complete: everything is recycled and nothing is wasted. However, as it is the case with many other indigenous cultures, modern lifestyles have found their way into these remote areas through the new Himalayan Highway. The cultural and ecological consequences are disastrous.

We are showing you video-clips of the valleys of Zanskar and Ladakh here. Together with Lauhaul-Spiti, they constitute the Himalayan part of the Indian states Jammu-Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Zanskar has been connected to the rest of the world with a precarious road in the eighties of the past century, Ladakh in the sixties.