Introductory Remarks by Kumar P. Mainali
and Seth Sicroff

Mountain Legacy e-Conference Moderators

Welcome to the first Mountain Legacy e-conference, organized in collaboration with Himalayan Journal of Sciences. Postings will be archived here and also on the Mountain Legacy Google group Web site at http://groups.google.com/group/MountainLegacy.

The subject of this e-conference is "Mountain Hazards, Mountain Tourism." We are fortunate to have a keynote address from Jack D. Ives, author of "Himalayan Perceptions: Environmental Change and the Well-being of Mountain Peoples." (HJS has just published a new and enhanced edition of this work, available on Amazon.com or directly from HJS at www.himjsci.com.)

Dr. Ives' contribution is entitled Fools Rush In... A Mountain Dilemma. For those of us from non-Anglo cultures, the title refers to a line in Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism":

No Place so Sacred from such Fops is barr’d,
Nor is Paul’s Church more safe than Paul’s Church-Yard:
Nay, fly to Altars; there they’ll talk you dead;
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

In the song "Fools Rush In," popularized by Frank Sinatra and later by Elvis Presley (lyrics by Johnny Mercer, 1940), the ranks of the cautious are expanded to include the better informed among us mortals: "Fools rush in, where wise men never go" -- a generalization that may apply not only to mountain tourists, but also to quite a few development projects.

The theme of our e-conference -- "mountain hazards, mountain tourism" – is intended to evoke by juxtaposition the mare's nest of challenges and opportunities that attend the development of tourism in mountainous regions. Such areas are inherently dangerous due to a variety of factors including declivity, climate, access, and geological dynamism. The very hazards that make life difficult for indigenous populations are also the stock-in-trade of mountain tourism; they hold the promise of adventure, or at least respite from civilization. Unfortunately, that promise is sometimes materialized in spades. When disasters occur, or are perceived as imminent, the economic impact on a tourist destination is multiplied. On the other hand, the potential or actual involvement of tourists is likely to draw media attention and international assistance. And, where mountain tourism entails primarily trekkers and adventurers, the likelihood is that such fools will rush back in, fueling a more rapid and thorough recovery than in other contexts – such as New Orleans.

Our mare's nest is complicated by the concatenation of natural and human factors. Natural hazards are aggravated by human infrastructure (especially hydroelectric plants), and vulnerability to disaster is compounded by potential loss of those and other investments. Natural processes such as cyclical climate change are evidently impacted by human activity, and the resulting disasters themselves are expected to range from flood to drought. Newly perceived threats, including devastation of amenity resources due to retreat of glaciers and snowline, as well as extirpation of alpine and subalpine ecosystems, join others that have been exaggerated or misattributed, such as deforestation and mass wasting. Some hazards, such as insurgency and military conflict, may be purely human in cause, but may also pose the risk of sabotage to engineering projects, whether those are intended primarily to generate income, to ensure safety, or both.

Even more confusing is the welter of highland-lowland linkages, which make it so difficult to prioritize and formulate mitigating strategies. Large-scale disasters in the mountains, such as earthquake or dam-break, will obviously have an impact on lower-lying areas, and generally that impact will be more costly (although perhaps less thorough) than the local damage. Likewise, damage to the tourism industry in an important upland destination can have a multiplied effect on the gateway region and on the country as a whole. Conversely, long-term generalized political instability can have a much more serious effect on mountain tourism than a single natural disaster. In developing strategies for the mitigation of disasters impacting mountain tourism, it makes little sense to allocate disproportionate resources in order to mitigate hypothetical natural hazards while ignoring a brewing social meltdown such as the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Bhutan and the festering refugee camps in Nepal.

We believe that our greatest need at this time is for a "hazard clearing-house," a think-tank to target research and prioritize mitigation efforts. Without some kind of co-ordinated and ongoing international effort, we will continue to be at the mercy of fools rushing in, implementing costly projects, and leaving the scene before the inevitable hits the fan.

Post Script: Seth Sicroff has belatedly posted a Wrap-Up summarizing major points raised in this e-conference, as well as some novel suggestions ... including a Disaster Management University. Do let us know what you think about these ideas.

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