Nepal, Sept. 30 -- In May 2026, I travelled to Lubra, a village at 2,950 metres in Mustang, for my master's dissertation fieldwork. I explored how its Indigenous Bon community understands its settlement future. What I found challenged the assumption that climate risk automatically leads to migration.

Lubra is an approximately 800-year-old settlement and home to one of Nepal's remaining Bon communities. Around 40 people remain across nine households, as environmental hazards, outmigration and population decline shape the village's uncertain future.

But Lubra is more than a collection of houses on a map. Livelihoods, spirituality, memory and identity are rooted in its landscape. Its monastery, chortens, sacred artefacts, traditional homes...