Vision
This society has the vision to percolate a progressive disciplinary spirit of geographical inquiries among students, research scholars and the faculties through refining tenets of fieldwork-based teaching along its various disciplinary dimensions in particular and education in general. Also, the existing disconnect between the local environment and the lifestyle of people needs to be addressed regarding a myriad of relations to their geographical landscape leading to rethinking ‘work’, ‘consumption’ and ‘conservation pattern’of people in their respective regions. The excessive rural-urban migration from the main valley areas has shattered the ecosystem of these areas. The evaluation of regional problems will also facilitate the documentation of the encyclopedic knowledge of geo-ecological and cultural processes of the region.
Mission
The mission of the society is to facilitate study and documentation of the unique geo-ecological and cultural properties of the Central Himalaya , and play a catalytic role in the developmental processes of the state. This has to be fulfilled through the objectives of the society laid down in its memorandum. This society aims to contribute in the development process of the mountain territory of the Central Himalaya through its initiatives, suggestions and recommendations for policy interventions by the Government of Uttarakhand. In the past decades, several programs such as horticultural development, creation of fruit belts, development of herb-culture and tea gardens and education expansion have failed in mapping the successes as contributive efforts for the regional development. There is also a dearth of vision for economic development in these mountainous regions, which being directly proportional to the ever speeding out-migration. People’s participation and their opinions in the developmental processes and programs are the need of the moment and has to be achieved by organizing community centered interactive meetings, workshops and collaboration with people in grafting out constructive exercises and roadmaps on the related issues at regional and sub-regional levels.
The Post Graduate Department of Geography, DBS PG College Dehradun has been functioning since 1965 and in DSB College Nainital much earlier. The HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar Garhwal is going to complete 5 decades. In Uttarakhand alone, Geography as a teaching subject finds home in 54 undergraduate departments and 17 post graduate departments. The Garhwal University has awarded 375 D.Phil. degrees in Geography and has been running Pre- D.Phil. courses since 2011. Faculty members of the Geography Departments in Kumaon and Garhwal Universities have been contributing through proceedings of seminars and several authored books. There is a need to take up the whole issue of the environmental management and regional development in an organized manner.