Volume 10 March 2017 JOURNAL OF NEPAL THE GEOGRAPHICAL Volume 10 March 2017 THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL OF NEPAL THE GEOGRAPHICAL In this issue: Are doomsday scenarios best seen as failed predictions or political detonators? The case of the ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’ Tor H Aase JOURNAL OF NEPAL Revisit to functional classification of towns in Nepal Chandra Bahadur Shrestha, and Shiba Prasad Rijal Development of a decision support model for optimization of tour time to visit tourist destination points in a city Jagat Kumar Shrestha Myth and reality of the eco-crisis in Nepal Himalaya Hriday Lal Koirala Firewood management practice by hoteliers and non-hoteliers in Langtang valley, Nepal Himalayas Prem Sagar Chapagain Livelihood and coping strategies among urban poor people in post-conflict period: Case of the Kathmandu, Nepal Kedar Dahal Tourism development and economic and socio-cultural consequences in Everest Region Dhyanendra Bahadur Rai Biodiversity resources and livelihoods: A case from Lamabagar Village Development Committee, Dolakha District, Nepal Uttam Sagar Shrestha Humanistic Geography: How it blends with human geography through methodology Volume 10 March 2017 Volume Kanhaiya Sapkota Gender development perspective: A contemporary review in global and Nepalese context Balkrishna Baral The contested common pool resource: Ground water use in urban Kathmandu, Nepal Shobha Shrestha Park-people interaction - Its impact on livelihood and adaptive measures: A case study of Shivapur VDC, Bardiya District, Nepal Narayan Prasad Paudyal Obituary for a Cartographer – Indra Narayan Manandhar, 1941 – 2011 Obituary for a Political Geographer – Mangal Siddhi Manandhar, 1941 – 2016 Obituary for an Agricultural Geographer – Soorya Lal Amatya, 1936 – 2017 Central Department of Geography Central Department of Geography Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Tribhuvan University Tribhuvan University Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal The Geographical Journal of Nepal The Geographical Journal of Nepal is regular publication of the Central Department of Geography, Tribhuvan University. It is designed to simulate scholars and to provide for publication of significant contribution to knowledge in geography, review articles and map of special interest. Information for contributors The Geographical Journal of Nepal welcomes articles on any geographical subjects as long as these reflect significant contribution to geographical knowledge, or represent concepts and accomplishments of importance to geography and related disciplines. The articles published elsewhere will not be considered for publication in any form. Manuscripts must be typed double-spaced on one side of A4 size paper with a left hand margin of one and a half inches. Two copies of the manuscript in MSWord Format must be submitted to the Central Department of Geography, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur for consideration of publication. Submitted articles not published in the journal will not be returned to the author. Footnote, figure captions, and tables should be typed doubled-spaced on sheets separate from the text. The footnotes should be according to the style of this Journal. Subscription Rate In Nepal NRs. 300.00 each In India IRs. 250.00 each Other Countries US $ 20.00 each THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL OF NEPAL Volume 10 March 2017 Chief Editor Narendra R. Khanal Professor Editorial Board Prof. Pushkar K. Pradhan Prof. Bhim P. Subedi Prof. Hriday L. Koirala Prof. Pashupati Nepal Editorial and Business Office Central Department of Geography, Tribhuvan University University Campus, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal Tel.: +977-1-4330329, Fax: +977-1-4331319 Email: [email protected], website: www.cdgtu.edu.np The views expressed in the articles are solely of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Central Department of Geography, Tribhuvan University. © 2017 Central Department of Geography, Tribhuvan University. THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL OF NEPAL Volume 10 March 2017 CONTENTS PAGE Are doomsday scenarios best seen as failed predictions or political detonators? The 1 case of the ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’ Tor H Aase Revisit to functional classification of towns in Nepal 15 Chandra Bahadur Shrestha, and Shiba Prasad Rijal Development of a decision support model for optimization of tour time to visit tourist 29 destination points in a city Jagat Kumar Shrestha Myth and reality of the eco-crisis in Nepal Himalaya 39 Hriday Lal Koirala Firewood management practice by hoteliers and non-hoteliers in Langtang valley, 55 Nepal Himalayas Prem Sagar Chapagain Livelihood and coping strategies among urban poor people in post-conflict