Download Changing Face of the Himalayas

Changing Face of the Himalayas
Video Unit 1 – Resource Sheet
The extensive flooding of Bangladesh in September 1988, which is depicted in Video Unit
One, killed over 2000 people, made 30 million more homeless and caused US$1billion
worth of damage. Its causes became the subject of fierce debate amongst geographers.
There are two main schools of thought.
First Theory – Deforestation
The most widely held theory is that severe flooding in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta is
caused directly by increasing deforestation in the Himalayas. This orthodox view, which has
been accepted and promoted by the World bank, governments, international aid agencies,
environmentalists and the media claims that the mountain people of Nepal, and other
Himalayan areas, have been the main agents responsible for the disastrous changes taking
place in the region.
The mountain population increased rapidly after malaria was brought under control during
the 1950s. The doubling of Nepal’s population to 15 million since that time has meant that
forests are cleared to provide firewood and land for growing food. The ground exposed in
this way is then prone to rapid erosion, which leads to silting and increased flooding
downstream in Bangladesh. This river beds are raised and catastrophic floods follow.
Meanwhile, the loss of vegetation causes changes in climate which bring the threat of
drought. All of this prompted the Sunday Times to claim in April 1988:
“At the present rate of cutting, the Himalayas will be bald in 25 years, topsoil will
have disappeared, and the climatic effects threaten to turn the fertile plain into a new Sahel
– the drought-stricken region off central Africa.”
Most reports on Bangladesh have accepted this deforestation, or “Doomsday” analysis. It is
a catastrophe theory which dovetails neatly with the concern of Western countries about
the environment. It also appeals to those who are worried about over-population, always
stronger when the races “breeding too fast” do not have a white skin, are poor and one day
may seek to migrate to the West.
Second Theory – Geological Instability
According to many Himalayan geographers, however, this theory is not borne out by the
facts. At the United Nations conference on the Himalaya-Ganges problem help in September
1988, they challenged it and presented and alternative explanation: that the data on the
forest areas of Nepal are unreliable and that there should be more forest cover now than
there was a century ago.
The Director of the Australia-Nepal Forestry Project suggests that 50% of Nepal is still
covered in forest and that the forests are advancing. In some regions the forest area on
private land is three to ten times
greater thank it was two decades ago.
Chitwan National Park
He indicates that deforestation was
far worse in the nineteenth century
and peaked at the turn of the century.
What is now the forested Chitwan
National Park was open pasture a
century ago.
Even if there is deforestation, its
responsibility for floods in the Ganges
and Brahmaputra would be
infinitesimally small in comparison with the natural consequences of monsoon rain and
earth movements in one of the world’s most geologically unstable regions.
After examining the statistical evidence on the rate at which wood was being cut down and
consumed in Nepal provided by a number of recent studies, the British anthropologist,
Michael Thompson, discovered a vast range of estimates. The highest was 67 times larger
than the lowest! Thompson argued that mountainous Nepal is notoriously varied and
difficult to study. Nevertheless, this had not deterred dozens of scientists from discovering
what was happening on one hill-top or in one valley and extrapolating the results to cover
the whole country.
But geographers do agree on one point, the Himalayas are a diverse and complex region.
Deforestation can cause problems, even though, in many places, trees are replaced by thick
elephant grass or well-made agricultural forests. They also accept that forests could be
advancing in one area while falling back in another. But what is impossible to argue, they
say, is that the loss of trees can explain the floods along the Ganges and Brahmaputra.
The rivers of Bangladesh have always flooded:
the plain of the Ganges has silt which is 2000m deep in places
the result of the floods of the past few million years
the ferocious movements in the plates of the earth’s crust far outweigh
human activity in the region
the Himalayas are the highest, steepest and fastest-rising mountain
range in the world. As they push up, great quantities of rocks and earth
fall away, the torrents flow faster dragging earth from river banks and
producing more silt.
All theories must be tested against the available evidence. Catastrophe theories,
geographers argue, are accepted at our peril!