ABSTRACT
To help meet the overall objectives of this book this chapter presents an overview of the greater Himalayan region. The description is by no means complete nor uniform in any geographical sense and because the central theme of the book is an analysis of the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation, most of the discussion will be centred on the Himalayan range sensu stricto. Thus, the great mountain arc that extends for 2,500 kilometres from Nanga Parbat (8,125 m) and the Indus Gorge in the northwest to Namche Barwa (7,756 m) and the Yarlungtsangpo-Brahmaputra Gorge in the east will receive the most detailed attention. Furthermore, within this 2,500-kilometre extent, the Nepal Himalaya will loom large because that is the core area from which the Theory emerged in the first place. It is also the sector that has received the most thorough attention from scholars, development agency personnel, bureaucrats, and politicians who have sought to support or refute the Theory subsequent to publication of this book’s forerunner, The Himalayan Dilemma (Ives and Messerli 1989).
