Of Rabbits, Hillmen and Muddy Rivers

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Since the early 1970s, shrill alarms have been sounded that because of deforestation Nepal is in danger of being washed away into the Bay of Bengal. Indeed, as one approaches the Bengali coastline when flying from Bangkok or Singapore, grey, turbid plumes of silt can be seen reaching out into the sea. Closer to home, the holy Ganga and her Nepali tributaries are not sparkling blue and pure, but resemble mudflow in their colour. Before the plane lands at Kathmandu's Gauchar airport, Royal Nepal's Boeing skims past the valley's rim to show mountains, stripped bare of forests.

It would seem that there is every reason to believe the prevailing deforestation syllogism, which runs thus: all poor marginal farmers cut trees for fodder and fuel; marginal farmers breed like irresponsible rabbits; because there are more of them, these farmers have to cut more trees on higher, steeper slopes; this results in deforestation, soil erosion and, eventually, apocalypse in Bangladesh.

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Himal Southasian
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