We tend to know that glaciers are melting at a rapid rate, impacting our global climate. What we may not know is how fine fiber producers - herders and animals - also are being adversely affected by melting glaciers.
photo: Long Thread Media
The issue - melting glaciers
The United Nations General Assembly declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. Indigenous populations depend on glaciers for their social and economic survival, including herders in the Himalayas who care for cashmere-producing goats and other fine fiber animals, such as camels. As the glaciers melt, these populations are negatively impacted.
To bring awareness to the issue, Linda Cortright of Wild Fibers and Long Thread Media teamed up to encourage fiber people to create an original design with cashmere for a contest yielding wonderful prizes, including a gift certificate of $150 from June Cashmere.
How are melting glaciers and fiber connected?
From an interview with Linda Cortright on The Long Thread Media Podcast:
This spring, to bring attention to the threat to glaciers in the region, engineer Sonam Wangchuk climbed into the Himalayas of in Ladakh, India, and carried back a 7 kilogram chunk of glacier. It began a journey across two continents, wrapped in 4 kilograms of cashmere, and finally arrived at the United Nations in New York. The cashmere covering the sample not only insulated the ice, it also demonstrated what’s at risk when glaciers melt.
The animals and people living in these regions depend on glaciers for water; when the glaciers melt too abruptly, the overflow of water sweeps away whole villages and cities in devastating floods.
The nomadic herders in Ladakh, India, along with other communities throughout glacial regions around the world, are feeling the impact of vanishing water supplies that support their crops and fiber-producing animals.
Why the contest
Linda Cortright and Long Thread Media thought that by having a contest in which fiber enthusiasts use cashmere in an original design, we could remind ourselves that real lives and animals are connected to the fibers we choose for making.
In the case of cashmere, herders and cashmere-producing goats living at high altitudes where it already is challenging to live day to day, face life-altering consequences if glaciers continue to melt.
Why is June Cashmere involved?
Long Thread Media reached out to us and a few other cashmere-related businesses to see if we would offer a prize for the contest. Because the lives of shepherds and the preservation of the native cashmere-producing goat in the high mountains of Kyrgyzstan is at the core of our yarn, of course we agreed. Here's what you can win:
-The Best Ladakh: Pangong Craft Center: $500 Cash
- People's Choice: The Cashmere Goat: $200 Gift Certificate
- Best Wearable: KnitPro: Interchangeable Circular Needle Set ($148 value)
- Best Art or Décor: June Cashmere: $150 Gift Card
How do you participate?
- Become informed on the issue. We'll continue to talk about the impact of melting glaciers on fiber producers in high places in the next few months. For a great start at understanding the issue, listen to Long Thread Media's Podcast interview with Linda Cortright: Cashmere on Ice
- Find out contest details here: Contest and the rules here: Rules
- Use cashmere to create a design and submit it to the contest.
For those who belong to our community and receive our weekly email newsletter, we'll be sending promotions now and again this summer via our newsletter to help you if you choose to use our cashmere for the contest. Be sure you're signed up to receive our newsletters!
Until next time, may you find joy knitting with our yarn! -- Warmly, Amy