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10.3 (Fall 1986) Mountain Peoples

The Survival of Tibetan Culture

Recorded Tibetan history dates from the fourth century when the first kingdoms were established at Yarlung, in what is now South-Central Tibet. Later, in the seventh century, the center of Tibetan civilization shifted to the valley of Lhasa, "Gods' Place," where the first Buddhist kingdoms were established.

The Ladakh Project

An Example of Appropriate Technology and Cooperative Spirit

Over the years, writers and travelers have been unable to resist employing the term Shangri La to describe the remote land of Ladakh, in northern India. Yet, at a glance, this region of the Tibetan Plateau seems an unlikely paradise. The soaring Himalayas, which define Ladakh on the south, prevent all but about four inches of annual precipitation from reaching the area. The base elevation is around 11,000 feet, with the mountains reaching 20,000 feet and higher.

The Impact of Deforestation on Life in Nepal

The tourists who flock to Nepal in ever-increasing numbers are offered an idyllic vision of rural life, seemingly unchanged for centuries, set among some of the most spectacular mountain scenery in the world. Yet this image is illusory; despite revenue from tourism and massive injections of foreign aid (now totaling over half the national budget), the rural population in the Hills of Nepal is caught in a cycle of impoverishment.

The Catskill Mountains, USA - Physical and Cultural Restoration

ONE SMALL TOWN FOR SALE, FULLY OCCUPIED, proclaimed a headline in The New York Times classified section one fall Sunday in 1976.

Solution to Mountain Peoples' Hardship - Move Them to the Plains

In the next two years the Peoples' Republic of China will relocate 350,000 people in the Ning Xia Hui Autonomous Region.

These days the national news from China is about the business- and profit-oriented policies of Deng Xiao Ping, and how they have transfigured the country. The local news in the Ning Xia Hui Autonomous region, however, tells a different story. The primary concern in this small and dusty province in northwest China is not profits but survival.

Mountains Need Home-Grown Medicine

There is a problem in the Himalayas potentially more dangerous than the spiraling poverty and environmental degradation. It is that poor scientific research and inappropriate solutions may make the situation worse. This was the warning of many of the 55 scientists and policy makers at the second Mohonk International Mountain Conference last April. "Myth, poor data, and gross generalization" characterize much of the accepted knowledge about the mountains and their impact on lowland areas, according to conference convenor Jack Ives, President of the International Mountain Society.

Mountain People - A Searcher's Guide

In this issue Cultural Survival focuses on mountain people - a subject that only takes shape after some initial turning and prodding, because "mountain people" is the kind of catch-all term which tends to fall apart when you take a close look at it.

First, not all people agree on what a mountain is. For example, the people in Nepal's middle mountain region are well-situated in full beholding distance of the 23,000-foot-plus Himalayan massifs.

Mountain Minorities and Ecological Change in the Himalayas

In temperate-zone mountain systems throughout the world, the migratory life of shepherd communities is threatened. The pastoral life is marginal to dominant cultures and economies around it, and vulnerable to processes of ecological deterioration. Throughout most of the arc of the Himalayan mountain region, subsistence is rooted in the limited, fragile resources of the mountain's alluvial valleys, forests and high pastures.

Illness and Political Economy - The Andean Dialectic

Throughout Andean history, two themes pull at cross-purposes. One is adaptation, which combines agricultural innovations with a social organization that emphasizes principles of complementarity and reciprocity - a pattern that binds people, resources and regions. It serves to ameliorate the consequences of climatic unpredictability, ecological diversity and (by European standards) marginal agricultural terrain. The second is four centuries of domination by outsiders seeking to gain control over Andean resources and labor, and subsequently constraining people's efforts to meet their needs.

Ethiopia's Policy of Genocide Against the Anuak of Gambella

In October 1985, the Ethiopian government reported that 17,553 heads of families from Tigray had been resettled to unoccupied "virgin, fertile" lands in the Gambella region of Illubabor Province in the extreme southwest of Ethiopia.

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