This is the time when the earth and the mountains are changing rapidly. The ongoing changes in the name of development and security have made the mountains accessible to many on the one hand and have also made them a source of exploitation. Devbhoomi Himal has now turned into a paradise for tourism.

As a result, there has been a massive transformation in the environment of the Himalayan region. The flow of water in the rivers and streams has decreased, but there has been an increase in the activities that cause havoc due to floods. Similarly, the fear of landslides and flash floods has increased.

As the forest is dying, the conflict between wild animals and people has increased. Along with the increase in temperature, unpredictable weather changes have become the main dimension of the Himalayan people's life today. The question arises, how to stop sudden floods in Himalayan rivers? How to control forest destruction? How to reduce the havoc of earthquakes? How to reduce carbon emissions? And the greenhouse effect? There is no easy way to deal with this human-dominated age (the Anthropocene).

But the mountain must remain safe. Not only for us, but also for generations to come, mountains and mountainous areas should not be destroyed. So the question becomes complicated, after all, who is responsible for keeping the mountains safe? Who can stop the continued destruction of mountains and mountain areas? The rich? Industrialists? The nation? Looking deeper, it seems that it is the combination of all these that has caused the destruction in the Himalayan region.

However, it is not unheard of to portray these same agents as mountain saviors. Here is another truth that must be said, the protection of the mountains is no longer a matter of human concern, it is a matter that is connected with animals and plants, rivers and streams, wind and water. Therefore, experts say that now is the time to think about multispecies. Scholars say that multispecies thinking, which is now gaining popularity, has the power to save the mountains and the earth, rather than the human-only thinking of yesterday.

The nation has imprisoned Himal within narrow political boundaries. The attempt to shrink the mountains, which are generally understood as an eternal and eternal concept in the Eastern belief, within the national scope is only the fulfillment of economic and geopolitical power and self-interest. Mountains are the result of natural process, nation is the result of human's physical and materialistic ambitions.

Basically, 'natural mountains' which are unowned land, cannot be the same as 'national mountains' defined by the state. The status quo has a profound influence on the prevailing practice of Himal Chintan, and this is the main problem at present. On the one hand, a kind of knowledge tradition forces us to think of the mountain as a nation, while the political practice of knowledge void strongly prevents us from thinking that the 'national mountain' is a contradictory creation in itself.

When we turn our eyes to the north, the chain of mountains that can be seen connects the five countries of Nepal, India, Pakistan, China and Bhutan. It has become a big problem that the universal form of the mountains is not in our concept. There is an incomplete explanation about the ownership and security of the mountain. 

Let's look at the example of India, India has a national plan named 'National Mission of Himalayan Studies' related to the Himalayas. This is an institutional initiative of national thinking, thought and reflection, under which research can be done only by focusing on the 'Indian Himalayan Region'. In this way, a number of grants have been arranged under this scheme for conducting research focused only on the Indian Himalayas.

For example, there is a compulsion to investigate why sudden water-flood occurred in Uttarakhand only in India. Those who understand the nature of the phenomenon know that this is not only a problem of India and the impact of the problem is not limited to India. But the search has been confined to the Indian border. Therefore, in my opinion, the plan designed based on the concept of 'national mountain' and the research done accordingly is incomplete. In other words, it is a 'self-contradictory' thought that breaks itself. 

Where is the mountain? Are the mountains in Uttarakhand only in that region? Couldn't the deluge itself destroy our narrow concept of 'national mountain'? The Himalayas and other countries in the Himalayan region have almost the same problems. Therefore, various studies and researches related to mountains are being conducted everywhere. At this time, it is important to think about where the main ideology of understanding and studying the mountains will lead us and what solutions it will provide. It is also our post-colonial intellectual responsibility to think about this question. 

Five countries with mountainous regions have viewed the mountains as a matter of border security. According to the same concept, the development process is also underway in the Himalayan region. The Himalaya itself has become unsafe due to sensitive issues such as development and border security. The issue of saving the mountains that have become unsafe in this way is not in our common discussion.

This will not be a topic to increase the TRP of any media house, but there is an urgent need for the issue of mountain security to become a community discussion. It is not strange that such complex questions do not easily become common discussions. In this context, the debate held on the banks of the Mechi River in the recently held 'Kala Sahitya Utsav: Environmental Discussion' at Kakdvitta, Nepal's border, was an important initiative. Whose land? Manthan's community effort titled 'Whose Sky?' raised serious questions about the ownership of nature. 

To expand the same context, I have added this question - Whose mountain is it? The mountains have become a 'global commons' for exploitation, but no one has taken the responsibility to truly understand the mountains.

As many know, the idea expressed by scholars like Garrett Hardin in the name of 'Tragedy of Commons' (1978) was widely accepted. Hardin believed that if common resources were left in the hands of common people, they would be destroyed. We also know that the findings of Elinor Ostrom's study of community irrigation in Nepal refuted Hardin's assumptions.