An Inquiry into ‘Fragile’ Himalaya

Rasoul Sorkhabi

The Fragile Mountain was the title of a 1982 documentary film about the Nepal Himalaya produced by Sandra Nichols with financial help from the World Bank. In the same year, National Geographic published several articles on the Himalaya using the adjective ‘fragile’ for these mountains. One particular article (‘Preserving Mountain Heritage,’ June 1982) by Sir Edmund Hillary was about the Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park, and in the caption to the first figure in this article (probably written by a staff editor of the magazine) we read: ‘Sacred and profaned, the roof of the world is flooded with visitors and falling into disrepair. Without outside help, Nepal has moved to safeguard the fragile environment that bears the crown jewels of world mountains - some of them the abode of gods, according to local tradition.’ The late Barry Bishop, a renowned geographer, published another good article in the November issue of National Geographic entitled, ‘A Fragile Heritage: the Mighty Himalaya.’ You, like me, have often heard or read the terms ‘fragile Himalayan’ mountains, environment, ecosystems, etc., and probably like me, may not care who first used this expression and where and when. But over the years, as I have frequently come across these words in books, magazine articles, newspapers, conferences and the internet websites, I have jotted them down and then pondered: What is so ‘fragile’ in the Himalaya, what does ‘fragility’ mean in this context, fragility of what, for whom, caused by what factors, and to what ends? This article shares these notes and thoughts.

What does the Popular Press Say?
First, I will list several usage of ‘fragile Himalaya’ by various authors and from various popular (non-technical) sources because these sources are easily accessible to the public and shape the public perceptions.

A.D. Moddie in ‘Himalayan Environment’ in The Himalaya: Aspects of Change (Oxford University Press, 1981):

In bygone ages the Himalaya seemed eternal; man's onslaught has rendered them among the most fragile eco-systems of the earth.

Rick Ridgway (a member of the first successful American expedition to climb K2) in National Geographic, June 1982:

Despite their impregnable appearance, the Himalayas are a fragile environment. The demand of Sherpas and trekkers for firewood has left some slopes deforested, exposed to erosion.

In his paper on ‘Accelerated erosion and landslide-prone zones in the central Himalayan region’ (Environmental Regeneration in the Himalaya: Strategies and Concepts, Nanital, 1985) the Indian renowned geologist Dr. K.S. Valdiya (then at Kumaun University, Nanital) writes:

The Himalaya is a provider of a variety of natural resources to the Indian subcontinent, including the life-giving water. These resources have been threatened largely by human negligence and activities. Riven with a large number of faults that cut the mountain arc into differentially moving segments, and divided by deep and active thrusts, the Himalaya is seismically and tectonically a very sensitive domain. The variety of ecosystems that this sensitive region supports, are, therefore, fragile. Due to a rather precarious balance, even a small disturbance precipitates changes that rapidly assume alarming proportions.

Greenpeace magazine (March-April 1990) published an article (‘The Agony of Tibet’) by Galen Rowell, America's well-known travel writer. One of the photo captions reads:

In valleys that once sustained thousands of Tibet's nomadic herdsmen, livestock from collective farms has overgrazed the fragile grasslands.

Maryanne Vollers in ‘Mountains: Regal Highlands Erode Downhill’ in International Wildlife (March-April 1990):

Powerful symbols of stability and invulnerability, mountains give the impression of being eternal. They are not. The shaggy vicunas and delicate orchids that grace rugged slopes and sheltered Andean meadows are part of a fragile and mutable web of life. Mountains are constantly changing, relentlessly shaped by shifts in the Earth's surface, by gravity, rain and wind. Once axes, plows and livestock are added to the equation, the delicate balance of life is often irrevocably altered ... In Asia, 300 million people live in the fragile upland watershed ... some of these mountain people, such as the yak herders of northern India, have managed to live in harmony with their high altitude environment. Others have not been so successful, and in recent years, the problems and pressures have grown. In the past decade, 3.5 million Afghan refugees have settled in the forests of Pakistan’s Hindu Kush. Trying to eke out an existence, they have cleared vast areas of woodlands, turning many slopes into rocky wastelands.

Kerry Moran in Nepal Handbook (Moon Publications, 1991) in a chapter on the environment:

The Himalaya may seem eternal, but it is one of the most fragile ecosystems on earth. Steep slopes, poor soil, and heavy monsoon rains make it mountains vulnerable to erosion. Deforestation accelerates the process, as topsoil slides down into rivers and is washed away into the sea. What is happening in Nepal is occurring all across the Himalaya, and has been for centuries. The pace has accelerated in the last few decades because of intense population pressures. Much has been made of tourism's environmental impact, but 60,000 trekkers per year use far less wood than the eight million tons burned annually by 19 million Nepalese. Tourism’s greatest threat is cultural rather than environmental erosion.

