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The Mountains of Asia and the Pacific

A Thematic Overview by Dr. Harka Gurung

The mountains of Asia are spread over a vast area. Scientific enquiry into such a vast area has to reconcile the hierarchy of scale. In the context of Asian mountains, individual ranges can be taken as micro-components, their groupings as meso-regions, and the continent itself as a macro-realm. The intermediate mesoscale constitutes the logical vantage point of convergence for micro-analysis and synthesis. Hence, the focus of this paper is on the regional level. 

Physical Environment

The configuration of the Asian mountain system has been determined by tectonic forces. The principal force in this case being the impact of the Gondwana plate thrusting beneath the Angara plate. This collision is manifest in the great axes of folding, spanning the continent from east to west and then sweeping south to north through island chains along the Pacific rim. The basement of these Tertiary mountains is of Cenozoic formation and less than 20 million years’ old. The youthfulness of the mountains is evident from their extreme elevation and high relief. 

Older Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations in the north-west and in eastern Australia also have fold mountains. These fold mountains have been eroded into plateaus and peneplains with some ranges a olded structure of Cenozoic formations has a rough surface configuration, whereas those of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic systems are broken or smooth.

Apart from structure and relief, the other main components influencing the physical environment are climate, soils, and vegetation. The mountains of Asia encompass a wide variety of climatic regions, as they span a great latitudinal range. This is evident from the three extreme regions. The first is one of high altitude at the core of the continent where the climate varies with elevation, latitude, and exposure, tending mostly towards temperate to alpine. The second extreme relates to the subarctic in eastern Russia with light precipitation and a very long winter. The third one relates to the tropical islands of Southeast Asia where all months are warm or hot with diurnal rain. Other climatic variations are semi-arid to arid in the west, wet and dry tropical in the south, and temperate marine in South Australia and New Zealand.

The dominant soils of highland Asia are obviously of a mountainous type; meaning that they are shallow and stony and may be grass-covered or barren depending on the climate of the elevation zone. Other prevalent types are chernozemic in the Northwest, supporting grasslands, and podzolic in the Southeast, for general farming. In terms of vegetation zone, most of Central and West Asia have xerophytic types of vegetation with patches of grass. Another extensive type of vegetation is mixed forests of deciduous and evergreen species along the southern slopes of the Himalaya and much of North-East Asia. South-East Asia is the domain of broad-leaved evergreen forests.

The Asian mountains contain great environmental diversity, ranging from cold and hot deserts to tropical rain forests. Notwithstanding the bio-climatic regime, their distinctive features are superior elevation and steep slope. Elevation exposes them to erosive elements and slope facilitates the gravitational flow of materials downhill. Thus, mountain areas are intensely affected by processes of surface erosion, whether by water or wind. This has led to the erroneous notion that mountains are fragile. In fact, mountains represent a high-energy area with much mass wasting, without which there would be no depositional material for the adjoining plains. Therefore, it is more realistic to consider mountains as dynamic landforms.

Cultural Diversity

Mountain areas are generally considered to be the refuge or haven for minority peoples. Yet, it was from the arid mountains of Central Asia that nomadic hordes spilled over into the south and west to create vast empires. Examples of this are the Mongol conquests that reached their zenith in China during the reign of Kublai Khan (1215-94) and in India during the time of Akbar (1542-1605). 

That mountains do not constitute a barrier to human movement is evident from the cultural pattern of the Himalaya where the Caucasoid-Mongoloid interface is on a tangent with the crest line. In the west, Caucasoids predominate, including habitation of the trans-Himalaya, while to the east, Mongoloids descend to the plains of the Brahmaputra. Indeed, some mountain ranges provide a passage for migratory peoples: for example, the highlands of Yunnan constitute another epicentre of Mongoloid dispersal. Although 27 out of China’s 55 ethnic minorities still reside there. This area has been the source of migratory waves along the ranges diverging eastwards to the Himalaya and southwards impinging on the farthest islands.

The ethnic distribution of Asia’s mountain people has a general pattern in which the east is mainly inhabited by Mongoloid groups and the west by Caucasoid groups. Both have southern regional variants: Malayan in the former and Semitic in the latter. In West Asia, the dominant groups are Iranian, Turkic, and Semitic. South Asia is predominantly Caucasoid with Mongoloids in the east and Dravidian-Negrito groups in the Peninsula. Central Asia is mostly settled by Tartars with some Mongols, while North-East and South-East Asia are decidedly Mongoloid. The Austro-Dravidian, Melanesian, and Polynesian people of distant Australasia are the least connected with the mainland groups.

Asian cultural diversity is most pronounced in terms of languages and dialects. Linguistic complexity is illustrated by two legends, one from Daghestan and another from Sikkim. According to the former, an angel sent to distribute a bag full of languages over the earth flew too close to a Caucasus crag that ripped the bag. A hundred languages dropped out before the hole could be closed. The latter legend is an eastern Himalayan variant of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. When the Lepcha tribe of Maong were building a tower to seize heaven, those above asked the helpers for grappling irons. Workers below misheard the message and, assuming that heaven had been reached, pulled away the main supports. The tower collapsed. Those who survived the disaster each spoke a different language. 

