4. DEVS 504 SEMINAR TEAMS 2011 & ASSIGNMENTS
TEAM I
1 Krishna Hari G.C
2 Salpa Shrestha
3 Prakash Budda Magar
TEAM II
4 Murbika Prasai
5 Prem Khattri Chettri
6 Neesha Shakya
TEAM III
7 Rijana Malla
8 Babu Ram Devkota
9 Manisha Bhattarai
TEAM IV
10 Sambida Regmi
11 Bibhor Kayastha
12 Jyotsna Kakshapati
TEAM V
13 Prerena Shakya
14 Nabin Dangol
15 Delon Bharati
TEAM VI
16 Binu Thapa
17 Ajita Pokharel
18 Bobby Ghimire
TEAM AND SEMINAR TOPIC ASSIGNMENT FOR NATURAL RESOURCES
TEAM SEMINAR SUBTOPIC
I NR Basics and Environmental Economics
II Biological Theory of Sustainable Exploitation.
III Environmental Ethics
IV Biodiversity and Vandana Shiva
V Community Forestry, Kanel & Hausler
VI Himalayan Degradation Theory & Critiques
Preliminary Instructions:
1. The member listing in the Team composition does not imply hierarchy. All are equal in responsibility and credit and work assignments.
2. Start readings and discussions within your team asap, decide on 1 or 2 key issues to discuss.
3. Prepare a series of slides, around 10 max.
4. Prepare a 2 page précis of the key discussion issues.
5. Email both (3) & (4) to all HNRS 522 classmates and the teacher and a hard copy of each to the teacher.
6. Be prepared to present the slides for 15 min max with 15 min discussion for team. Your class teacher will have at least 1 question or comment per presentation.
7. At 15 min for topic, 6 teams should complete in 2 PERIODS OR 90 MIN.
8. Detail instruction by Seminar Subtopic follows.
SEMINAR INSTRUCTIONS BY SUBTOPICS ON NR
TEAM I: NR BASICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS:
1. Read the following materials carefully:
• From Ref MHTs: Nepal's Report to the UNCED 1992 hs law policy.mht
• From Ref PDFs: 157 PG wb nepal env analysis 2007 in law1.pdf, READ EXEC SUMMARY, APPENDIX A, PG 76.
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF NEPAL.pdf, READ Chapter 4: Forestry and Biodiversity PG 39-55.
• From Ref PPTs: RC Concepts in Natural Resources.ppt, RC Natural Resources Key Terms.ppt
• From Hard copy: Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development by Mohan Munasinghe, World Bank, 5 pg
2. Discuss definitions, classifications and how “supply” of Natural Resources is a function of
Physical supply, market demand and state of technology available.
3. What is the contribution of Natural Resources to the total wealth of a Nepal, like Nepal (WB Country Env Assessment, 2007) and its implication?
4. What is Environmental Economics? How does this discipline propose to solve environmental problems of Resource Economics? Why is this a favourite approach of World Bank? Is long term benefit or sustainability economically rational since discount rates favour utility satisfaction now than later? Can Economics “value” Nature’s goods and resources when they have not been exchanged in the Market place? Discuss.
SEMINAR INSTRUCTIONS BY SUBTOPICS ON Biological Sustainability
TEAM II: Biological Theory of Sustainable Exploitation
2. Read the following materials carefully:
• From Hard copy: “Principles of Conservation Biology, Third Edition, Groom, Meffe, Carroll, pg 265-269: BIOLOGICAL THEORY OF SUSTAINABLE EXPLOITATION”
2. Discuss definitions, classifications, CONCEPTS such as sustainable and unsustainable levels of exploitation, carrying capacity, maximum sustainable yield, logistic population growth, constant quota exploitation, proportional exploitation, threshold exploitation, bioeconomic exploitation and open access vs. tragedy of commons.
3. This material is the heart of the concept of “sustainability” so from this biological core have economic, political and policy definitions of sustainability have been derived.
4. This definition was virtually adopted in toto in the World Conservation Strategy of IUCN 1980 and adopted into Nepal Conservation Strategy, 1988, from which was derived Nepal’s comprehensive Environmental Protection Act, 1997 on which concepts of EIA, or Environmental Impact Assessment was mandated to rein in development projects, in theory at least.
5. What are some of the strengths and some of the obvious weaknesses? Discuss.
SEMINAR INSTRUCTIONS BY SUBTOPICS ON Environmental Ethics
TEAM III Environmental Ethics
3. Read the following materials carefully:
a. From Ref MHTs: Deep ecology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.mht, Environmental Ethics An Introduction.mht
b. From Ref PPTs: 2 ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS for nrm.ppt
2. Discuss definitions, classifications, CONCEPTS such as Deep Ecology and Shallow Ecology, Gaia Hypothesis, Anthropocentrism, Judaea Christian Ethics, Non-Western Ethics, Intrinsic vs. Instrumental Value. Etc.
3. Environmental ethics mounts the deepest philosophical challenge to the very basis of Western, Modern Rationality and Practice including the concept of Rationality and its application in Economics of which Natural Resource Economics is a branch. Explain what this challenge is. Do you agree that Western rationality is no good or that Eastern Nepali or Sherpa reverent attitude towards Nature will lead to development and progress?
4. Identify some key persons and their contributions to Environmental Ethics including: Pinchot, Leopold, Muir, Naess, Lovelock. Identify some key debates and critiques and counter critique and how they relate to Natural Resources
SEMINAR INSTRUCTIONS BY SUBTOPICS ON Agrobiodiversity and Vandana Shiva’s Critique
TEAM IV: Biodiversity and Vandana Shiva’s Critique
4. Read the following materials carefully:
From Ref Pdfs: ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF NEPAL.pdf, READ Chapter 4: Forestry and Biodiversity PG 39-55.
