Are doomsday scenarios best seen as failed predictions or political detonators? The case of the ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’

Abstract

The so-called ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’ predicted an environmental collapse by the end of last millennium, threatening the life of millions of people. Fortunately, the all-encompassing crisis did not materialize. The article shows that the ‘Theory’ failed to take into account the vast ecological variation in Himalaya and thus generalized its contentions to the whole mountain range on the basis of deficient data. But, on the other hand, what would have happened if the prediction had not been made? A doomsday scenario like the Theory of Himalayan Degradation can, from the perspective of positivist hypothesis testing, be viewed a posteriori as a failed prediction; but from another perspective it can be seen as an alarm clock that triggered a series of policy initiatives and new knowledge.The Geographical Journal of Nepal Vol. 10: 1-14, 2017

How Policy and Development Agencies Led to the Degradation of Indigenous Resources, Institutions, and Social-Ecological Systems in Nepal: Some Insights and Opinions

“…The official documents were available from the forestry ministry, agricultural ministry, and international organizations [24,25,27,[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]. Other information was collected from policy and implementation review reports or publications [6,11,13,15,17,19,38,56,[69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81]. Most of the recent documents were available online.…”

“…It also oriented the mountain community to practice organic production [13,87]. However, influential international development agencies treated the production system as an environmentally bad practice [11,69,75].…”

“…(a) (b) Most indigenous resources and systems in the mountain were sustained by forest and farm integrated systems [11,69,75]. They flourished when the community had control over the management and use of the forest resources based on local farming conditions and household needs.…”

“…Population displacement is much less in the northwestern part of the country where development agencies have not hampered much on indigenous systems [96]. Communities in the mid-hill part of the western region have Most indigenous resources and systems in the mountain were sustained by forest and farm integrated systems [11,69,75]. They flourished when the community had control over the management and use of the forest resources based on local farming conditions and household needs.…”

Changing forest coverage and understanding of deforestation in Nepal Himalayas

“…Farmers were no longer accused of being the bad guys in the 'Himalayan dilemma' (Ives and Messerli, 1989). Quite the opposite, they were perceived as knowledgeable users of natural resources whose experience should be the foundation of forest management (also see Aase, 2017;Koirala, 2017). Forests would be far better if top-down control mechanisms were substituted by bottom-up management approach.…”