Himalayan Perceptions: Environmental Change and the Well-Being of Mountain PeoplesIn the 1970s and 1980s many institutions, agencies and scholars believed that the Himalayan region was facing severe environmental disaster, due primarily to rapid growth in population that has caused extensive deforestation, which in turn has led to massive landsliding and soil erosion. This series of assumptions was first challenged in the book: The Himalayan Dilemma (1989: Ives and Messerli, Routledge). Nevertheless, the environmental crisis paradigm still commands considerable support, including logging bans in the mountain watersheds of China, India, and Thailand, and is constantly being promoted by the news media. Himalayan Perceptions identifies the confusion of misunderstanding, vested interests, changing perceptions, and institutional unwillingness to base development policy on sound scientific knowledge. It analyzes the large amount of new research published since 1989 and totally refutes the entire construct. It examines recent social and economic developments in the region and identifies warfare, guerrilla activities, and widespread oppression of poor ethnic minorities as the primary cause for the instability that pervades the entire region. It is argued that the development controversy is further confounded by exaggerated reporting, even falsification, by news media, environmental publications, and agency reports alike. |
Contents
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Other editions - View all
Himalayan Perceptions: Environmental Change and the Well-Being of Mountain ... Jack Ives Limited preview - 2004 |
Himalayan Perceptions: Environmental Change and the Well-Being of Mountain ... Jack Ives No preview available - 2004 |
Himalayan Perceptions: Environmental Change and the Well-being of Mountain ... Jack D. Ives No preview available - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
agriculture altitude Arun Bangladesh bari terraces Bhutan Brahmaputra Byers cause cent century Chapter China Conservation Area construction crops deforestation denudation Dhulikhel discussion downstream earthquake Everest extensive Figure flooding in Bangladesh forest cover Ganges glacier lakes Gorge hill Himachal Pradesh Himal Himalayan Himalayan Environmental Degradation Himalayan region Hofer and Messerli hydroelectricity impacts increase India Ives and Messerli jökulhlaup Karakorum Kathmandu khet Khola Khumbu land landslides Lijiang longterm loss Mahabharat Lekh major Maoist metres Middle Mountains Mohonk monsoon mountain hazards National Park Naxi Nepal Nepalese Nevertheless northern Pakistan northern Thailand occurred Pakistan Pamir plains political population Pradesh precipitation problems produced rainfall recent refugees result river road Sagarmatha Sagarmatha National Park sediment Sherpa significant slopes soil erosion subsistence summer monsoon swidden Tajikistan Tehri Dam Theory of Himalayan Tiger Leaping Gorge tourism upper valley village watershed World