Terraced Fields and Natural Disasters in Nepal. Part 2

KYO FUYUSAWA

Is the Scheme of the Himalayas Wrong?

I couldn't help considering Ives' argument against the scheme of the Himalayas. (Note: For details on the scheme of the Himalayas and Ives' argument against it, please refer to "Terraced Fields and Natural Disasters in Nepal" in Nature Interface No.1/Vol.3.) It seems to be true that size of forestlands in Nepal is decreasing, as shown in books or statistics. I have also seen deforested areas in many parts of Nepal. Meanwhile, when I flew over the Ganges, I saw huge amounts of new earth and sand accumulating in the river, and I was convinced that these materials were a factor in the floods in Bangladesh along the lower Ganges. Well, how does the size of forestland in Nepal diminish? If earth and sand aren't escaping from the Great Himalayas, then from where are they escaping?

As shown in Fig. 2 (of No.1/Vol.3), Nepal can be topographically divided into four areas. The northern part is called the Great Himalayas, including high mountains 6,000 m or more above sea level. The southern part of the Great Himalayas is called the Lesser Himalayas, located between two active faults. In the southern part of the Lesser Himalayas, there is hilly terrain called the Siwalik Range. The plain created by rivers from these mountains is a part of the Plain of Hindustan, whose Nepalese part is called the Terai Plain.

The scheme of the Himalayas doesn't apply to all areas of Nepal. Under the more narrowly defined Himalayas--the mountainous lands 4,000 m or more elevation--the population hasn't increased to the extent that it has in other areas. According to statistics, the population increase there in the past 30 years is about half that in Nepal as a whole. Meanwhile, most of the Himalayas are grasslands above the timberline. Only potatoes and millet are cultivated in the few fields here. Thus, enlargement of rice terraces and accompanying deforestation cannot happen in this area except in lowlands, such as the bottoms of ravines.

By the way, rivers that originate from the Himalayas run along valleys. There are two types of valleys: those along active faults that run from east to west and those that run across these valleys. Rivers first run to the east or west along active faults, then to the south along crossing valleys and again to the east or west along active faults. Hence, the rivers create a web.

According to plate tectonics, the Indian subcontinent strikes Eurasia, resulting in Himalayan mountain creation. The upheaval rate of the Himalayas is about several millimeters a year, according to observations. Thus, rivers that cross over the Himalayas shave off the upheaved land. The amount of land so shaven every year is quite large: 2,000 cubic meters of earth and sand are taken away if a river shaves land in proportions of 2,000 km length, 100 m width and 1 cm depth.

Gurkhas and the Siwalik Range

Situations are quite different in the hilly terrain called the Siwalik Range, which is 1,000 to 3,000 m above sea level. The population increase in the Siwalik Range is related to Gurkha soldiers. Nepal had once isolated itself from other countries for a long time like Japan had. It was the Gurkhas who eventually prompted the Nepalese to create relations with other countries. The U.K., which had tried to colonize Nepal, encountered severe resistance from the Nepalese and ultimately gave up on colonization, yet decided to use Nepalese people as mercenaries. Gurkhas were named after the Gurkha tribe, whose bravery is renowned. Tibeto-Burmans, such as the Gurung in the Siwalik Range, were hired as Gurkhas. Gurkhas were first deployed as troops and policemen in neighboring India, which was a British colony, because the British believed that citizens of other countries who didn't have relatives in India would be more obedient to British orders. Moreover, the U.K. sent Gurkhas to Singapore, Hongkong and Shanghai as guard soldiers. During the First World War, 240,000 Gurkhas were hired as a front-line force in Asia. This number is equivalent to 20% of the male labor supply in Nepal at that time. Consequently, there was a labor shortage in Nepal at that time. Meanwhile, the Nepalese government took the wages of the Gurkhas, and only 10% of the wages were actually distributed to the Gurkhas. In the Second World War, 400,000 Gurkhas were hired to fight against Japanese troops along the front lines in Asian countries, where more than 20,000 Gurkhas died.

The Gurkha unit was divided into British and Indian units after India achieved independence in 1947. The British Gurkha unit fought against Argentina in the Falkland Islands War in 1982. However, as the power of the U.K. contracted in Asia, the number of Gurkhas was reduced to 8,000 and then to 2,000. Especially, the restoration of Hong Kong to China in 1997 caused a drastic decline in the Gurkhas. Presently, 100,000 Gurkhas are employed in India, and some Gurkhas seem to be employed in Singapore. I have heard that some Gurkhas were employed in Hong Kong, the Middle East and Brunei as private mercenaries, though the numbers were small.

In the past, the main source of foreign currency income in Nepal was the wages and pensions of the Gurkhas. Any foreign currency, such as the British pound or the Indian rupee, is valuable in Nepal, where inflation is severe. However, the foreign currency income has shrunk because the number of employed Gurkhas has dropped; also, the number of ex-Gurkhas who draw pensions has also decreased, because more than a half century has passed since WWII. This caused economic damage especially in the Siwalik Range, which has a large population.

