Pradyumna P. Karan

Environmental Movements in India

DURING the past twenty years people in various regions of India have formed nonviolent action movements to protect their environment, their livelihood, and their ways of life. These environmental movements have emerged from the Himalayan regions of Uttar Pradesh to the tropical forests of Kerala and from Gujarat to Tripura in response to projects that threaten to dislocate people and to affect their basic human rights to land, water, and ecological stability of life-support systems. They share certain features, such as democratic values and decentralized decision making, with social movements operating in India. The environmental movements are slowly progressing toward defining a model of development to replace the current resource-intensive one that has created severe ecological instability (Centre for Science and Environment 1982, 190). Similar grassroots environmental movements are emerging in Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. Throughout Asia and the Pacific citizenry organizations are working in innovative ways to reclaim their environment (Rush 1991). Even with limited resources the environmental movements have initiated a new political struggle for safeguarding the interests of the poor and the marginalized, among whom are women, tribal groups, and peasants. Among the main environmental movements are Chipko Andolan (Barthelemy 1982) and Save the Bhagirathi and Stop Tehri project committee (Manu 1984) in Uttar Pradesh; Save the Narmada Movement (Narmada Bachao Andolan) in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat; youth organizations and tribal people in the Gandhamardan Hills whose survival is directly threatened by development of bauxite deposits; the opposition to the Baliapal and Bhogarai test range in Orissa, the Appiko Movement in the Western Ghats; groups opposing the Kaiga nuclear power plant in Karnataka; the campaign against the Silent Valley project; the Rural Womens Advancement Society (Gramin Mahila Shramik Unnayam Samiti), formed to reclaim waste land in Bankura district; and the opposition to the Gumti Dam in Tripura. In addition, there are local movements against deforestation, waterlogging, salinization, and desertification in the command areas of dams on the Kosi, Gandak, and Tungabhadra rivers and in the canal-irrigated areas of Punjab and Haryana. Local movements like Pani Chetna, Pani Panchyat, and Mukti Sangharsh advocate ecological principles for water use. A movement in the small fishing communities against ecological destruction exits along the coasts of India. These environmental movements are an expression of the socioecological effects of narrowly conceived development based on short-term criteria of exploitation. The movements are revealing how the resource-intensive demands of development have built-in ecological destruction and economic deprivation. The members have activated microaction plans to safeguard natural processes and to provide the macroconcept for ecological development at the national and regional levels. In the rest of this article I focus on the Chipko movement in the Himalaya, Save the Narmada Movement in central India, and the Silent Valley Project in Kerala as case studies of the nonviolent direct-action environmental movements of grassroots origin in India. CHIPKO MOVEMENT The word chipko means to stick to or to hug and refers to the method used to protect the trees of the Himalaya from commercial timber cutters who have devastated the forests. The movements activists embrace the tree trunks to interpose their bodies between the trees and the axemen. The Chipko movement is located in the mountainous northern segment of Uttar Pradesh, immediately west of Nepal. The area has long been known as Uttarakhand, a term recently revived by persons seeking self-government and perhaps statehood for the region. Persons with this political motive are few in number and are primarily members of the urban elite. In contrast, the members of the environmental movement are chiefly indigenous subsistence farmers, both Indo-Aryan-speaking Hindus of the lower Himalaya who are called Pahari and, in fewer numbers, Tibetan-speaking Buddhists of the higher Himalaya who are known as Bhotiya. …

The Japanese City

In this collection an interdisciplinary group of international scholars seeks to understand and explain the process and characteristics shaping the modern Japanese city. With frequent comparisons to the American city, they consider such topics as urban landscapes, the quality of life in the suburbs, spatial mixing of social classes in the city, land use planning and control, environmental pollution, and images of the city in Japanese literature.