Insight Guide: Nepal (1991) contains a chapter entitled ‘The Fragile Himalaya’ by the Nepali journalist Kunda Dixit (editor of Himal South Asia) about the state of the environment in Nepal, highlighting such problems as rural expansion, population pressures, deforestation and enhanced denudation, and the impact of tourism. However, he does not fail to mention the concept of ‘the not-so-fragile mountain.’ Dixit writes:

Experts now discount the theory that deforestation-induced-erosion of the Himalaya is the main cause of worsening floods downstream in Bangladesh and India. ‘Natural’ erosion of the Himalaya has probably contributed most of the silt to the Ganges and the Bay of Bengal long before mankind settled in the hills. Some ecologists also refute doomsday theorists who claim that forest loss in the mountains is catastrophic, saying that deforestation is confined to the jungles of the Terai.

The author then goes on to discuss ‘Tourism: a goose or a golden egg?’:

More serious is the fear that mountaineering and tourism will further strain the Himalaya's fragile environment. The Barun Valley in eastern Nepal and the trekkers' ‘highways’ through Solu Khumbu and the Annapurna are vivid examples of what uncontrolled visitor traffic can do. In the Barun, the moraines are crumbling because mountaineering expeditions on Mount Makalu have uprooted the dwarf junipers to burn at the base camp kitchen. The Annapurna Sanctuary’s frail ecosystem is slow to recover from the tramping boots of the 10,000 trekkers who visit it every year. The receding forests all along the Annapurna and Solu Khumbu trails are tragic reminders of the effects of indiscriminate tourism.

Buzzworm: The Environmental Journal (ceased to publish), May-June 1993 (in the table of contents introducing an article Kim Larson’s article ‘Abode of Snows’ about Nepal):

Abode of Snow - once the floor of an ancient sea, the skyline on the planet. While the going is grueling, the Himalayas are home to some of the most fragile biological and cultural communities on Earth.

Derek Denniston, in ‘Saving the Himalaya’ in WorldWatch, November-December 1993:

What the popular perception overlooks is the ecological fragility of the Himalaya - a condition made all the more precarious by the poverty and density of its human population. Many of those who live in the encircling plains do not understand the nature of the high peaks that send them their water, topsoil, and weather. The natural processes of uplift, tectonic movement, and erosion make the range one of the most dynamic landscapes on Earth, prone not only to natural hazards - earthquakes, landslides, flash floods, and glacial lake outbursts - but also to human damage.

Jon Burbank in Nepal (Prentice-Hall, 1993) writes:

The ecological fragility of the Himalayas is often disguised by their serenity and majesty. The Himalayas and their foothills are, in fact, dynamic. As the world's youngest mountains continue their slow collision against the Tibetan Plateau, the lands below are besieged by recurring earthquakes, flashfloods, landslides and natural dams. In order for human and wildlife habitations to survive in these conditions, human beings must strike a delicate balance with the environment, taking great care not to add new pressures. Nepali villagers, intimately familiar with the volatility of these mountains, understand that their long-term survival hinges on their ability to live with nature. But of late, this balance has been impossible to maintain.

Why? The author points out Nepal's rapidly growing population (at a rate of 2.7 percent), increasing demand for land, hence deforestation at an alarming rate of 3 percent and consequently ‘the increased erosion of precious fertile topsoil’, ‘the increased incidences of landslides’, and ‘the devastation of the natural habitat of Nepal's wildlife.’

Lonely Planet Indian Himalaya (2000) writes:

Despite its epic grandeur, the Himalaya and its networks of isolated communities is surprisingly fragile.

Indian Travel Portal (an online travel guide) on its website:

A vast shallow sea, the Tethys, existed where the Himalaya stands today. The submerged landmasses on either side started pushing toward each other, giving birth to these mountains. This was a relatively recent occurrence in the geographical time frame, so the Himalaya is considered a young and fragile land formation.

On the website of the Great Himalayan National Park (in India) we read the following:

The Himalayas are also one of the most fragile mountain regions of the world and hold an enormous repository of biological diversity which is increasingly under pressure from human activities. The unique ecological aspects of the Western Himalaya led to the creation of the Great Himalayan National Park in the Kulu district of India's mountain state of Himachal Pradesh. These features include biodiversity, sparse human populations, inaccessibility, little tourism, and a local economy based on traditional livelihoods.

