It's the getting there that counts!

Malgorzata Skowranska

Masters Student, War Studies Department and recent Graduate, Department of Political Economy, King's College London.

Malgorzata will be taking part in her third Intrepid Explorers event. Last time she told us about her adventures in Ladakh and before that, about climbing Afghanistan's Secret Peaks. She’s a prolific explorer of peaks. She’s explored a virgin and unnamed peak in Pakista’s Karakorum range in 2011. She has conducted solo trekking trips in Carpathian Mountains, Alps and Corsica. She’s also an excellent linguist which no doubt comes in useful on these expeditions –she speaks Polish, English and Russian and is addicted to hot chocolate.

Linkedin profile here

Ladakh expedition report here

Her expeditions website

Past talk: Exploring the Unexplored: A Mountaineer’s Perspective of Afghanistan’s Secret Peaks

More about the speaker:

The second part of our event will be a 20 minute panel discussion chaired by Professor Nick Clifford, Head of Department of Geography at King's College London, with:-

•Joel Gill (Director of Geology of Global development, PhD student at Geography Department, King's College London and Intrepid Explorers presenter)

•Virginie Le Masson (Research Officer Gender and Climate Change at the Overseas Development Institute whose thesis was based on disaster risk reduction in Ladakh)

•Malgorzata Skowronska (masters student at King's, member of Secret Peaks Expedition Series+ Intrepid Explorers presenter)

•Sally Daultrey (Director of Research Services, Ladakh International Centre)

•Ambassador Phunchok Stobdan (Founding President, Ladakh International Centre) - Joining the panel via Skype.

Event summary:

Our event begins with a screening of 'JUNGWA: The Broken Balance', a documentary about living with environmental change in the western Himalayas. Living with natural hazards is part of life in Ladakh : how much of the change is due to global warming is an active debate, among the communities in the mountains and for global science. In the film, Ladakhi writer-director Stanzin Dorjai Gya shares with us the varying concerns and perspectives of the people of Ladakh about the changes they are witnessing in their local environment.