Global Environment/Development - Essay Example

The story sets the stage for justifying certain interventions. Such is the case with the Himalayan Theory of Environmental Degradation, which comes with it the implicit justifications for the ensuing interventions that may or may not have validity in actual fact. The debunking of this theory challenges the narrative, in short, and offers contrapuntal arguments based on scientific evidence of changes in the forests and surrounding ecology outside of human causes, such as the natural continued evolution of the Himalayas, and that downstream human activities rather than upstream activities by peasant farmers are the cause of environmental problems downstream, contrary to the THED assertions.

THED and contra-THED arguments demonstrate that agenda setting is implicit in how one frames the story of changes in Himalayan ecology, with different parties favoring the story version that benefits their own particular interests. Taking a step back, naming the Himalayan Degradation a theory rather than a fact is already an implicit framing of the issue, because as theory it can be proven or debunked based on the evidence, rather than taken as fact or given. The framing denies taking degradation due to human effects as an assumption to be accepted without challenge (“Environmental Crisis Narratives and the Theory of Himalayan Degradation”). II. .

to centralized production and agriculture, which had catastrophic consequences for the rural poor in terms of famines and lost agricultural capabilities by the 1960’s. Shifting policies on land ownership persisted in the 1980’s, extending to forest tenure, with policies resulting in exploitation of forest resources. Conflicts in narratives between government and peasants relating to deforestation are hinged on peasants seeing the forests as a ticket to get rich quick and to advance economically, while government frames deforestation in terms of poverty, lack of education, myopia, and ignorance on the part of the minority peasants (“History, Policy and Forest Management in Post-Liberation China”). III. Grassland Degradation, Ethnicity in Inner Mongolia Worldviews color narrative clashes between Hans, who espouse order and social evolution as centrists in power in China, and Inner Mongolians, who see the environmental situation from the traditional perspective of expansion, nomadic existence, freedom, and decentralized control.

Narratives here justify interventions and ways of life. Where the degradation narrative is upheld, the government is able to enforce the view of inner Mongolians as more primitive and ignorant, and that the situation must be reformed in order to fit with the development narrative and progress narrative of the rest of China. Where the inner Mongolian narrative is upheld, meanwhile, the seeming chaos is part of a larger order that sustains their nomadic way of life. The winning narrative is the narrative that wins out in the power struggle (“Grassland Degradation, Ethnicity, Landscape and Environmental Policy in Inner Mongolia”). IV. Desertification, Drought, Famine in the Sahel The situation in the Sahel is an example of foreign powers