Himalayan Holidays Treks (H2T) (based in Nepal) has posted the following on its website:

H2T keeps on putting every ounce of efforts to safeguard the fragile environment by conducting various social and environment awareness programs for locals and staff members where first priority is given to sustainable tourism development.

The Climb High Himalaya Company (based in Nepal) has the following on its website:

The Sierra club adage ‘Take only pictures, leave only foot prints’ is an appropriate philosophy for preserving Tibet's wilderness. It is one of the great unspoiled wildernesses left on earth and so it is our both right and duty to protect and respect the unique ecology and beauty of this fragile region.

What Does ‘Fragile Himalaya’ Mean?
It appears that the word ‘fragile’ for the Himalaya has become an umbrella expression for everything that exists in this region, but oftentimes with little attention to the definition and characteristics of the ‘fragile’ Himalaya. Here I share my understanding of the term ‘fragile’ Himalaya based on what we know from the science of the Himalayan environment.

The first step in evaluating ‘fragile Himalaya’ is to make a distinction the natural environment and human societies in the Himalaya and then analyze their relationships. ‘Fragile Himalayan communities’ may mean two entirely different concepts. It may imply that people living in the Himalaya are fragile because they can easily abandon their traditional life styles as they are exposed to and influenced by the modern Western products. This situation, however, is not unique to Himalayan societies; it has been occurring all over the world. But such a notion of fragile Himalayan communities often stems from romantic views held by some Western journalists, environmentalists and travellers who wish that the native Himalayan communities remain unchanged and preserve their cultures and traditional habitation. (Preserved, one wonders, for whom? For the Western romantic imagination and pleasure of the exotic Himalaya?) Although I do not deny the importance of preserving valuable and reasonable traditions in any culture and society (the Himalayan populations included), this narrow notion of fragility assigned to Himalayan communities is neither fair nor tenable. Fortunately, most of the quotations above do not advocate this notion.

Alternatively, ‘fragile Himalayan communities’ may mean that these people live in fragile mountain environments and their lives are thus severely affected by deteriorating environmental conditions. In this sense, the social fragility is dependent on the ecological fragility of the Himalaya.

It is crucial to characterize the ecological fragility in the Himalaya - that is the damage to crop yield, pasture, water, soil, and habitat in the Himalaya because of certain biophysical constraints in the region or inappropriate land use practices.

The biophysical constraints include the following:

(1) High relief and steep slopes of the terrain;

(2) Soil conditions (low fertility, relatively thin soil and prone to erosion);

(3) Climatic conditions (rain shadow and dry climate behind the Higher Himalayan range, and patterns of temperature and precipitation variations, and brevity of growing season);

(4) Distribution of plant species and vegetation in relatively narrow belts (in a south-north distance of only 250 kilometres and with a relief of over 5 km, one can go from temperate broad-leaved and conifer forests through Sub-alpine Rhododendron forests to Alpine meadows);

(5) Geomorphologic processes (landslides, flash floods, high rates of fluvial erosion);

(6) Active tectonics (earthquakes, fault movements).

Of these, active tectonics is the most fundamental factor because it is also responsible for the creation of high relief, steep slopes, and many other characteristics of the Himalayan environment. As the Indian tectonic plate continues to move against the Asia continent, the Himalayan mountains are rising and shaking. Humans, of course, are unable to control this active tectonics; therefore they need to adopt suitable practices for their habitation, resource management, grazing, cultivation, mining, tourism industry, etc. Obviously, rapid population growth, heavy tourist traffic, and inappropriate practices such as overgrazing, tree cutting place huge pressures on the Himalayan ecosystems.

People and policy makers in the Himalaya need a combination of (1) wise traditional habitation practices, (2) social and economic development, and (3) environmental protection. These demands may appear to be contradictory, but are not necessarily so. For instance, the centuries-old tradition of terrace cultivation on the Himalayan hills has proved to be successful. In recent decades, the use of kerosene in place of lumber has saved many trees in the Himalaya. Similarly, the designation of national parks and wilderness areas in the Himalaya is helpful and should be encouraged.

Culture and nature both undergo changes - sometimes slowly and other times swiftly. Change is a rule, not an exception. Mountain fragility should not be misinterpreted to deny any change per se. Fragile Himalaya refers to the specific biophysical conditions in the Himalaya which render the environment to be easily damaged both by natural and human causes and which adversely affect human or other living populations.

Summary
A Himalayan geologist analyses the concept of ‘fragile Himalaya’ to understand the causes of ecological fragility in mountain environments, the human impact on the Himalayan environment, the adverse effects of environmental deterioration on people and their habitats, and ways to cope with specific ecological conditions in the Himalaya and protect the environment