As shown above, many Gurkhas were hired during the two World Wars. Fields with low productivity were abandoned during wartime because of the lack of a labor supply. On the other hand, at the end of each war, mercenaries returned and the population grew directly. Many villages were created in the Siwalik Range after WWI; as a result, forests were exploited and fields spread. On the other hand, the baby boom after WWII, combined with a drop in the death rate because of improved medicine, created a population explosion.

According to Nepalese agricultural statistics, the area of cultivable fields in the Siwalik Range doubled between 1972 and 1989. Especially, the field areas around Gorka (an ancient city between Kathmandu and Pokhara), which has many rice terraces, have increased threefold or fourfold during this period. However, the actual increase is thought to be about half of this because the land registration system hadn't been completed and there were problems in the statistical calculations. In any case, it is true that there was extensive growth in field areas.

The Development of the Terai Plain

To address the problems resulting from the population explosion of the 1950s, the Nepalese chose, as a political solution, to exploit the Terai Plain in southern Nepal. The Terai Plain, which is about 100 m above sea level, is a subtropical area. Malaria had spread in this area before and there were almost no residents other than the Tharu tribes. As a result of a crusade against malaria, vast amounts of land came to be utilized at the end of the 1960s. Indians immigrated to this area at first because Nepalese didn't want to live in the area. Among the immigrants were Muslims who had been persecuted in India. Later, Nepalese farmers moved to the Terai Plain from the Siwalik Range. The Terai Plain at that time was covered with jungle and was the habitat of wild animals such as rhinoceroses, tigers and elephants. Today, however, the jungle and its wild animals can be found in only one place: the Royal Chitwan National Park.

There were two main factors in the deforestation of the Terai Plain. One factor is the deforestation by the Ranas. The Ranas, who had governed Nepal until 1950, continued to possess land in the Terai Plain even after they had lost power. They obtained much profit by clearing forests for lumber. The other factor is the exploitation by the government. Many forests were cut down or burnt to create rice fields. Illegal frontierspeople also caused deforestation. Poor farmers who had been unable to make a living in the Siwalik, in addition to workers who were brought to the Terai Plain to develop this area, started to live along roads on the Terai Plain or in the neighboring Siwalik Range, and they exploited the land. The extent of the deforestation by these illegal immigrants is reportedly on a level with that by government exploitation.

Landowner System and Diversification of Fields

The presence of absentee landowners is one of the difficulties in land conservation in Nepal. There are still many absentee landowners even though farmland was emancipated. Fifty percent of the farmers in Nepal own farmland of 0.5 ha or less; the average farmland area that a farmer owns is only 0.15 ha. On the other hand, landowners who constitute less than one-tenth of all farmers own half of all farmland.

I saw a first-class field in Pokhara that had not been repaired after having collapsed from a flood. When I asked a tenant farmer about this, he said the landowner didn't want to rehabilitate the field because it would cost a lot. Landowners living in urban areas like Kathmandu don't want to sell their lands because they think they think they will someday return to their country lands. However, they don't intend to spend their money to repair rice terraces collapsed by natural diseases, and so they don't rent the fields to tenant farmers. Thus, once a rice terrace comes down, it is never repaired. The caste system is one of the reasons why there are many absentee landowners. Most of the university professors that I met were absentee landowners from the higher castes.

A difficulty other than the landowner system is that farmers become poorer because of the inheritance system of dividing farmland. The number of farmers rose from 1.54 million to 2.74 million between 1961 and 1991. Farmlands of Indian tribes are divided reportedly because lands came to be inherited equally by each child and the number of children increased. Tibetan tribes living in highlands are said to have practiced polygamy or a system in which grandchildren inherit land, though such customs have decreased recently. Marriage between cousins is said to be an ideal even now, probably to avoid the division of fields. Farmers' incomes have fallen because of the farmland division, and farmers have come to rely on other sources of income (mainly emigration). As a consequence, the number of secondary crops has decreased and farmers seem reluctant to work in rice terraces, the income from which is low relative to other occupations. Many of those who leave the fields go to cities like Kathmandu or abroad to India or the Middle East; some even go to Japan. However, the number of cities in Nepal to which people can immigrate has been decreasing in the past several years because fewer people travel to Nepal now than in the past.

The Decline in Foreign Tourism

Though tourism became the main source of foreign currency income instead of the Gurkhas, the number of tourists visiting Nepal is decreasing. The fluid political situation and the deterioration of security, as well as the recent economic crisis in Asia, caused reductions in tourism from foreign countries. Moreover, hotel rates in Nepal are higher than in Thailand, becoming another factor in the reduced number of tourists.