Abstract
Climate change is disturbing the existing functional relations between socio-ecological systems in the Himalayan region of Nepal. In this paper, I look at the disturbance posed by climate change to the social and ecological dimensions, referencing the Himalayan herders as eye-witnesses. I focus on two thematic areas, that is, the challenges faced by the mountain herders in the context of climate change and their coping strategies. This paper is a product of nine months of ethnographic study between the years 2012 and 2018 conducted at the Nhāson valley. The herders' stories are “real stories” with insights into the climate variability and fluctuation, which is critically valuable to understand the environmental phenomena at a time when scientific evidence is not enough. In this context, an ethnographic study can contribute in documenting the place-specific and culture-specific stories as the powerful evidence to climate change and how it impacts the grounded social and ecological systems.