For thousands of years,

humans have drawn lines on the Earth, dividing the planet into nations, but

there are some parts of the world that no empire, nation, or state has been able to tame.

Just the geography here is completely unruly.

Land that is so high,

so rugged, that states have found it impossible to exert control.

We're about to hit 4,000 meters, feeling the effects.

These are called non-state spaces.

Definitely feels like humans were never meant to be here

And the people who

settle in these places sought refuge from borders.

But even here, among the highest mountains in the world,

this stateless lifestyle is coming to an end.

Non-state spaces have always existed, all over the globe. They're usually high

up in mountains, far from the reach of any government and the people who live

here didn't come here by chance. Most of them are communities who fled into the

mountains to evade expanding government forces, some communities were escaping

capture like those in Africa fleeing from the Arab and Atlantic slave trades.

Other groups retreated to remote regions to escape ruling powers who they

opposed, from the Inuit and the Arctic, to the Berbers in North Africa, to the

Jivaroan in the Amazon rainforest. Examples exist all over the globe of

people who chose rugged terrain over taxes, war, famine, and subjugation from

state powers. Today, there are some 5,000 indigenous groups living in 90 countries,

numbering in total around 370 million people worldwide. 70% of those are in

Asia. Most of these groups have integrated into countries, but for those

who reside deep in the mountains, geography has largely held off the

influence of any kind of centralized government.

So I came up here to visit

one community that fled to the mountains 1,200 years ago. Back then the Tibetan

Empire, which was just north of here was pursuing its own state-making project,

its own empire, and it was growing. As the Tibetan Empire grew, its borders

eventually encompassed the Bon religion. This was a religious group that predates

Buddhism. The Bon fought to preserve its culture within the Tibetan Empire. They

resisted the Empire, but eventually failed and instead of assimilated to

this new Empire, they fled and they came here to these mountains, where they

created a life away from the militaries, the taxes, the religion, and the control

of the Tibetan Empire and that life continues today.

Eventually this whole area would be drawn into a modern state, the state of

Nepal. And Tibet, where these people came from, would become China. But these people

don't identify as Chinese, or necessarily Nepali. People here, they wanted the kids

to learn to Tibetan, like as their language, because we are more related

with the Tibetan culture.

The 25 families that live here have their own distinct identity.

They speak their own dialect of Tibetan. They mainly live off the land,

farming and raising animals to survive.

The Himalayan mountain range is particularly rich with these examples of

non-state spaces. So many examples in fact, that a group of anthropologists

argue that this place should actually be its own region. They use the term Zomia

to describe this long range of mountains where people have set up for thousands

of years without the help of governments of states.

The borders of this Zomia

concept encompass a hundred million people. It runs through eight countries,

but is on the periphery of each. The diverse set of peoples living here have

a varying degree of interaction with their country governments. I came to this

region, one of the most remote zones within Zomia, but even here you can feel

that Zomia's stateless days are numbered.

Everywhere you go up here, you see herds of animals, shepherds guiding them

through the mountains. After leaving this Bon village I moved north and came

across a different community, where this family's lifestyle is based almost

entirely on the movement of their animals. We're at 4,200 meters, Tibet is

just right over this hill.

And I'm hanging out with some yak today.

This family's actually nomadic, they're constantly

moving around throughout the year, so they'll be in this pasture for a little

bit while the yak will graze here and eat this grass, and then they'll move on

to another place. Meanwhile the grasses here will have time to regenerate, the

dung from these yak right now will help fertilize the land, and they'll

eventually come back here, maybe next year, and they will find a pasture full

of really wonderful grass that's full of nutrients that their yak can graze again.

And there's no external inputs to this, there's no fertilizer or irrigation infrastructure.

And this whole process and technique hinges on their ability to be

able to move freely throughout this region, which hasn't been a problem for

hundreds of years as this place has been basically rid of any sort of borders or

control. But that's changing very quickly.

