Soft targets

India's largest renewable energy park risks displacing Ladakh's nomadic herders and their prized pashmina goats

- SAFEENA WANI CHANGTHANG, LADAKH

SONAM THARGIES stands outside his tent, fingers gently brushing through the fleece of a pashmina goat. Around him, wind swirls across the high-altitude pastures of Skyang-Chu-Thang, located 4,657 metres above sea level and 175 km from Leh. This sweeping grassland in Ladakh's Changthang plateau is the summer home to the world's finest pashmina goats. But it may soon be transformed beyond recognition.

A yellow survey stone now marks the land for what will be India's largest hybrid renewable energy park. With an estimated cost of ₹60,000 crore, solar panels and wind turbines are set to cover nearly 20,000 hectares (ha) of this alpine pasture. The Pang Renewable Energy Park aims to generate 9 GW of solar and 4 GW of wind energy, which is nearly five times the output of Rajasthan's Bhadla Park, currently the largest in the country. It is a cornerstone of India's strategy to achieve its 2030 renewable energy target of 500 GW. However, the scale of the project has triggered alarm among Ladakh's pastoralists.

"This may be the last time we bring our goats here. But we have nowhere else to go," says Thargies.

His community of 270 families, including Tibetan refugees, herds over 50,000 goats, sheep and yaks across the Changthang pastures.