From Hardcopy:
Biodiversity, A Third World Perspective, Vandana Shiva
2. Discuss definitions, classifications, CONCEPTS such as Agrobiodiversity, Types of agrobiodiversity, Problems in Agrobiodiversity, Causes of problems, Crisis of biodiversity, Threats to Biodiversity, Vulnerability of Improved Species, Role of multinational corporations that exploit biodiversity, etc.
3. Vandana Shiva levels serious charges of First World profit making rationale of multinational corporations destroying the food security of the vulnerable groups of the world and threatening ecological instability with greater homogenization of gene pool. If you were using the metric of human beings being sustained vs. human being whose vulnerability have been increased, Green Revolution and the destruction of agrobiodiversity has been credited with enabling the sustenance of 7 billion people on Earth as opposed to 1 billion in 1800 when such biodiversity exploitation was not at the present scale? Discuss.
SEMINAR INSTRUCTIONS BY SUBTOPICS ON Community Forestry and Critiques
TEAM V: Community Forestry and Critiques
5. Read the following materials carefully:
From Ref Docs: DAY 2 DEFORESTATION Forestry in an Accountable Democracy Amulya's Himal Sept oct 1991 article.doc, and
Book Review Pages K Post Deforesting Deforestation scholarship.doc
From Ref Pdfs: ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF NEPAL.pdf, READ Chapter 4: Forestry and Biodiversity PG 39-55.
From Hardcopy: Nepal’s Forest Policies on Community Forestry Development: the Government Policy by Keshav Kanel and Community Forestry: A Critical Assessment, the Case for Nepal by Sabine Hausler
2. Discuss definitions, classifications, CONCEPTS such as Community Forestry Context and Achievements so far, Sustainable Forest Management, Challenges, Facts and Figures and Key Terms and Definitions;
6. Dr Keshav Kanel is a forester and a resource economist trained in Dehera Dun and Duke and he went all the way from a junior forest officer to Director General of the Forest Department to the Secretary of the Min of Forests and later Min of Land Reforms. He represents mainstream thinking and analysis by Nepalese foresters, Natural Resource Managers as well as mainstream foreign influence of donor community.
7. Dr Kanel’s arguments are solidly rational in the economic sense with facts and figure of how Community Forestry is a success because of the participation by nearly one-third of Nepal’s population, the greening of denuded forests and the raising of income and livelihood.
8. Critics claim that after 20 yrs and $1.7 billion investment only 40% of the 3 million ha earmarked for handover to the community has been done, that just greenery does not equate to higher biodiversity and ecological health, that this program has lagged in reaching the weakest of the weak and failed to avert the 1979 and 1989 political revolt that threw away the existing political system that this system was designed to allay.
9. At a more hands-on level, Sabine Hausler how existing power structure of knowledge and power (western knowledge and technology and Nepali elite in urban and rural and forest ministry) are reproduced by denigrating and devalorizing indigenous knowledge and power a la Michel Foucault.
10. Question: If Community Forestry and its “innovative governance are such a model for success”, can transposing this model to Sub-Saharan or Russian Siberia cause the greenery to spring back?
11. Discuss the role of discourse (Deforesting Deforestation discourse) and the persistent power play of professional foresters representing Forest Ministry in (Accountable Democracy). Note the issues raised 20 years are still powerfully operating invisibly by mostly focusing on visible forest and natural resource problems and solutions.
SEMINAR INSTRUCTIONS BY SUBTOPICS ON Himalayan Degradation Theory and Critiques
TEAM VI: Himalayan Degradation Theory and Critiques
12. Read the following materials carefully:
From Ref ppts: HimalayasSession 1 land degradation theory.ppt, Himalayan_dilemma.ppt
From Hardcopy: Environmental Crisis and Development Discourse in the Nepal Himalaya by Julie Harriet Guthman, 1995
2. Discuss definitions, classifications, CONCEPTS such Himalayan Degradation Theory points, who developed it, errors, key persons such Eckholm, Ives and Messerli, discourse theory and its use in HDT
13. The Himalayan Degradation Theory (HDT) was an influential lens that linked overpopulation in the Nepal hills with deforestation or natural resources leading to flooding in Nepal and Bangladesh or the retardation of development. The HDT was influential because it released a lot of money, $30-40 million to reforest the Nepal hills and control the overpopulation so Nepal and Bangladesh could develop.
14. Critics such Ives and Messerli (1989) have put together all the science critiques saying that the HDT, though seductively plausible, was sloppy science where the causal links have not been adequately proven ( as in Global Warming and Glacier melt hulla bulla in Nepal now). The current consensus is that Natural forces of tectonic movement and high energy monsoon rains are more responsible for floods than human causes of overpopulation and deforestation.
15. Other critiques are from non-science social theory angle where HDT is seen as discourse of knowledge and power buildup to justify continued First World interference and meddling and power over Third World, Nepal and within Nepal, the educated elite and their political masters over the uneducated poor in the villages on managing their local natural resources because “Master knows best!” This theme is further explored later in Blaikie and Brookfield’s Political Ecology of Land Degradation in Nepal and Laxman Yapa’s post modern analysis of the academic nexus in reproducing poverty.
5 Question: Is Himalayan degradation “Real” or created “Imaginary”?
6 Question: Is Himalayan Degradation real enough to “National Scale” or is making a mountain of molehill?
7 Question: How do we navigate out of the demanding rhetoric of discourse gatekeepers with their PhDs from foreign universities and their plush cars, offices and polished presentations in flawless English?
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