Mountains, forests and pastures are the mothers of rivers that sustain life. Their catchment areas are the water basins for hydel projects and dams. Destroy the forests and one will find dams silting and going dry; hydel projects will remain a dream and drought a common occurrence.

Scarcity of water will affect food production and there will be no answer to the frantic cries of the cities and villages for water between individuals, states and nations, and progress adversely affected due to lack of power. In recent years trees have so badly lopped that they are left only with a crown of green top; herbal collections on massive scales by agents of drug plant owners; uncontrolled grazing by animals; forests set on fire by villagers to get better growth for grazing with no thought for wild animals and birds; fish being electrocuted in mountain streams; large forest areas encroached upon by farmers and tourism developers; forest rest houses demolished by 'timber looters'; barren, hollowed out hillsides due to mining; murder of the majestic deodars by cutting a hollow at the base of the trunk and then setting it on fire. Land, water and forests resources are being degraded and depleted at a galloping speed.

With over-exploitation for agricultural purposes and to meet the ever-increasing demands of the cities, the sub-soil water is receding at an alarming rate. If the rivers too go dry, the holocaust can well be imagined. Deforestation will lead to desertification as is happening in parts of China where the desert sand dunes are spreading at the rate of 200-sq-kms per month. Forests are critical for preserving the green covering on mountain soils. Extensive deforestation and grazing results in barren surface, soil erosion and porosity. The porous soil, during the monsoons and cloud bursts, soaks in water gets loosened and whole mountain sides slide down taking with them trees, farm lands, villages and finally damming the rivers-leaving behind barren scars on the mountains which will further increase erosion.

Most vulnerable to this kind of nature's fury are the run-of-the-river schemes Hydel projects and big gravity dams especially when their catchment areas have been deforested. "Among mountains, I am the Himalaya" (Bhagvat Gita) - this was the pride with which our ancestors and sages looked up to the most beautiful, majestic and mighty snow-capped mountains. Today, however, the same Himalayas are the most degraded mountains in the world - a eco-disaster in the making.

Wisdom is required not to plunder but to preserve. It is time to wake up to this "last awakening call", otherwise we are heading for the Himalayan eco-disaster and with it the "Last Bugle Call".