Uttarakhand High Court recently passed an honorable judgment by declaring the glaciers, forests and lakes of Himalayas to be living people and thus also the legal right to defend themselves. In order to prevent the environmental destruction in the areas of Gangotri and Yamunotri, this judgment by the court has been passed.

Apart from this, the court also ordered that the "rivers, streams, rivulets, lakes, air, meadows, dales, jungles, forests wetlands, grasslands, springs and waterfalls” in Uttarakhand must be given “corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person, in order to preserve and conserve them” Thus, this means that henceforth, these entities are equal to the rights of an individual and any harm caused to them will be treated as harm to an individual.

Being the part of the most ritual legacy ‘Char Dham Yatra’, the glaciers’ tourism has been always flooded.  High environmental changes are observed at the Gangotri glacier which has been retreated more than 2800 feet in last 25 years. Thus, the urge to stop it was highly felt.