This is where the Tibetan language is spoken. The many communities in these

mountains have always considered themselves Tibetan, moving freely into

Tibet for trade and religious practices, but in 1950 China controversially

annexed Tibet. They eventually negotiated this border line with Nepal. Notice that

it goes right through what these people think of as Tibet. The yak grazers I met

are mostly based down here on the Nepal side, and luckily for them this border

only existed in theory. The yak grazers continue to graze their animals deep

into Tibet, as they had for hundreds of years, but over the

years China started getting rich, which came with a renewed desire to project

its influence and protect its borders, especially in Tibet where people were

fleeing to get away from Chinese rule. China now had the money, technology,

geopolitical motive to start taming this region. They started crushing protests

from Tibetans and setting up military infrastructure on the Tibetan Plateau

and in 1999 they built this fence on the border, marking the end of the unfettered

mobility that these people had depended on for centuries in this non-state space.

This place that had been too high for borders, suddenly had to adapt to the

first concept of boundaries and control coming from far away governments.

I wanted to go see this fence. At over 15,000 feet above sea

level, it has to be one of the highest borders on Earth.

So I'm on the windy

Tibetan Plateau, looking at the border but we're half a kilometer away and

something really weird has happened. My driver who's Nepali stopped and said we

can't go any further. I was like well we're on Nepali sovereign territory, why

would why couldn't we just go up to the fence? You'd be able to do this at every

other country I've ever been to. He said no, the Chinese will come over and they'll

snatch us. Now we're still very much on the Nepali, side but the Chinese come in

here routinely to ask questions, to even detain people randomly. They have

surveillance, they have watch towers even on the Nepali side. China now has

the technology and political motive to exert control in this remote and rugged

region, to militarize its border here.

This isn't the only effort by a faraway government to tame this region. The

governments of Nepal, India, and China are also building the first roads here.

It's a lofty goal.

So we've got a landslide on the road, which means we can

go no further in the Jeep. And we're gonna have to hike. The thinking here is

that a road system could serve as a trade artery through the Himalaya Mountains,

eventually. We're stuck again, this time on a waterfall with a 200-foot

cliff by the side of it. And so yes, while these state forces are slowly

encroaching on this terrain, it's going to be long work and it's not going to be

easy. They're slowly chipping away, but man this place just was never meant to

be tamed.

Nepal is sandwiched between

the two largest countries on Earth, divided by these massive Himalaya Mountains.

A road would create an enormous trade opportunity between these countries.

So there's been a blitz of construction

projects aimed at creating a viable road through this mountain pass. The Indian

government is funding projects like this bridge, and locals told me that the

Chinese government routinely sends building materials to help construction.

The road still has a long way to go before it can sustain large flows of

goods, but even now the road is reshaping the relationship that these communities

have with the outside world, shifting their economy from bartering to cash-based

markets where residents can create businesses around cheap goods from China.

And as always with change, there are winners and losers.

Everything here is made of yak.

This tent, which is made entirely of yak wool.

Yak cheese,

Tea with yak butter in it.

Drinking yak milk, which is extremely delicious.

These people who are used to bartering and are used to living off of the

products of their animals, are having a hard time integrating, having a hard time

finding a space in this new economy that is based on cash, is based on big

international flows of goods.

That Bon community whose customs had been so well preserved in these

mountains, have also felt the effects of this road.

People are leaving. Children especially. Parents want to educate their

kids and they are sending them to India or to Kathmandu to get educated. A lot of

these kids will go their entire childhood without actually being in this community.

You have to remember these people set up in the mountains

specifically to preserve their tradition

and culture, and so to see it disappear overnight

due to these modernizing forces, is giving people a lot of anxiety. The way

they've solved this is that they're building this school, that is based on

educating children in the Bon tradition and the language of this community.

But despite the disruptive effects of the road, most people I talk to are still

happy it's here.

For centuries people have escaped

modern civilization by fleeing to the mountains, but now generations later, for

some these mountains can feel more like a trap than a refuge.