Ladakh Ecological Development Group
Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG) has 35 full-time employees who tend to the general administration and implementation of various projects. In turn, employees report to a Working Committee of eight members through an Executive Director. The Working Committee fulfils the managerial responsibility of LEDeG’s projects. The Working Committee is elected by a General Body comprising of 100 members. Each year, the organisation has several national and international volunteers who get involved in various ongoing projects in Leh satisfying the organisations need for staff.
The head office of LEDeG is in Karzoo, Leh and has branches in Kargil and Zanskar that take care of the projects in those regions. The head-office has a well-equipped library, an exhibition hall, conference hall and a craft shop at the Karzoo Centre in Leh. LEDeG also has a demonstration campus (where all of its projects are put into operation), approximately two kilometres from the head office. The demonstration campus has a fully equipped workshop, storehouse, agriculture-testing centre and a plantation of apricot trees and a greenhouse where vegetables are grown in the summer, a solar passive Trombe-technology hostel and guest house for trainees and guests. It relies only on solar energy for electricity and water heating. The group also runs a Rural Building Centre near Choglamsar, on the outskirts of Leh.
Our Mission
While we intend to avoid the hazards of ‘development’, we do not want to put a fence around Ladakh, alienating it from change – this would be unnatural as well as impossible. Instead, we are exploring ways of guiding the direction of change in order to strengthen the local economy and raise the standards of living of our communities, while addressing ecological and environmental concerns.
With our primary mission as the promotion of ecologically and socially sustainable development which harmonises with and builds upon traditional Ladakhi culture, we have set out the following as our aims and objectives:
- To encourage awareness in the people of Ladakh about the need to consider the long-term effects and impacts of conventional development the environment, ecology and culture.
- To encourage awareness amongst the people of Ladakh about the potential value of traditional culture, agriculture and conservation for the future sustainable development of Ladakh.
- To encourage the use of perpetually renewable natural resources in Ladakh.
- To test and demonstrate low-cost technologies which make use of such perpetually renewable natural resources.
- To provide financial assistance for appropriate, community-based development projects.
- To raise funds for the achievement of the objective through donations, grants, collection etc, and through the carrying on of any business, this may help to promote the above objectives,
- And to pursue the above objectives with the goal of encouraging, an ecologically sound and sustainable future for the people of Ladakh and their land.