High in India’s Himalayan mountains, yak herders struggle to survive a warming world

LADAKH, India (AP) — Carrying her 1-year-old son on her back, Tsering Dolma herds a dozen yaks into a stone-walled corral as evening approaches in the desolate mountains of India’s remote Ladakh region.

A few herders tending livestock are the only people visible for miles on the wind-swept plains where patchy grass gives way to gravelly foothills and stony peaks. For generations, herders such as Dolma have relied on snowmelt that trickled down the mountain folds to sustain the high-altitude pastures where their herds graze. But now, herders say, the snow and rain are less predictable, and there is less grass for yaks to eat.

“Earlier, it used to snow and rain, but now it has reduced a lot,” the 32-year-old says. “Even the winters are getting warmer than before.”

Much of the herding, milking and gathering of wool is done by women in Ladakh, an area near Tibet that was part of the ancient Silk Route. It’s work mostly done by hand.

In another valley, Kunzias Dolma is busy making tea with yak milk and checking her yak butter, while spinning her Buddhist prayer wheel with her right hand. The 73-year-old, who’s not related to Tsering Dolma, has spent her life around yaks, working long hours to make products from their milk and sewing blankets from their wool.

“We wake up early morning around 5 a.m. every day,” she says. “My husband and I milk the yaks and do all of the other yak-related work until about lunch. Then we take a break and get back to work in the evening. We have been doing this all our life.”

But that way of life is threatened as climate change makes Ladakh less hospitable to yaks and many in the younger generation seek other jobs.

Rising temperatures and erratic rainfall in the area have made it harder for yaks, which are related to bison and cattle, to find nourishing vegetation and have also exposed the shaggy, cold-loving animals’ bodies to more stress. Researchers have found that the average temperature in the Ladakh region has increased by 3 C (5.4 F) in the last four decades, while heat waves have become more extreme and rains more unpredictable.

While it’s hard to precisely quantify climate change’s impact on yak numbers in the area, scientists say it appears to be a factor in their decline. The government estimates the yak population in Ladakh has fallen from nearly 34,000 in 2012 to fewer than 20,000 in 2019, the most recent year for which the data is available. Globally, the yak population remains in the millions, but scientists say the ecosystem in this part of the Himalayas is particularly vulnerable to global warming.

Herder Kunzang Angmo has seen the changes up close.

“Earlier, there were a lot of yaks, but now there aren’t as many,” she says. “It used to snow a lot before, but now the snowfall is decreasing, and due to less water, we have less grass available.”

Generations of Tsering Angchok’s family have relied on yaks, but the number of herders in the area is dropping.

“We get everything from the yak—food, milk, clothing, butter, cheese, meat, wool, even dung,” says the 75-year-old who has 80 yaks. “Nothing goes to waste. We and our ancestors have grown up living on all of this.”

As weather patterns change, native vegetation is being crowded out by less nourishing shrubs and weeds, according to researchers. Herders say grazing lands are becoming smaller.

Thering Norphel, a 70-year-old former yak herder, remembers when pastures had more vegetation and life with yaks was easier.

“When I was younger, there was more grass, more water and more wildlife,” he says. Pointing to bare mountains in the distance, he said: “Earlier, all those mountains were filled with snow. Now it’s just rock. As there is no snow or ice, there is less water. This affects the growth of grass that yaks feed on.”

Tashi Dorji, a livestock and rangelands specialist with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, says the region and its people are being hit especially hard by global warming.

“Fast-melting glaciers, intense, erratic rainfall and reducing snow levels are all having a direct impact on both the herders and their animals,” Dorji says.

Stanzin Rabgais, a livestock officer with the Ladakh government, attributes a rise in bacterial diseases among yaks in recent years to hotter temperatures in the region.

Experts warn that the decline in yak herding has consequences for Ladakh and its fragile Himalayan ecosystem, because pastoralists manage grazing lands, keep invasive plants in check and help maintain the area’s biodiversity. The sparsely populated region, most of which is is above 3,000 meters (9,842 feet), is also home to wildlife including the snow leopard, red fox and blue sheep.

“If the herders disappear, the landscape changes,” Dorji says. “Unpalatable shrubs take over, wildlife loses food sources and the ecosystem starts to collapse. This is not just about animals—it’s about a way of life and the health of the land.”

Rabgais believes that yak products could sell beyond the area if properly marketed and developed. He describes yak calf wool, for example, as finer than most commercial wool, rivaling cashmere in softness.

Jobs in tourism and other industries, along with educational opportunities, also draw people away from herding. Herders say younger Ladakhis prefer less arduous work with potentially better pay than tending to yaks. Herders travel long distances over rough mountain land to find grazing areas and are constantly on the move.

“The next generation doesn’t want to do this work. They work for the Indian Army as laborers or are getting an education and looking for other jobs,” says Norphel, the former yak herder.

Ladakh, famous for its Buddhist monasteries and hiking trails, has experienced a significant increase in tourism in recent years as transportation infrastructure has made the area easier to reach, which has created new jobs.

Rabgais, the government official, says most yak herders are older now and unless greater numbers of young people take up herding, “the future is bleak” for the occupation.

Among the exceptions is 32-year-old yak herder Punchuk Namdol, who chose the traditional profession even as other people his age look for different options.

“Earlier, we didn’t have any other work — we only had yaks and other cattle,” Namdol says. “But now, there’s no one to take care of them. Yak herding is a difficult task, and fewer people are willing to do it.”

