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Trans-Himalayan
Ecological
Development
Authority
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"As
the Sun dries the morning dew,
So are the sins of man dissipated
At the sight of the Himalayas"
-
Skanda Purana
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Great
Himalayan Ranges
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The present condition of the world's
greatest mountain range would make the scribe of this gem from
the Puranas cry out in sorrow and alarm. Man can commit
no greater sin than to pollute and damage the very source of
his civilisation. From the time he began seeking comforts beyond
the sway of Nature, man has been cursed. In the blind pursuit
of a consumerist culture, man threatens to tear asunder the
subtle web of Nature that holds this universe together. His
ignoring of Nature's warnings makes the already calamitous prospects
more bleak. Little did he think that a wide cleavage between
him and Nature would prove disastrous and beyond redemption.
In his anthropocentric pursuits, he has disturbed the harmony
that prevailed between the biotic realm and nature arising out
of millions of years of evolution and interface between one
organism and another and between them and their habitat. As
long as man kept to his niche and played a role compatible with
other living things, the ecosystem remained in good health The
''paragon of animals', the modern man, has started undoing it
altogether.
Assuming dominance over other living
things, man has interfered with Nature's cybernetics and has,
at places, replaced 'biosphere' with 'noosphere'. He has introduced
dramatic and unnatural changes that ecosystem finds difficult
to accommodate. The unresolved conflict between man's demands
and those of natural laws that maintain ecosystem's stability
has led to destruction of ecological systems, environmental
decay and deterioration of the quality of life. This, in essence,
is the ecological disaster that awaits man.
Man has also ruthlessly assaulted
mountain ecology, extending his 'anthroposphere' to lofty summits.
Mountains are no longer zones of silence and innocuous pursuits.
They reverberate with the noise of myriad human activities -
recreational to extractive - demanding transfer of alpine forests
to agriculture, human settlements, recreational resorts, roads,
high dams, extraction of timber and the like. All these activities
outs heavy strain on the fragile mountain ecosystem and the
Himalayas are no exception to it. As man inducts machines in
mountains to accelerate development, the stress assumes dangerous
proportion. Gigantic development is compatible with mountain
ecology because of its limited carrying capacity. Tectonically,
meteorologically ands biologically, the mountains are very sensitive
and most susceptible to slightest disturbance of its ecological
balance with catastrophic consequences. High altitude zones
are highly sensitive with meagre tolerance limits. Its steep
slopes, coupled with climatic stress, make their recovery precarious.
A single event in one mountain spot can upset the ecological
balance of an entire mountain range. Yet, in the face of such
stark truth, dangerously unstable slopes are terraced, forests
felled and dams constructed with least concern for ecological
consequences.
Those who suffer most from
these activities are the mountain dwellers, about 400 million
people world-wide who have been living in harmony with mountain
ecosystems for centuries. Of them, about 40 million are in the
Hindukush-Himalayas. Their suffering may vary in degree but
their problems remain the same - landslide, slope failure, avalanche,
mud-flow and the like. The damage to mountains is more perceptible
in developing countries where poverty confound the problem of
ecological degradation. The regions with socio-economic constraints
present a grim picture. In mountain regions, forest is mountain
dweller's food, fodder, fuel, fibre and fertiliser. Yet he has
few choices than to lop, cut or burn trees. As forest cover
gets meagre under nurgeoning human pressure, mountains get poorer
and mountain dwellers get into an ecological poverty trap. The
tragedy begins with vanishing tree cover in mountains and ends
in devastation in the plains. There the frequency and intensity
of flood, siltation, crop destruction and loss of life and property
becomes frequent The Himalayan kingdom of Nepal is in the danger
of losing three-fourths of her forests in another decade and
its impact will be felt more in the Gangetic plains. The Alaknanda
and the Bhagirathi, two boisterous tributaries of the Ganga,
now frequently frown with the fury of flood.
In 1973, Alaknanda inundated
a 100 sq km area and filled the high altitude Gohana lake with
silt, sand and stones. Its devastating effect was felt 100 kilometre
downstream in Srinagar (Garhwal), where a 6 feet high wall of
debris had come up. A 10 km stretch of Ganga Canal, from Hardwar
to Pathani, was choked with 5-8 feet of debris. In 1978, the
Bhagirathi unleashed a 3.75 km long and 1 km wide landslide
in Gairaidhar catchment area of Kanoldiyagad creating two lakes
that eventually destroyed several villages. Floods and landslides
are common in eastern and western Himalayas. It is no better
in other parts of the range. The repeated incidents of landslides
create the impression as if the Himalayas are made of clay.
Mountains are no longer the metaphor for resilience, strength
and immutability. They have become crumbling and eroding masses.
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