The Himalayan Dilemma

Every monsoon the Himalayan region appears in the headlines because of large scale flooding in the plains of Ganges and Brahmaputra. There has been a yearly practice of accusing farmers of the Himalayas, particularly the Nepal Himalaya, for sending down the floods in ever-higher volumes. Over the last 30 years, the Himalayan farmers have been accused as a pertinent factor aggravating the monsoon tragedy on the Gangetic plain and Bangladesh. Wanton deforestation in the Himalaya, by poor farmers is said to be the pertinent cause of flooding downstream, which has been allegedly increasing with time. Such a thesis that mountain farmers are devastating the forests and consequently causing serious down stream environmental and socio-economic damage is popularly known as the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation.

The genesis of the theory can be traced to the GTZ-UNESCO conference of December 1974 in Munich, if not earlier. The summery report of the proceedings noted ´these mountain regions are seriously and increasingly affected by processes of deforestation, soil erosion, improper land use, and poor water management. Overuse of mountain environments has a widening impact on the plains with downstream floods, the siltation of dams and harbours and on the damage of crops and of homesteads´. Eckholm´s paper published in Science (1975) and his book Losing Ground (1976) supporting the Himalayan Degradation Theory added fuel to the fire. His arguments dominated mountain environment and development thought for over 20 years and are influential even at present times in many areas of government and institutional decision making. Besides, reports of the World Bank (1979), World Resources Institute (1985), Asian Development Bank (1982) and such other reputed institutions supporting the Himalayan Degradation Theory made it all time strong in the 80s. Many well-known academicians, foresters, environmentalists, journalists and technocrats were not behind in highlighting their points supporting the cause.

The theory started receiving critical review from the academics undertaking research in the Himalayan region from around mid-1980s. Several research groups and individuals began detailed studies and also became aware of each other´s work through research journals like Mountain Research and Development. Further, the Mohonk conference on the ´Himalaya-Ganges Problem´ in May 1986 served as an initial platform to debunk the theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation. The very objective of the conference was to debate and investigate the prevailing Himalayan environmental paradigm of the 1970s and 1980s. The conference paved the way for the publication of The Himalayan Dilemma: Reconciling Development and Conservation (1989) under the authorship of Jack D. Ives and Bruno Messerli, where the authors challenged the prevailing Himalayan environmental notion with several scientific evidences and asked for a more focused and rigorous empirical research in order to substantiate the many environmental issues that had been raised. Since 1989 a vast amount of environmental research has been undertaken. Although scattered widely across the literature, majority of them support the findings of Ives and Messerli.


Floods occur on the Gangetic plain and Bangladesh every year largely due to their geo-environmental locations. We have, however, never been clear as to what extent of floods occur due to natural phenomenon and to what extent human activities like deforestation in the upstream or building of embankments downstream are responsible for increasing the inundation and deteriorating the flood situation in modern times. It is also not clear whether the floods are increasing in frequency and intensity over the decades, as is strongly claimed. Nevertheless, data collected and analysed between 1992 and 1996 by a Bangla-Swiss team led by Bruno Messerli and Thomas Hofer provides scientific evidence to further disprove the Himalayan Degradation Theory and presents new suggestions as to the cause of Bangladesh floods. The study points out: ´floods in Bangladesh and India are largely independent of human activities in the upper catchment areas. Neither the frequency nor the volume of flooding has increased in Bangladesh over the last 120 years. Precipitation and runoff in the Himalaya do not seem to be important causes of floods in Bangladesh´.

There was hardly any rigorous environmental research carried out in the Himalayan region prior to 1980 and the account of the alarmist Himalayan degradation discourse in both the academic and popular literature was based upon supposition and emotion that entered policy formulation. Such discourse subsequently entered into the environmental and development politics of the region. According to Professor Ives, ´examination of many of the reports prepared for aid agencies and local governments are particularly revealing- successive consultants simply reproduced the conclusions of their predecessors´.

Environmental situations have been changing across spaces of the globe and the Himalayas cannot be an exception. In this regard, mention should be made that environmental problems in several parts of the Himalaya are serious and in some places severe needing immediate scientific attention. However, it is important also to understand that the environmental degradation theory which openly blames poor subsistence mountain farmers for degrading the Himalayan environment and levels them as direct agents of Indo-Gangetic plain and Bangladesh floods is not true. Rather, there are other pertinent forces that have played major role in directing the human security paradigm over the years and have acted as dominant factors of instability in the region. The tragedy of this situation is that poor mountain people, as in many other parts of the world, have become victims of convenience. This process has diverted attention away from the real problems – repression and/or neglect of minorities, social unrest and poverty, corruption, all of which contribute to the current violence that affects much of the region.

The writer gratefully acknowledges the inputs extended by Professor Jack Ives while preparing this note.The writer is Associate Fellow, Sikkim University, Gangtok, Sikkim, India.