Technological Hazards in the Third World

Technological hazards are acute in the rapidly industrializing countries of the third world, where factories are concentrated in densely populated areas. Areas of technological hazards are delineated for India, and the catastrophe at Bhopal is the case study to analyze perceptual responses. TECHNOLOGICAL development has become a major contemporary issue, viewed by some persons as the source of hope for mankind. Developing countries particularly consider technology a means to solve economic problems and thus to achieve an improved quality of life. Other individuals express doubts about the unbridled growth of technology that has generated hazards and adversely affected social, economic, and environmental systems on the earth. Shortly before his death, the world-renowned geographer, Carl 0. Sauer, warned about the dangers associated with technical dominance.1 A recent monograph highlighted the threats to public health and safety from technologies, but it noted the high esteem of their benefits in third-world countries.2 Technological hazards are increasing at an alarming rate in developing countries. In their pursuit of capital investment and development, they attract toxic industries and adopt nuclear technologies to spur growth without adequate safeguards and locational considerations. Potential risks to employees and the populations living near hazards-producing plants also increase. The risks are inherent in the nature of the plants, which use toxic and radioactive materials in the manufactural processes. Unlike natural disturbances, technological hazards result from a malfunction, the effects of which are often compounded by improper location. In third-world urban areas, potentially hazardous plants are usually located adjacent to impoverished neighborhoods, and hence vast numbers of persons are at risk if an accident occurs, as was the case with a liquified-gas fire in Mexico City in November 1984 and with the deadly gas leakage at Bhopal, India, in December 1984. These episodes exemplify the tragedy that modern technology can impose from error or negligence. In this article, we assess technological hazards in India with Bhopal as the case study. We analyze the perceived zones of effects and discuss strategies to cope with technological disasters. I Geographical Journal 141 (1975): 521. 2Donald J. Zeigler, James H. Johnson Jr., and Stanley D. Brunn, Technological Hazards (Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers, 1983), 50. * DR. KARAN is a professor of geography at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506, where DR. BLADEN is an associate professor of geography. DR. WILSON is president, Cargill Southeast Asia Ltd., Singapore. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.176 on Sat, 09 Apr 2016 06:45:50 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 196 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW POTENTIAL TECHNOLOGICAL HAZARD ZONES

Environment and development in Sikkim Himalaya: A review

This paper discusses the problems of environment and development in Sikkim Himalaya. Two features of Sikkim, the fragile mountain environment and the very rapidly growing population, are crucial in formulating future development plans. An integrated approach to development and environmental conservation is suggested.

Landscape, Religion and Folk Art in Mithila: An Indian Cultural Region

Folk art portrays aspects of cultural geography that have been frequently ignored. Important aspects of the cultural geography of Mithila arc illustrated through folk paintings and songs. By understanding the symbolism in folk art, cultural geographers can discover fresh meanings in landscapes and culture, thus gaining a deeper knowledge of the aspirations and behavior of a specific group.

Economic Regions of Chota Nagpur, Bihar, India

T THE name Chota Nagpur Plateau is applied to the region of plateaus, hills and intermontane valleys which occupy the southern half of the state of Bihar in India. It is the easternmost continuation of the plateau of Peninsular India. This southern upland region of Bihar extends as far eastward as the Rajmahal Hills overlooking the narrow plain on the right bank of the Ganga. Towards the north the plateau region descends gradually to the Middle Ganga Plain. The region comprises the administrative districts of Ranchi, Palamau, Hazaribagh, Manbhum, Singhbhum, Santal Parganas and small parts of Shahabad, Gaya, Monghyr, and Bhagalpur Districts of Bihar (Fig. 1).

DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN SIKKIM AND BHUTAN

Sikkim is much more densely populated than Bhutan, has a much higher population growth rate, and has incurred serious environmental losses at the expense of the poor. Bhutan, unlike other Himalayan countries, is not overpopulated; its environmental condition is far superior, and, while constant care is required, its government has been able to contain much more effectively the negative impacts of foreign aid and development.

