Economic Frontier

Mountains are generally considered marginal areas for human occupancy due to their harsh environment and poor soil. In Asia also, the highlands have the least density in terms of population, although they are not as sparsely populated as in other continents. In terms of agricultural regions, one significant aspect of the Asian highlands is nomadic herding. This form of economic activity is most extensive in Central and West Asia, around cold and hot deserts respectively. Despite their vast geographical extension, rangelands sustain an economy and material culture based on seasonal mobility and multiple use of animal products (Miller et al. 1997). The second common type is the shifting cultivation which spans the highlands of South Asia and South-East Asia. It is based on adequate precipitation that supports rapid plant regeneration. The third type, rudimental sedentary farming, is widespread in most areas where rainfall is low. The fourth type, intensive subsistence tillage, is mainly rainfed in humid regions and based on irrigation in the drier west. Plantation agriculture, in which tea, coffee, and other cash crops are cultivated, is confined mostly to the highlands of countries that have a colonial past.

Forests constitute an important resource in the Asian mountains. These include vast stretches of taiga coniferous and mixed forests in the north, sub-tropical forests in the Himalayas and south China, and semi-deciduous monsoon and tropical rainforests in the South-East (Table 4). If inaccessibility preserved them in the past, the same factor acts as a constraint to their commercial exploitation. Yet, extension of roads has opened many of these areas for timber extraction. These include the north for conifers, east Asia for temperate hardwoods, and the south for tropical hardwoods. Among the various factors that impinge on forest land is that of changing land use and conversion to cropland in tropical areas due to increasing populations (Myint and Hofer 1998).

Asian mountains are also rich in minerals but these occur mainly outside the Alpine fold system on older rock formations. Central Asia and eastern Australia are particularly well-endowed in variety: iron, copper, tin, lead, zinc, gold, and silver. The areas where iron is mined are Peninsular India, Korea, and West Australia. Tin is mined mainly in South-East Asia and copper in Japan, The Philippines, and eastern Australia. Lead and zinc are extracted in North-East Asia and eastern Australia. As with forest resources, the problem with mineral exploitation is transport from the source to the market.

The mountains of Asia are a depository of tremendous hydro resources with immense potential. This inexhaustible resource has been well developed only in Japan, New Zealand, and parts of China. Elsewhere, it has been constrained by the high cost of infrastructure. However, improvements in road access and increasing energy demands have made feasible the execution of many hydropower projects. These have benefitted the mountain economy and also the environment by providing energy from a source other than fuelwood.

Some mountains in Asia have attracted pilgrims since ancient times as spiritual magnets (Birnbaum 1997). Earlier travel for pilgrimage purposes has now been overtaken by secular tourism. Since the turn of the century, high mountains like the Himalayas were centres of exploration and adventure as forerunners of mountain tourism. With rising incomes and more mobility, mountains have become accessible to an increasing number of tourists. For many mountain areas, tourism now constitutes a major source of income. With proper management, the possibilities for expanding tourism are immense, as it is an ever-expanding economic activity.

Mountains are economic as well as political frontiers: the latter expressed as political boundaries make mountains `hot spots' of armed conflicts. In Asia, such confrontations engulf the Caucasus, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Myanmar, Mindanao, and West Irian. They will persist with political rivalry among States as well as with mountain people's search for self-assertion and autonomy. In the economic arena, frontier phenomenon need not necessarily be the limit but rather the extension of possibilities. Mountain remoteness has two implications. One is its marginality in terms of the slow pace of innovation. A classic example is the long intervals between the introduction of the potato in different areas of the Himalayas. First introduced into Bhutan in 1774, the potato reached Kumaon in the 1850s, and has had an impact on the economy of Hunza only in recent decades. However slow, technological innovations are penetrating even distant mountain communities. Another aspect of mountain remoteness is the preservation of natural and cultural diversity. These are humanity's most valuable resources. Yet, the path to their conservation is not the current preoccupation with environmental problems, whether in research enquiry or development discourse. Assessments of the mountain environment have ranged from alarmist (Eckholm 1976) to cautionary (Ives and Messerli 1989) scenarios. Much of the crisis scenario is the result of oversimplification and generalisation. As a consequence, development programmes for mountain areas tend to be only ad hoc replications of external designs unsuited to the mountain situation (Jodha et al. 1992). Such an approach tends to highlight natural blight and ignore human plight (Gurung 1982). Much of the sediment flowing from the highlands is generated through natural processes that are beyond man's capacity to manipulate (Bruijnzeel 1989).

Mountain people have continued to survive by contending with natural risks as well as exploitation from the centres of political and economic power. Thus, most Asian countries that fall within the category of the least developed are mountainous and land-locked. Even in relatively better developed countries, mountain areas remain zones of least development as the periphery of the periphery. The relationship between natural environment and economic development is generally considered to be antagonistic. This notion is based on the general observation that the more advanced the economy, the greater the pressure on natural resources. Emanating from the same logic, the relationship betwen environment and development in the mountains should be considered inverted since some of the environmental stresses there are due to extreme poverty. Here poverty is the basic cause of poor land management, and the consequence of poor management is deepening poverty (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987). Despite their intimate knowledge of the natural world through accumulated experience, it is poverty that compells mountain people to overexploit scarce resources. One needs to appreciate this economic compulsion for survival. The problems of the mountain environment cannot be solved without improving the economy of mountain inhabitants. Therefore, the emphasis should be on economic development in order to transform these frontiers into areas of benign environment sustained by the mountain people themselves.