The environmental impacts of deforestation, size and scale of alternate and sustainable energy supply in dry and cold mountain areas
The environmental impacts of deforestation, size and scale of alternate and sustainable energy supply in dry and cold mountain areas
K. M. Siddiqui
ABSTRACT
The mountain areas in Pakistan, though
constituting a fairly large portion of total land area
and supporting about 10% of the total population
of 130 million of the country, have always been
neglected and marginalised as far as development
activities in them are concerned. There are a
number of reasons for this state of affairs. In the
first instance, they are not easily accessible
because of difficult terrain. The means of
communication, such as roads, are difficult and
expensive to build and are therefore few in number
and short in length. The road density in hilly
regions is very low. Secondly, the population in
mountain areas is sparce, dispersed and lacks
technical skills and often appears to be
conservative and hostile to outside interventions. A
majority of people are poor and depend upon
yields and income from land and livestock. People
from many households are landless and work as
land or migratory labour in other parts of the
country and in foreign countries to manage
subsistence level living. Land holdings are small
and mostly without irrigation facilities.
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December 1994
Vol. 44, Iss. 4
