By  Syed Jamiluddin Originally published on Pamir Times A GEOLOGICAL wonderland it is, Gilgit-Baltistan is home to innumerable glacial deposits and amazing snowfields of varying magnitudes including the Siachin – the longest glacier outside the Poles which, together, redouble and underpin the region’s grandeur and strategic significance whilst these amazing water towers constitute the lifeline of the country as the principal contributors to River Indus, to put it quite unexaggeratedly. Synoptically referring to the process of glaciations, Sherbaz Ali Khan Barcha sums up in his “Aks-e-Gilgit-Baltistan” that the slow-moving ice-deposits are called glaciers which come into existence in the lofty mountainous areas where temperature may perennially remain below the freezing point, and where there is ceaseless snowfall every year. In short, the glacial accumulation – layers by layers results into eventual hardening of the soil below while the upper icy layers keep moving slowly or des

By  Syed Jamiluddin Originally published on Pamir Times THE UNPREDICTABLY mercurial climate change phenomena being witnessed all across Gilgit-Baltistan today as elsewhere, indeed points to grim prospects. At the same time, it leads one to musings on environment and the fragile mountain ecosystem here in juxtaposition to the human activity to take stock of what remains on the anvil to steer clear of the final irony and awful future possibility. A study of environmental or to put it, the climate change phenomena brings it to the fore that vegetation plays a very much significant role in the health of ecosystem. Thus, reducing deforestation and giving a boost to afforestation and reforestation is said to be instrumental in about 30 percent of cost-effective global mitigation potential. Given this, forests and concomitant vegetation make a very vital treasure in economic aspect of any region on which the respective populace largely depends in meeting its needs of fuelwood as well as