Attached is an
article from Science magazine regarding the Karakoram
expedition which Jack Shroder and Michael Bishop just completed --
the peace park effort figures prominently in the article. Special
thanks to Dr. Syed Hamidullah at the Centre for Excellence in
Geology at the University of Peshawar (Pakistan) and Dr. Syed Iqbal
Hasnain, vice chancellor of Calicut University (India) for their
efforts. There was also a meeting at the base of K-2 between the
NSF/National Geographic expedition led by Jack and an Italian
research and peace-building mission led by Mr. Da Polenza from the
Italian EV-K2-CNR initiative. There will be a conference in Rome in
mid-November titled " Mountains: Witnesses of Global Change."
I just spoke to Jack yesterday and they are very pleased with the
expedition and are looking forward to the next series of steps as
the NSF grant has been secured: I will fill you in on other
developments after the peace parks meeting at the Woodrow Wilson
center on 9/12. Here is an update from Jack on the K2 expedition:
------------------------------------- K2 Science for Peace Expedition News
The International K2 Karakoram Himalaya Geoscience and Medical
Expedition 2005, led by Jack Shroder and Michael Bishop was
successful in taking American, Belizean, British, Canadian, German,
Korean, New Zealand, and Pakistani scientists and medical personnel
up the Shigar and Braldu Rivers to Baltoro Glacier, Concordia, and
K2 Base Camp. Notable for its overall focus on landscape evolution,
the geoscientists of the expedition discovered and measured huge
new, and heretofore unknown, landslides, as well as new glacier
depths and velocities, primary weather data, natural hazards, and a
great deal of other new data. At the same time the medics saved the
lives of four porters and villagers who were in a very bad way
indeed. Our clinics not only enabled all of our personnel to make
it through with flying good health, but we also brought a bit of
good medicine to a people out at the thin edge, whose lives are all
too often on the line just to get rich adventure trekkers and
mountaineers into the Karakoram.
Trekking and science in the Karakoram has never been easy and the
threats of sectarian violence, Sunni and against Shia, and Al Qaeda
against Westerners, added greatly to the uncertainty and unease.
Nonetheless, the Pakistani government and the trekking outfitter
were exceptionally helpful and most desirous of our success. They
expended every effort to see that we had no trouble and, indeed, we
met with no difficulties whatsoever from the local cultures. Our
only real troubles were with the more than 125 km of distance to
walk and the altitudes above 4000 5000 m. The result was the
success of our Himalayan diet plan once again we all lost a lot of
weight, in some cases as much as 10 -15 kg.
Back in the lowlands after our big expedition, we were treated to
considerable Pakistani hospitality from Peshawar University and the
Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Islamabad who are eager to see
the success of our proposed Indo-Pakistani Karakoram Workshop to be
held next year. In addition HEC expressed a desire to partner with
the University of Nebraska in helping to upgrade higher education in
Pakistan; a project that will be most instructive to develop
further. The government is pouring money into refurbishing
education at all levels throughout Pakistan, partly to overcome the
formerly out-of-control situation with the madrassas who were
educating terrorists, and especially at the university level to keep
up with the enormous educational development in nearby India and
China.
So our proposed Karakoram Workshop idea was very well received in
Pakistan, and is now taking shape, at least on paper. We had
planned to meet in Menali, India, for a glacier workshop and in New
Delhi in October for an initial workshop planning meeting but
cancellation of the Menali meeting, coupled with a request from the
Italian CNR research organization for related discussions in Rome in
mid-November, is causing us to refigure the schedule for the initial
planning meeting.
We now have received funding from NSF, ONR, and the Lounsbery
Foundation for the workshop, so we have enough money ($125K) to
bring this project to fruition. NSF wants us to bring in numerous
young American mountain scientists, to begin to pass on the torch as
it were, so we will be advertising our plans in EOS, Geotimes, the
AAG Newsletter, and a number of other venues. We have already put
out the word in India and Pakistan, but we will need to do more of
this. This will enable us to put together the
best possible meeting. The plan is to hold the main meeting in late
spring-early summer 2006, probably in mid-May in Lahore, Pakistan,
with later visits in New Delhi, and perhaps Peshawar for some of the
more
adventurous souls. Following this we will attempt one or more
expeditions into the Indian Himalaya, and possibly the Karakoram.
