ABSTRACT
Any comprehensive discussion of the assets of the Himalayan region and current obstacles to development would far exceed the scope of this book. The present focus of the work is to trace the theme of Himalayan environmental degradation and thus an overview of the region’s future prospects is very relevant. Selective attempts are made to address a small number of pressure points in light of the now firm stipulation that Himalayan environmental and associated socio-economic collapse, as originally popularized, is a myth; in short, the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation no longer should be supported. Yet it is not intended to imply that the region does not face severe environmental and related problems. This was anticipated in the forerunner to this book (Ives and Messerli 1989), although the earlier emphasis was placed on a first assessment of the paradigm of environmental crisis and its assumed causes in light of information available at the time.
