Capped with snow and blanketed with thick clouds for much of the year, this immense geological mammoth was created around 25 million years ago when a breakaway island from Gondwanaland met the Asian land mass. The Himalaya are among the world's loftiest and most breathtaking mountain chains. The formation of the Himalaya served to protect the Indian subcontinent from freezing northern winds. This in turn offered security to several tropical life forms, which received further nourishment thanks to the mineral rich flood plains of several major rivers which originate in the high mountains. Extending some 236,300 sq. km. in the Indian region, the Himalaya accounts for nearly seven per cent of the country's total surface area. This zone extends over the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh in India. Outside India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan also fall within this zone.

Some 25 million people actually reside in the Himalaya proper, but nearly 40 per cent of India's population living in the Indo-Gangetic Plain below the mountains are more or less completely reliant upon the Himalaya for water. Virtually all their drinking, irrigation and electricity requirements are fulfilled thanks to Himalayan rivers. Tragically, planners have little appreciated the true worth of the magnificent gifts from the Himalaya. The tree-clothed slopes which could nurture people for eternity, have been cut for commerce. The rivers which have been considered holy for eons, are now regarded as little more than an elaborate sewage disposal system. The enormous number of people totally dependent upon these mountains at once increases the value of the Himalaya far beyond that quantifiable in monetary terms, but this fact has not yet been accepted into the Indian planning system.

Mountains are very fragile ecosystems and the Himalaya is perhaps the youngest mountain chain in the world. Intense rainfall, steep slopes and infirm soils, all due either to young age or geological location, make the Himalayan mountains extremely vulnerable. And, as if natural factors were not adverse enough, the demands upon the Himalaya continue to rise. Cultivation of steep slopes, livestock grazing, tourism and deforestation for fuel and timber combine to devastate the Himalaya. Such tremendous pressures have taken their toll on the regions' luxuriant biological wealth. On top of all this, that most potent force - gravity - works to aggravate man caused landslides and siltation. Today the Himalaya probably ranks as one of the most actively and highly degraded ecosystems anywhere on Planet Earth.

Paradoxically, as awareness grows, we have started spending crores to replant the mountains with exotic, commercial species - even as we continue to spend even greater amounts on projects like the Tehri dam, which itself aggravates the deforestation and destabilisation of crumbling slopes. If the Himalaya is to be saved, then the outmoded thinking of 'modem developers' will have to be relegated to the dustbin of history very fast. A new breed of contemporary planners have already begun to see that the best 'dam' to control floods and deliver water slowly, over 12 months, is the natural sponge - forests - that 'development' agencies are bartering so readily for cash today.

Biology of the Himalaya

The Himalaya stretches for well over 2,000 km. and has extreme habitat types, ranging from arid Mediterranean and temperate in the western parts, to warm, moist, evergreen jungles in the east. Currently there are 56 protected areas in this zone and these cover roughly five per cent of the total surface area. 10 of these protected areas are National Parks. However, not all the regions of the Himalaya are adequately represented in the existing conservation programmes. This is largely because of the complexity of the Himalayan ecosystems coupled with the lacunae that still exist in our knowledge of the distribution and diversity of plant and animal species.

Altitudinally and longitudinally, the Himalaya can be grouped into three distinct habitat types:

a) The low altitude foothills country - predominantly sub-tropical mixed deciduous, merging into stands of chir pine at around 1,000 metres and then gradually to oak at slightly higher altitudes. Much of the faunal component of this region, east to west, bears a close affinity to that of the Indian peninsula to the south. A considerable portion of the foothills are packed with human settlements, this being the most highly populated portion of the Himalaya. The foothills, consequently, have very few protected areas.

b) The temperate country, above the foothills, roughly between 1,500 and 3,500 metres, a complex mix of broad-leaved and coniferous vegetation, with its characteristic faunal community that also shows distinct peculiarities in the western, central and eastern sectors. Here one can see musk deer, black and brown bears, several pheasants, mountain sheep, goats and deer. The western part of the Himalaya has a rich herbivore structure in the temperate ecozone, while the central part lacks species like the ibex and the markhor. In the more luxuriant eastern parts where the tree-line is higher, animals like the red panda, binturong and several lesser cats populated the area. The temperate region is vital in that besides its permanent resident community, it serves as a wintering area for the higher altitude animals and birds who undertake a yearly vertical migration in search of food and to escape the bitter winter. The resident human population in the entire temperate sector, which accounts for 35 per cent of the total surface area of the Himalaya in the Indian region, is just over 10 million - the western and central parts being more densely populated. The major pressure on the temperate sector is the tremendous demand for timber, as also the uncontrolled influx of tourists. Nearly all the well-known mountain resorts lie in this sector. From the conservation point of view, fortunately this sector fares much better than the lower foothills. Of the existing 56 protected areas in the Himalaya, at least 41 lie in the temperate sector either completely, or partly (the higher reaches of some of these protected areas merge into the third major habitat type, the high-altitude sub-alpine).