Cotton Mather (1918–1999)

C otton Mather, a name-sake and direct descendant of colonial New England’s Cotton Mather, was a dominant figure in American geography during the second half of the twentieth century. When the expansion of geographical studies in American universities began following World War II, he drew young persons to geography at the universities of Wisconsin (Madison), Georgia, Minnesota, and elsewhere, including the University of Kentucky, where he served as a visiting professor. His life and his writings spoke dramatically to many of the central concerns in geography (field research, cultural geography, vernacular landscapes, the advancement of geography at the local and regional level), and his behind-the-scenes work in Washington, DC, during the late 1940s as a link between the senior members of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) and the members of the American Society for Professional Geographers (ASPG) facilitated the merger of the two organizations into the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in 1948. No one can come close to his unique combination of field experience and cultural geographic scholarship, his deep knowledge of the vernacular landscapes of Europe, India, Japan, North America, and Latin America, his insightful eye for the salient landscape features, and his ability to raise critical questions. Like most geographers, Mather spent many hours reading maps, studying, and writing, but for him geography was never a solitary experience. His nature was sociable. At an early age, while reciting poems with his father, he discovered the pleasure of sharing knowledge and insight with others. His attraction to books and geography began when he was six years old. Thereafter, he was encouraged in his youth by his parents and an uncle and aunt, confirmed by his friend of many years, John Borchert. Mather gave of himself unselfishly to others and in the process became a cheerful, gracious, and charming gentleman, an outstanding scholar and writer, an exceptional academic citizen, and a great teacher. Mather was born on 3 January 1918, in Iowa Township, Cedar County, Iowa, at the Evergreen Farm, owned by Ellen and Samuel Mather, his grandparents. He was reared in Herbert Hoover’s hometown of West Branch, just a few fields away from John Brown’s ‘‘underground railway station’’ where Brown trained his men prior to his 1859 attack on Harper’s Ferry. Mather maintained no responsibility for Brown’s ill-fated venture or for the ‘‘Hoover Depression.’’ His father, Anders Mather, was a respected, prosperous farmer in Springdale, Iowa. Mather attended Springdale High School and was on the 1932–1933 basketball squad. He spent his senior year in Iowa City and graduated from the University of Iowa High School. When Mather was ten and eleven years old, he went along with his father on visits to Chicago, Kansas, and California. By his father’s side on the front seat of the family car, the observant lad watched the streetcars, counted railroad cars, and smelled the smoke rising from factory smokestacks in the growing industrial cities of the Midwest. In the countryside, he saw farmers tilling the fertile soil, growing corn, and raising hogs. On trips to

Himalaya: Life on the Edge of the World

Sprawling 2700 kilometres across India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, the Himalaya possess an abundance of ecological niches, from subtropical to arctic climates, and support vast quantities of flora and fauna - more than 650 varieties of orchid thrive in the we mountain region of Sikkim alone. In the valleys, a number and range of peoples have, over the centuries, carved out diverse cultures in the harsh mountain environment. The mountains themselves continue to grow an average of one centimetre per year, with some peaks rising ten centimetres in a single year. There are also profound environmental and cultural changes occurring throughout the region. In this work, the authors explore these dyncamic changes through geological records, scientific reports and official documents. The authors offer a comprehensive natural history of the region from the birth of the Himalaya out of the tectonic disruptions beneath the primordial Tethys Sea to the variety of landforms, habitats and climates seen today. They present a study of the peoples who make the mountains their home, tracing human history there back more than a thousand years, and provide an in-depth analysis of the relationship between nature and society in the Himalaya and the pressing problems of environmental degradation, explosive population growth, spiralling poverty and globalization confronting the region and its people. Challenging widely held assumptions about the ecological crisis, the authors detail a more complex scenario and also offer reasons for hope, documenting the success of wildlife preserves and national parks, the effective strategies of local environmental activists, and the rise of ecotourism and rediscovered techniques of sustainable agriculture.

Nepal: A Himalayan Kingdom in Transition

Introduction to a land-locked kingdom environment and natural resource base land use, forest cover and environmental problems agriculture - patterns and problems human resources cultural patterns settlement patterns and urbanization industrial development transport, trade and communication patterns the development of tourism development challenges.