Languages do tend to diverge into various dialects due to mountain isolation. Island interiors manifest a similar propensity for differentiation. Indonesian Malay has over 30 regional variants. The major language groups of mountainous Asia are Indo-Aryan in the west, Tungusic and Samoyed in the north, Chinese in the east, Tibeto-Burman on the South-East mainland, and Malay in the archipelago. Peninsular India and west Australia are distant outposts of the Dravidian and Austric languages respectively.

Compared to ethnic and linguistic complexities, religious realms have a much broader sweep (Table 2). The central plateau of Tibet and adjoining Mongolia is Buddhistic (Lamaism). Parts of mainland South-East Asia are also Buddhistic (Theravad). East Asia is mostly a mixture of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism in China and Korea, and Buddhism and Shinto in Japan. West Asia and part of Central Asia are Islamic, with Iran as a Shia island amidst a sea of Sunnis. South Asia is predominantly Hindu and the archipelagoes of South-East Asia mostly Islamic, leaving the Philippines as a Christian stronghold.

Whatever the regional pattern of formally established religions, mountain areas show a persistence of primitive beliefs. Living close to nature, the spiritual mould of the people continues to be dominated by the older substratum of anonymous gods and demons, as indicated by their shamanistic proclivity. The indigenous culture is, however, being eroded by the dominant culture intruding from the neighbouring lowlands. These ‘civilising’ influences include Indic in the south, Arabic in the west, Russo and Sinic in the north, Sinic in the east, and Teutonic (Anglo-Saxon) in Australasia.

Economic Frontier

Mountains are generally considered to be marginal areas for human occupancy because of their harsh environments and poor soils. In Asia also, the highlands have the lowest population density, although it is not as sparse as in other continents. 

In terms of agricultural regions, most Asian highlands can be classified as areas of nomadic herding. This form of economic activity is most extensive in Central and West Asia, around cold and hot deserts respectively. The second most common type is shifting cultivation, spanning the highlands from South Asia and South-East Asia. Shifting cultivation is based on adequate precipitation that supports luxuriant vegetation growth. The third type, rudimentary, sedentary farming, is widespread in 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 is confined to the highlands of South, South-East, and East Asia where tea, coffee, and other cash crops are grown.

Forests constitute an important resource in the Asian mountains. They include vast stretches of coniferous and mixed forests in the north, sub-tropical forests in the Himalaya and south China, and semi-deciduous monsoon and tropical rainforests in the Southeast. If inaccessibility preserved them in the past, this same factor acts as a constraint to their commercial exploitation. Yet, extension of roads has opened up many of these areas for timber extraction: of conifers in the north, of temperate hardwoods in east Asia, and of tropical hardwoods in the south. 

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 iron, copper, tin, lead, zinc, gold, and silver. Iron is mined in peninsular India, in Korea, and in 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 of mineral exploitation is of transport from the source to the market.

Asia has enormous water-power potential, and this is primarily mountain-based. This inexhaustible resource has been well developed in Japan, New Zealand, and parts of China in relation to other parts of the region. In other areas, it is constrained by the high cost of infrastructure. However, improvements in road access and increasing energy demands have made the execution of many hydropower projects feasible. These have benefitted the mountain economy and environment also by providing an energy alternative to fuelwood.

Some mountains of Asia have acted as spiritual magnets, attracting pilgrims over the centuries. Earlier pilgrimages have now been superseded by secular tourism. At the turn of the century, high mountains became centres of exploration and adventure as forerunners of mountain tourism. With rising incomes and greater mobility, mountains have become accessible to an increasing number of tourists. For many mountain areas, tourism now constitutes the principal source of income. With proper management, possibilities for expansion are immense; 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 Iran. Such conflicts will persist because of political rivalry among States as well as a result of mountain people’s search for self assertion and autonomy. 

In the economic arena, the 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 potato introduction in the Himalaya. First introduced in Bhutan in 1774, the potato reached Kumaon in the 1850s, and it has impacted the economy of Hunza only in recent decades. However slow, technological innovations are penetrating even the remotest 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 the form of research or development discourse. Such an approach tends to highlight natural blight and ignore human plight. Mountain people have continued to survive by contending with natural risks as well as exploitation from the centres of political and economic power. Most Asian countries that fall within the category of the least developed are mountainous and landlocked. Even in relatively more developed countries, administrative units within mountain areas remain zones of least development on the periphery of the periphery. It is poverty that compels mountain people to impose on scarce resources, despite their intimate knowledge of the natural world through accumulated experience. One needs to appreciate this economic compulsion for survival. Mountain environmental problems cannot be solved without improving the economy of the people who inhabit them. Therefore, the emphasis should be on economic development in order to transform these frontiers into lands of benign environment sustained by the mountain people themselves.

(*Extracted from Dr. Harka Gurung’s monograph entitled, Mountains of Asia: A Regional Inventory. Commissioned by Asia Pacific Mountain Network. http://www.mtnforum.org)