c) The sub-alpine habitat type, above the middle level temperate sector (higher than 3,500 metres). Vegetation in this sector consists of birch, rhododendrons, junipers, dwarf bamboo and a mixture of open meadows and scrub-dotted grasslands. The western part is very dry, but in the moist east the tree-line is higher. Above 5,000 metres rock and snow dominate the landscape, and mark the ultimate limit of vegetation. As habitat types change, a noticeable transformation takes place in the faunal community as well. The higher reaches house several threatened species such as the ibex, shapu, wolf and snow-leopard. Nearly half the 56 protected areas in the Himalaya extend partially or extensively into the high-altitude sub-alpine. Most of this sector, being very cold and barren, is sparsely populated and relatively free from the serious problems that plague the two lower Himalayan sectors. A most sinister problem here, however, is poaching, which singles out indicator species such as the snow leopard, brown bear, fox, martin and other fur bearing species for punishment.

Conservation status

Unfortunately, only very superficial attention has been paid to the conservation and management of the Himalaya. Though there are many protected areas, they are improperly spread and many are very small in size. 42 of the existing 56 Sanctuaries and Parks are 200 sq. km. or smaller in size, and 29 of these have an area of less than 100 sq. km.! Hardly four of the protected areas, totalling less than 1,000 sq. km., or barely nine per cent of the total protected area network is inter-connected by forest or some other natural corridor.

In the Himalaya, with its extremes of weather and vegetation conditions, animal species, in order to maintain adequate and viable populations in suitable ecozones, need the presence of large and contiguous habitats. Larger animals such as bears, wolves, snow-leopards, mountain sheep and goats which migrate altitudinally in winter and summer are in desperate need of protected areas where they are free from hunting and other human pressures. Moreover, they need large expanses to maintain their population levels and such areas no longer exist in the Himalaya which has been truncated by the designs of developers who have never really understood the imperatives of mountain ecosystems. Industrialisation and 'development' projects have usurped traditional grazing grounds and forests which once supplied the biomass needs of humans. An alarming result is the fact that over 80 per cent of the existing protected areas are encroached or plagued with problems of villages and livestock pressures, as people perforce look towards still more distant supply sources for fuel and fodder. All this severely affects wild animals, the pollinators and regulators, themselves so critical to the maintenance of the habitat. Faulty land use has thus created a downward environmental spiral from which escape will only be possible if peoples' movements like Chipko are able to drive out the legion of exploiters waiting to cadaverise the Himalaya.

The protected area network in the Himalaya needs urgent fortification. Rodgers and Panwar ask for an increase in the number of protected places from 56 to 92. This would increase the network from 12,908 sq. km. or 5.5 percent, to 23,539 sq. km. or around 10 per cent of the total surface area of the zone. Over 70 per cent of this proposed increase is in the eastern regions of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, which is richer in both, plant and animal life than almost any other part of the sub-continent. The extent of natural forests in this region is considerably higher than in the central or western sectors. Also, the human population is as yet not so dense. As such, this sector affords the maximum potential to plan a
well-designed conservation planning and management strategy.

Some of the more visible wildlife protection programmes in the Himalaya include Project Hangul, the Himalayan Musk Deer Ecology and Conservation Project, the Snow Leopard Project and several Pheasant Projects.

Thus far, in most such programmes, however, local people have been left out of the conservation planning process. As a result, their aspirations, fears and rights have not been understood, or catered to. This is precisely why wildlife conservation projects have thus far received so little support from the people who live around protected reserves. Compensation for leopard kills or crop damage seldom reaches the owners. Ensuring reliable fuel and fodder supplies is low on the priority of planners so villagers are forced to enter protected areas for their simple needs. If tomorrow's wildlife programmes are not to go the way of the past, then social justice will have to be ensured around protected places. And equitable distribution of basic resources will have to be recognised as a prerequisite to the success of conservation plans.