Volume 2 Issue 3 Jan-June 2004 ISSN 1727 5210 editorial correspondence Let’s air our dirty laundry Chemical research should be a Scientists and developers can’t save the world national priority when they have to play along to get along Rajendra Uprety Seth Sicroff Page 10 Page 9 essay policy Himalayan Journal of Sciences Volume 2, Issue 3 Scientists: Four golden lessons Theories for sustainable futures Jan-June 2004 Advice to students at the start of their Sustainable development requires integration of Pages: 1-70 scientific careers ecological, economic and social theories Steven Weinberg C S Holling Cover image credit: Page 11 Page 12 Krishna K Shrestha resource review special announcement How to control illegal wildlife trade in the Mountain Legacy announces plans Himalayas Mountain Legacy announces plans for conference As Nepal’s greatest natural resources approach on Mountain Hazards and Mountain Tourism, extinction, the stakes could hardly be higher calls for nominations for second Hillary Medal, Ram P Chaudhary and proposes research and development institute Page 15 in Rolwaling Page 20 publication preview Published by Himalayan perceptions: Environmental change and the well-being of mountain peoples Himalayan Association for Fifteen years ago, the Himalayan Dilemma buried the most popular environmental paradigm of the 80s. the Advancement of Science What will it take for policy-makers to get the message? Lalitpur, Nepal Jack D Ives GPO Box No. 2838 Page 17 HIMALAYAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCES VOL 2 ISSUE 3 JAN-JUNE 2004 7 Seth Sicroff research papers Quantitative analysis of tree species in two community forests of Dolpa district, mid-west Nepal Ripu M Kunwar and Shiv P Sharma Page 23 Vegetation composition and diversity of Piluwa micro-watershed in Tinjure-Milke region, east Nepal Madan Koirala Page 29 Hello, trees, how are you? Indigenous knowledge of terrace management in Paundi Khola Who’s to blame if the Tree species in Dolpa watershed, Lamjung district, Nepal Himalayas are in trouble? district, p 23 Karun Pandit and Mohan K Balla p 17 Page 33 Quantitative analysis of macrophytes of Beeshazar Tal, Chitwan, Nepal Chudamani Burlakoti and Siddhi B Karmacharya Page 37 Methods to reduce soil erosion and nutrient losses in Kavre district, central Nepal Janak Pathak Page 42 Two new records of Eria Lindl. (Orchidaceae) for Nepal Devendra M Bajracharya and Krishna K Shrestha Page 46 Two new records of Viola L. (Violaceae) for Nepal Nature sets the basic Ram S Dani and Krishna K Shrestha Only a unified theory that patterns, but human Page 48 integrates the three activities can make a big domians of sustainable difference Discharge and sediment loads of two streams in the mid-hills development - ecology, p 51 economy and sociology - can of central Nepal safeguard our future, p 12 Roshan M Bajracharya, Subodh Sharma and Roberto Clemente Page 51 articles Ethnosilvicultural knowledge: A promising foundation for integrating non-timber forest products into forest management Krishna H Gautam and Teiji Watanabe Page 55 miscellaneous Author index for Volume 1, 2003 Page 59 Beeshazar Tal, a fertile lake How knowledge is covered with emergent transferred to new vegetation. Next step could Guide to Authors generation be marsh meadow, p 37 Page 60 p 55 8 HIMALAYAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCES VOL 2 ISSUE 3 JAN-JUNE 2004 IN THIS ISSUE Without a unified field theory, sustainable development flounders ...................................................................................................................................................................... Theories of ecology, economy and sociology are partial and perhaps too simple, in isolation, to solve the complex problems of sustainable development. Past failure was due to such policies of government and non-government agencies which flop from one myopic solution to another. Unless we develop an evolutionary and dynamic integrated theory, which would recognize the synergies and constraints of nature, economy and people, we cannot assure a sustainable future. Are we doomed? Holling (p 12) points to a light at the end of the tunnel! [POLICY] Forest management must integrate Rain, slope, and land use determine the lessons of ethnosilviculture sediment load in upland streams ................................................................................... ................................................................................... Timber-only forest management is The mid-hills of Nepal have been facing a incompatible with the conservation of forest dangerous dilemma arising from the ecosystems. The incorporation of non- escalating demands of a growing timber forest products (NTFPs) in population, on the one hand, and mainstream forestry is critical to the