Traditional practices of the people of Uttarakhand Himalaya in India and relevance of these in disaster risk reduction in present times

Indepth study of traditional resource management practices of the indigenous people of Uttarakhand Himalaya reveals their appreciably advanced understanding of the causes of various hazards. Through their continued keen observation, experimentation, innovation and recordkeeping these people devised techniques of maximizing resource availability while minimizing the wrath of the hazards. For ensuring universal compliance of the rules so laid down these people relied on social sanctions and religio -magical practices interwoven around little tradition of the people. With weakening social solidarity in the recent times these practices are fast loosing ground and if adequate steps are not taken for documention this rich knowledge of generations could well be lost forever. These practices are highly relevent even today and hold the key to minimizing losses due to natural hazards in a cost effective and sustainable manner and are therefore required to be studied, documented and dovetailed with modern science and technology.