"What is a mountain?" asks Salman Rushdie. "An obstacle; a transcendence; above all, an effect."
The Siachen glacier is a perpendicular wilderness in the so-called navel of Asia, where six major mountain systems originating in India, Pakistan, China, Nepal and Afghanistan clash, and civilizations clash along with them. Throughout history, these mountains have been the stage for endless human drama, from the nineteenth-century Great Game between British and Russian intelligence forces for control over Central Asia to modern fundamentalist terrorism. The Siachen glacier conflict is simply another chapter in the ongoing saga of men battling men among mountains.
First, though, I should set the record straight: I have never set foot on the Siachen glacier. I have never even laid eyes on its ice. As a multi-generational Canadian, I cannot claim any legitimate cultural connections to Kashmir, India or Pakistan. I only learned of the Siachen glacier and the notion of scientific peacekeeping by chance not so long ago. Yet despite this cultural and geographic distance from Siachen, I have devoted years of my life to studying, if never 
quite understanding, this glacier’s strange story.
Siachen is the world’s largest glacier beyond the polar regions, and it also claims the dubious distinction as the world's highest-altitude battlefield. Since 1984, India and Pakistan have engaged in a military dispute in this remote corner of Kashmir. The Siachen conflict can ultimately be traced to post-colonial territorial ambiguities, with science tangled in the origins of the dispute through early scientific, surveying and sporting expeditions. The human, environmental, and economic costs of this conflict have been devastating for both nations, and there is rising interest in resolving the dispute by establishing a transboundary scientific peace park on Siachen.
At Oxford, I wrote my Master’s dissertation on the history of science, exploration, and geopolitics on the Siachen glacier. From the comfortable confines of the Bodleian library, I learned the lay of the land from ancient maps, and climbed air-starved summits vicariously through the accounts of early Siachen explorers. I participated in science-for-peace workshops in Kathmandu and Leh designed to foster collaborative research projects among scientists working in the Greater Himalaya. I even made a pilgrimage of sorts to Kashmir to groundtruth my research, but failed to reach the
But for reasons inexpressible, I am drawn to the Siachen glacier as though it were the unmappable landscape of my dreams. We live on an increasingly fragmented, bordered, and tamed world. The Siachen conflict evokes questions central to the future of not simply this glacier but all wild spaces. What is the value of raw and elemental wilderness? How is a wasteland defined, constructed, destroyed? What is the place and priority of a so-called useless space in a function-frenzied civilization? How has science been complicit in fomenting conflict, and how can science instead foster peace?
My research on Siachen specifically, and science-for-peace initiatives generally, examines the relationship between exploration, conflict resolution, and scientific cooperation for the sake of preserving our planet’s dwindling wild spaces, and concurrently fostering peaceful relations across contested borders.
SCIENCE-FOR-PEACE INVOLVEMENT
-Himalayan Club, India (Aug. 25-30, 2009): Traveled to Kashmir to present a talk on Siachen at the Ladakh Gathering organized by The Himalayan Club, a workshop focused on environmental and cultural conservation in mountainous northern India.
-World Wilderness Congress, Mexico (Nov. 6-13, 2009): Won a Young Professional scholarship from The WILD Foundation to participate in WILD9, the 9th World Wilderness Congress in Merida, Mexico. Held every four years since 1977, the WWC is one of the longest-running, public, international environmental forums devoted to tackling complex wilderness issues from the perspectives and with the participation of governments, the private sector, native peoples, non-governmental organizations, academia, and the arts.
-The Explorers Club, NYC (Nov. 16, 2009): Through Wings WorldQuest, I was invited to give a talk on Siachen at The Explorers Club headquarters in New York City.
-Antarctic Treaty Summit (Nov. 30 - Dec. 3, 2009): As the winner of the APECS Polar Science Essay Contest, I attended and presented at the Antarctic Treaty Summit: Science-Policy Interactions in International Governance at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, an international gathering to assess legacy lessons of the Antarctic Treaty on its 50th anniversary.
-UPCOMING: Cycling Silk...
"I know of no political movement, no philosophy, no ideology, which does not agree with the peace parks concept as we see it going into fruition today. It is a concept that can be embraced by all. In a world beset by conflicts and division, peace is one of the cornerstones of the future. Peace parks are a building block in this process, not only in our region, but potentially in the entire world." -Dr. Nelson Mandela
Image credits: Iceberg Films.