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Tsering Dolma tends to a herd of yaks in Korzak village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Empty stone-walled structures, or lekhas, used by Changpa nomads to shelter their animals, are visible near Yaye Tso village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Kunzang Angmo, center, prepares food as her son Phunsukh Chondon, right, sleeps inside a government provided tent in Korzak village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Namgayal Dolma weaves a blanket from sheep wool outside her temporary tent in Tso Moriri village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Tsering Dolma carries a yak hide for drying in Korzak village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Yaks are visible in a field in Tsoltak, Ladakh, India, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

A herd of yaks grazes in a valley near Yaye Tso village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Sonum Chopal, right, holds a baby goat as he separates the young goats and lambs from the flock before heading high up for grazing in Tso Moriri village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Kaysang Gurmate keeps an eye on a flock of sheep and goats before heading high up for grazing in Tso Moriri village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Kunzang Angmo milks the yak early in the morning as Tsering Dolma holds its horns in Korzak village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

Kunzang Angmo poses for a picture with a yak in Korzak village, Ladakh, India, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin )

A herd of yaks graze early morning in Maan village, Ladakh, India, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Kunzias Dolma, right, and her husband Tsering Angchok pose for a picture outside their rebo, a traditional nomadic tent made of yak wool, used by the Changpa tribe to withstand the region's harsh climate in Tsoltak village, Ladakh, India, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Kunzias Dolma, poses for a photograph with butter made from yak milk inside a plastic shelter provided by the government in Tsoltak village, Ladakh, India, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Kunzias Dolma, left, pours a cup of tea for her relative inside a plastic shelter provided by the government in Tsoltak village, Ladakh, India, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Tanzin Dolma milks a yak as her husband, Punchuk Namdol, collects yak dung in the background on an early morning in Maan village, Ladakh, India, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

Tsering Dolma, with her son Tenzin Gaychet, wrapped on her back, keeps an eye on a herd of yaks inside a stone-walled structure, or lekha, in Korzak village, Ladakh, India, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two senators from opposite parties are joining forces in a renewed push to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, an effort that has broad public support but has repeatedly stalled on Capitol Hill.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Republican Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida on Thursday plan to introduce legislation, first shared with The Associated Press, that would bar lawmakers and their immediate family members from trading or owning individual stocks.

It's the latest in a flurry of proposals in the House and the Senate to limit stock trading in Congress, lending bipartisan momentum to the issue. But the sheer number of proposals has clouded the path forward. Republican leaders in the House are pushing their own bill on stock ownership, an alternative that critics have dismissed as watered down.

“There’s an American consensus around this, not a partisan consensus, that members of Congress and, frankly, senior members of administrations and the White House, shouldn’t be making money off the backs of the American people,” Gillibrand said in an interview with the AP on Wednesday.

Trading of stock by members of Congress has been the subject of ethics scrutiny and criminal investigations in recent years, with lawmakers accused of using the information they gain as part of their jobs — often not known to the public — to buy and sell stocks at significant profit. Both parties have pledged to stop stock trading in Washington in campaign ads, creating unusual alliances in Congress.

In the House, for example, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida is trying to bypass party leadership and force a vote on her own stock trading bill. Her push with a discharge petition has 79 of the 218 signatures required, the majority of them Democrats.

House Republican leaders are supporting an alternative bill that would prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from buying individual stocks but would not require lawmakers to divest from stocks they already own. It would mandate public notice seven days before a lawmaker sells a stock. The bill advanced in committee on Wednesday, but its prospects are unclear.

Gillibrand and Moody, meanwhile, are introducing a version of a House bill introduced last year by Reps. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, and Seth Magaziner, a Democrat from Rhode Island. That proposal, which has 125 cosponsors, would ban members of Congress from buying or selling individual stocks altogether.

Magaziner and other House Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, wrote in a joint statement Wednesday that they “are disappointed that the bill introduced by Republican leadership today fails to deliver the reform that is needed.”

The Senate bill from Gillibrand and Moody would give lawmakers 180 days to divest their individual stock holdings after the bill takes effect, while newly elected members would have 90 days from being sworn in to divest. Lawmakers would be prohibited from trading and owning certain other financial assets, including securities, commodities and futures.

“The American people must be able to trust that their elected officials are focused on results for the American people and not focused on profiting from their positions,” Moody wrote in response to a list of questions from the AP.

The legislation would exempt the president and vice president, a carveout likely to draw criticism from some Democrats. Similar objections were raised last year over a bill that barred members of Congress from issuing certain cryptocurrencies but did not apply to the president.

Gillibrand said the president “should be held to the same standard” but described the legislation as “a good place to start.”

“I don’t think we have to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” Gillibrand said. “There’s a lot more I would love to put in this bill, but this is a consensus from a bipartisan basis and a consensus between two bodies of Congress.”

Moody, responding to written questions, wrote that Congress has the “constitutional power of the purse” so it's important that its members don't have “any other interests in mind, financial or otherwise.”

“Addressing Members of Congress is the number one priority our constituents are concerned with,” she wrote.

It remains to be seen if the bill will reach a vote in the Senate. A similar bill introduced by Gillibrand and GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in 2023 never advanced out of committee.

Still, the issue has salience on the campaign trail. Moody is seeking election to her first full term in Florida this year after being appointed to her seat when Marco Rubio became secretary of state. Gillibrand chairs the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm.

“The time has come," Gillibrand said. “We have consensus, and there’s a drumbeat of people who want to get this done.”

FILE -Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., speaks during the confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee for Kash Patel, President Donald Trump's choice to be director of the FBI, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

FILE - Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., leaves the Senate chamber after voting on a government funding bill at the Capitol in Washington, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)