The Beginning of the Himalayan Climate Watch Network

The Himalayan Climate Watch Network began with a question: How do we create more space for the people who know the Himalaya most intimately to shape how it is understood?

Over the years, through our work across journalism, documentary filmmaking and climate storytelling, we kept returning to the same observation. While the Himalaya is increasingly discussed through the language of climate change, biodiversity and environmental risk, many of the people living these realities remain underrepresented in the stories that reach wider audiences.

Not because these stories do not exist.

But because the people telling them are too often working without the networks, editorial support and opportunities needed to bring their work further.

That question gradually became conversations—with journalists, researchers, filmmakers, editors and organisations working across the region. It became partnerships, shared ideas, and a collective belief that strengthening climate storytelling in the Himalaya begins by strengthening the people already documenting their own communities.

Today, we are proud to introduce the first cohort of the Himalayan Climate Watch Network (HCWN) Fellowship.

Why HCWN?

The Himalaya cannot be understood through a single geography, language or political boundary.

It stretches across countries, cultures, ecosystems and hundreds of communities, each carrying its own histories, relationships with land and ways of understanding environmental change.

For us, the question has never been simply how to tell more climate stories.

It has been how to support storytelling that begins from within communities themselves.

The Himalayan Climate Watch Network was established under the Mudland Climate Lab to strengthen Indigenous- and community-rooted climate storytelling across the region.

Our ambition is to build a network where journalists, researchers, artists and community storytellers can learn from one another, collaborate across borders, and produce work that reflects the richness and complexity of the places they call home.

The fellowship is the first step towards that vision.

The First Cohort

Earlier this year, we opened applications for the first HCWN Fellowship.

We received more than 250 applications, alongside dozens of messages from organisations, researchers and storytellers interested in collaborating with the network.

After a careful review process and more than twenty interviews, six fellows were selected to form the first cohort.

Over the next three months, they will develop original reporting projects exploring environmental change through community knowledge, lived experience, oral histories and local realities.

The fellowship combines shared learning, editorial mentorship, peer exchange and independent field reporting.

It begins with three collaborative sessions led by HCWN and programme partners before fellows move into the research phase of their projects, supported by a small field research grant and ongoing editorial guidance from their publication partners.

The fellowship aims to supports six independent reporting projects connected by a shared commitment to documenting the Himalaya from within.

Meet the 2026 HCWN Fellowship Cohort

The inaugural cohort brings together six storytellers working across India, Pakistan and Nepal, representing communities from Ladakh, Gilgit-Baltistan, Jammu & Kashmir, Sikkim and Humla.

Dawa Dolma | Tibetan Refugee Community · Ladakh, India
A storyteller exploring climate change, memory and cultural continuity in Ladakh.

Ehsam Ullah Baig | Wakhi Community · Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
A multimedia storyteller documenting mountain cultures and environmental change across northern Pakistan.

Mohd Irfan | Pahari & Gujjar Communities · Jammu & Kashmir, India
A writer and researcher documenting pastoralism, land and community life in Jammu & Kashmir.

Chhaya Namchu | Lepcha Community · Sikkim, India
A storyteller exploring Indigenous knowledge, sacred landscapes and climate governance.

Sushan Bhattarai | Khasa Community · Working in Humla, Nepal
A writer and researcher working with traditional knowledge systems in western Nepal.

Yalember Yakha Dewan | Yakha/Kirat Community · Sikkim, India
A community storyteller documenting Indigenous identity, oral histories and ecological change.

Building the Fellowship Together

HCWN has always been envisioned as a collaborative effort.

The inaugural fellowship has been shaped through partnerships with organisations that share a commitment to thoughtful journalism, community-rooted storytelling and knowledge exchange.

We are grateful to our programme partners:

• • Earth Journalism Network
• • Mongabay India
• • Meander Magazine
• • Icarus Complex
• • Rooted Futures Lab

Together, these partnerships bring editorial mentorship, publication opportunities, learning sessions and communications support to the fellowship, creating a programme that benefits from a wide range of perspectives while remaining centred on the work of the fellows themselves.

We are especially grateful to Icarus Complex for their creative partnership in developing the visual identity of the fellowship launch.

Looking Ahead

For HCWN, the fellowship is about building lasting relationships between storytellers, editors, researchers and institutions working across the Himalaya.

We hope the fellowship becomes the foundation of a growing regional network, one that continues to create opportunities for collaboration, learning and community-rooted storytelling long after the fellowship has ended.

About HCWN

The Himalayan Climate Watch Network (HCWN) is an initiative under Mudland Climate Lab, strengthening Indigenous- and community-rooted climate storytelling across the Himalayan region through storytelling, research and regional collaboration.