period: 73 Case of the Kathmandu, Nepal Kedar Dahal Tourism development and economic and socio-cultural consequences in Everest 89 Region Dhyanendra Bahadur Rai Biodiversity resources and livelihoods: A case from Lamabagar Village Development 105 Committee, Dolakha District, Nepal Uttam Sagar Shrestha Humanistic Geography: How it blends with human geography through methodology 121 Kanhaiya Sapkota Gender development perspective: A contemporary review in global and Nepalese 141 context Balkrishna Baral The contested common pool resource: Ground water use in urban Kathmandu, Nepal 153 Shobha Shrestha Park-people interaction - Its impact on livelihood and adaptive measures: A case study 167 of Shivapur VDC, Bardiya District, Nepal Narayan Prasad Paudyal Obituary for a Cartographer – Indra Narayan Manandhar, 1941 – 2011 181 Obituary for a Political Geographer – Mangal Siddhi Manandhar, 1941 – 2016 183 Obituary for an Agricultural Geographer – Soorya Lal Amatya, 1936 – 2017 187 The Geographical Journal of Nepal Vol. 10: 1-14, 2017 Central Department of Geography, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal Are doomsday scenarios best seen as failed predictions or political detonators? The case of the ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’ Tor H Aase Department of Geography, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Email: [email protected] The so-called ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’ predicted an environmental collapse by the end of last millennium, threatening the life of millions of people. Fortunately, the all-encompassing crisis did not materialize. The article shows that the ‘Theory’ failed to take into account the vast ecological variation in Himalaya and thus generalized its contentions to the whole mountain range on the basis of deficient data. But, on the other hand, what would have happened if the prediction had not been made? A doomsday scenario like the Theory of Himalayan Degradation can, from the perspective of positivist hypothesis testing, be viewed a posteriori as a failed prediction; but from another perspective it can be seen as an alarm clock that triggered a series of policy initiatives and new knowledge. Keywords: Environmental degradation; Himalaya; farming systems; ecological variation Introduction From time to time, doomsday scenarios enter global academic and political discourses. The gloomy future that was intimated in The Limits to Growth created great havoc in the 1970s (Meadows et al., 1972). More recently, Huntington’s notion of the Clash of Civilisations (1993) activated a heated debate over the future of multiculturalism. A hallmark of such scenarios is that they rarely come true. The 1984 passed much more pleasantly than Huxley envisaged. But should we thereby dismiss them as useless, as failed predictions that the world would have made better without? 1 Tor H Aase / The Geographical Journal of Nepal Vol. 10: 1-14, 2017 This article looks at one such prediction. The ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’ predicted an environmental collapse in the world’s greatest mountains by the end of last millennium, threatening the life of millions of people. Fortunately, the all-encompassing crisis did not materialize. But what would have happened if the prediction had not been made? The article asks if doomsday scenarios like the Theory of Himalayan Degradation could be regarded as an alarm clock which sets academics and politicians in motion, rather than ridiculing them on hindsight as nothing more than failed predictions. The Theory of Himalayan environmental degradation On an international conference on Development of Mountain Environment in Munich 1975 several alarming observations were disseminated, creating a general feeling among the participants of a pending catastrophe in the world’s mountain regions (Ives, 2006). Later the same year, Erik Eckholm published an article in the journal ‘Science’ that triggered a debate over the fate of Himalaya that has persisted to the present day (Eckholm, 1975). The article expressed grave concern that an environmental collapse would occur in the near future, affecting millions of people in the mountains as well as on the downstream plains. Eckholm’s argument ran thus: Assisted by international donor countries, improvements in medical- and veterinary services lowered the death rates of human and animal populations in the 1950s without also lowering birth rates. Because the resulting population increase was not followed up by economic modernisation, perpetuation of the traditional agro-pastoral farming system came to exert intolerable pressure on the natural resource base. Ever more forest was cleared for cultivation and steep slopes were converted into terraced fields. By that, two negative spirals of environmental degradation started. Firstly, the torrential