worldwide pressure for ecological sustainability of not only the ecological preservation on the other. Environmental systems but also the livelihoods and cultural degradation has been due largely to human values of local and regional stakeholders. activities: agricultural intensification, Mild disturbance fosters forest Some scientific efforts have been initiated cultivation of marginal lands, extraction of regeneration focusing on integration of NTFPs into forest products, and infrastructure ................................................................................... mainstream forestry, but the extent and development. The resulting changes in Eastern Nepal is rich in biodiversity and is diversity of Nepal’s forests are such that water storage and runoff patterns have much explored since the pioneering work sustainable forest management will no contributed to soil erosion. Because of the of Hooker. More recently the forests are longer be an option if we wait for dispositive climate and topography of the region, under pressure and degraded due to over- empirical results. On the other hand, stream discharge is low most of the year, exploitation of resources for subsistence ethnosilvicultural knowledge accumulated with high flows and sediment livelihood. Despite this increasing pressure over the centuries is vanishing without a concentrations limited to a few major some of the forests have been protected trace. Gautam and Watanabe (p 55) have events during the pre-monsoon and early since long by local peoples. It has changed documented such expertise among Cana- rainy season. A work by Bajracharya et al. the regeneration status and diversity of dian Aboriginal communities and Nepali (p 51), however, confirms that land use and the forest. Koirala (p 29) compares two community forest users groups. Their work farming practices significantly impact dis- forests of Milke region (east Nepal) at dif- underscores the need to establish appro- charge patterns and sediment loads in ferent levels of degradation. He finds that priate databases to document this streams with steep gradients in the mid- regeneration is more sustainable in the ethnosilvicultural knowledge, and the hills. Preliminary analysis suggests that it mildly degraded Quercus-Rhododendron importance of strengthening the traditional may be possible to predict discharge, and forest than in mature and relatively non- institutions that have been applying and hence sediment loads, from 24-hour degraded forest, where sapling counts in- expanding that legacy. [ARTICLE] rainfall measurements. [RESEARCH] dicate that Symplocos and Quercus are replacing Rhododendron. Pre-eminent mountain geographer challenges Himalayan delusions [RESEARCH] ...................................................................................................................................................................... Jack Ives has been aptly described as a “dinosaur” – one of the last of the great geographer- explorers. Recently awarded the King Albert I Gold Medal (whose recipients include Sir Four Nobel Truths John Hunt, organizer of the first successful ascent of Mt. Everest, as well as Bradford ................................................................................... Washburn, creator of the National Geographic map of Mt. Everest), Ives pioneered a series Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg offers of seven expeditions into the interior of Canada’s Baffin Island, assigning names to peaks, career advice to graduate students (p 11). glaciers, and rivers on this frigid landmass one and half times the size of Germany. His First, don’t try to master your field before theory of “instantaneous glacierization” overturned the prevailing view that ice ages rolled completing your PhD: you can learn on down out of the north like a window shade: instead, Ives argued, they could begin as the job. Second, when choosing a research scattered snow patches that survived the summer on high plateaus of the interior of the topic, look for areas that seems to be in a Canadian north when mean temperatures fell just a few degrees, expanding rapidly to bury state of confusion: these are opportuni- large areas. In 1989, Ives co-authored The Himalayan Dilemma, summarizing the ties for creative research and significant controversial ideas that came out of the 1986 Mohonk Conference (which Ives organized); contributions. Third, expect and accept he was one of the architects of Chapter 13 (The State of the World’s Mountains) of Agenda wasted time: there is no shining path to 21, a seminal document adopted by the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and the truth. Fourth, study the history of sci- Development in Rio de Janeiro (also known as the Earth Summit). Ives founded and edited ence, and your field in particular,