Himalayan Perceptions
Himalayan Perceptions

Author: Jack Ives

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-08-05

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1134369085

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Analyzing new research relating to the Himalayan region, this text challenges the widely-held view from the 1970s and 1980s that the area faced environmental disaster, and examines recent social and economic developments relating to the topic.

Himalayan Perceptions
Himalayan Perceptions

Author: Jack Ives

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781134369034

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In 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.

The Himalayan Dilemma
The Himalayan Dilemma

Author: Jack D. Ives

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0415011574

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The Himalayas have experienced a population explosion which has stripped the mountain forests, causing erosion, landslides, and massive damage downstream in the Ganges plain . . . or so it is claimed by the dubious Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation. In this book, renowned authorities Jack D. Ives and Bruno Messerli dissect and dismember the theory, showing how its mistaken assumptions have misguided development policy and foreign aid for decades. They challenge received notions of the causes and effects of deforestation, and argue that mountain subsistence farmers, far from being a source of the region's problems, are in fact an integral part of the solution.

Climate Change Adaptation, Risk Management and Sustainable Practices in the Himalaya
Climate Change Adaptation, Risk Management and Sustainable Practices in the Himalaya

Author: Sanjeev Sharma

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-03-10

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 3031246594

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This volume analyzes ecological and socio-economic risks due to climate change in the Himalayan mountain ecosystems, communities, and proposes adaptation strategies and sustainability practices. In order to better understand the potential actions required to improve natural resource conservation and the development of mountain people's livelihoods. The authors discuss the current status of local knowledge system on various environmental aspects of conservation and sustainable use of mountain resources in the Himalaya. The book addresses the institutional capacities, gaps, and priority areas of capacity building to strengthen policies and governance in regard to climate change, landuse management, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable management in the Himalayan region. The aim of this book is to enhance coordination building among policymakers, planners, mountain communities to foster collaboration between different stakeholders by understanding local perceptions of climate change as well as variability issues, and establishing adaptation strategies to cope with these impacts. The chapters incorporate theoretical and applied aspects, and may serve as baseline information for the sustainability of mountain ecosystems through the contribution of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary expertise from the Himalayan region. The book will be useful for students, teachers, and researchers working in different areas pertaining to mountain ecosystems, as well as policymakers and planners working on issues related to the sustainability of the mountain ecosystem.

Conservation Landscapes and Human Well-Being
Conservation Landscapes and Human Well-Being

Author: Siddhartha Krishnan

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2020-07-20

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1000168204

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The Himalayas are said to be the youngest mountain ranges in the world. This book studies the well-being of the eastern Himalayan forest-dwellers in terms of their capabilities and functioning. Using Amartya Sen’s and Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach, it examines the educational and health opportunities and substantial freedoms afforded to farmers and pastoralists living and working in the Senchal and Singalila Protected Areas of North Bengal, India. It also discusses the challenges and potential of the Forest Rights Act as a well-being delivery mechanism. The book adopts a comparative narrative of socio-ecological information generated from interviews, ecological field methods, remote sensing and participatory rural appraisals to provide insight on human development in conservation contexts. This volume will be of interest to students and researchers of conservation biology, development studies, socio-ecological systems studies, political ecology, human development index, ecological economics, environmental sociology, and South Asian studies. It will also be useful to policy-makers and NGOs in the conservation and livelihoods sector.

Climate Change in the Himalayas
Climate Change in the Himalayas

Author: G. B. Pant

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-09-15

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 3319616544

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This book analyzes the issues associated with climate change in the Himalayas. The purpose of choosing the Himalayas as a focus is because it is a particularly fragile mountain system, highly sensitive to climate change impacts, and it contains one of the largest human populations affected by climate change. The book provides extensive data and information regarding the climate history of the Himalayas, and the current effects of climate change on Himalayan weather systems, and on human and animal populations in the region. The book begins with an overview of global climate change with discussions of data trends and international initiatives, then segues into a history of climate changes and weather trends in the Himalayas. Weather systems of the Himalayas, both past and current, are analyzed and detailed through climate models, seasonal observations of weather fronts, and overviews of various climate scenarios. The book then discusses climate change impacts and signat ures specific to the Central Himalayan region, where the largest effects of impacts are observed. Readers will discover analysis presented on water resources, meteorological changes, biodiversity, agriculture and human health along with perspectives of management and policy. This book will appeal to researchers studying climate science, climatology, environmental scientists and policymakers.

Mountains: Physical, Human-Environmental, and Sociocultural Dynamics
Mountains: Physical, Human-Environmental, and Sociocultural Dynamics

Author: Mark A. Fonstad

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 631

ISBN-13: 1351657992

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Mountains have captured the interests and passions of people for thousands of years. Today, millions of people live within mountain regions, and mountain regions are often areas of accelerated environmental change. This edited volume highlights new understanding of mountain environments and mountain peoples around the world. The understanding of mountain environments and peoples has been a focus of individual researchers for centuries; more recently the interest in mountain regions among researchers has been growing rapidly. The articles contained within are from a wide spectrum of researchers from different parts of the world who address physical, political, theoretical, social, empirical, environmental, methodological, and economic issues focused on the geography of mountains and their inhabitants. The articles in this special issue are organized into three themed sections with very loose boundaries between themes: (1) physical dynamics of mountain environments, (2) coupled human–physical dynamics, and (3) sociocultural dynamics in mountain regions. This book was first published as a special issue of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

Rethinking Himalaya: Its Scope and Protection
Rethinking Himalaya: Its Scope and Protection

Author: KULBHUSHAN SHARMA

Publisher: Blue Rose Publishers

Published: 2022-01-11

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13:

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The Himalaya has profoundly shaped the cultures of the Indian subcontinent, with many Himalayan peaks considered sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. Some of the world's major rivers – the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rise in the Himalayas. These rivers have abundant seasonal and annual water supply. The mountain ranges and river basins share trans-boundary connectedness. Still, mountain people living on hills have limited access to water for drinking and agriculture. Covering around 27% of the Earth’s land surface, the mountains contribute to the sustenance and wellbeing of over half the human population for water, food, and clean energy. Yet mountains are under threat from climate change, land degradation, overexploitation, and natural disasters, with potentially far-reaching and devastating consequences, both for mountain communities and downstream populations. The book covers interdisciplinary domains of science, humanities and commerce, hence beneficial for all types of readers equally. Promotion of awareness and education on conservation and sustainable utilization of bioresources and strengthening networks, coordination with the help of central government departments, state governments, NGOs and local institutions is urgently needed.