Climate damage control

An honorary research professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, Jack D Ives is a longtime advocate for the well-being of mountain communities. Early in his career, he researched glaciation and permafrost in Canada, later devoting his research to the study of high-mountain geo-ecology and mountain hazards. In the late 1980s, Ives, together with Swiss geographer Bruno Messerli, challenged the popular paradigm that Southasian mountain farmers were responsible for deforestation, erosion and extensive flooding in the Gangetic plain, a series of assumptions that had been collectively known as the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation. Later, he played a lead role in ensuring the 'mountain chapter' was included in Agenda 21 on Sustainable Development, a comprehensive action plan officially adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. He is the founding editor of the journal Mountain Research and Development), co-author (with Professor Messerli) of the book The Himalayan Dilemma (1989) and author of Himalayan Perceptions (2004). A longstanding critic of the scientific process that was taking place with regards to global climate change, Ives recently corresponded over e-mail with Smriti Mallapaty to discuss the aftermath of the global climate-change summit in Copenhagen.

Are there helpful comparisons to be made between the Himalayan Degradation Theory and the current theories around climate change?
The main comparison between what has been taking place and our contribution to debunking that theory was that the news media, NGOs, UN agencies, national governments and even academics have showed a deplorable tendency towards being ever eager to accept a disaster scenario without any critical evaluation. I quoted the World Bank Country Paper on Nepal of 1979 as stating that "at the present rate of deforestation, by 2000 there will be no accessible forest remaining in Nepal." I am not just trying to single out the World Bank – many NGOs, leading environmentalists of the time, and virtually all the news media not only accepted that disaster was close, but blamed it on the 'ignorant mountain peasants'. Mountain farmers gave us much of our insights into what was actually happening: (a) gross exaggeration and (b) blaming the victims, ie, the mountain farmers. The misrepresentation of the causes of deforestation undoubtedly led to the waste of very large sums of money addressing the wrong 'problem'. As my good friend Lawrence Hamilton said, "It floods in Bangladesh when it rains in Bangladesh." Yet still, several governments of the region banned the cutting of mountain forests by the mountain inhabitants, which in no way addresses the real problem. Hence: lessons unlearned.