Agricultural Settlement and Land Use in Mountains - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 588

FIGURE 11.27 Date palms below the ancient village of Misfat al Abreyeen, al Hajar Mountains, Oman.
(Photo by S. F. Cunha.)
Conclusion
This chapter investigated four broad types of agricultural land use in mountains. The
emphasis was on traditional (or indigenous) subsistence economies, where sedentary
and mixed agriculture, pastoralism, and agroforestry account for the greater part of
human endeavor. The rapid changes in temperature and precipitation resulting from
changes in altitude, combined with an active geomorphic setting, require complex and
staggered resource exploitation relative to the more homogenous lowlands. Mountain
agriculturalists are either generalists who tend crops and livestock while exploiting at
least one other resource (often forests), or specialists who focus on either cultivation
or animal husbandry, and reciprocate with others to procure their remaining needs.
However isolated and traditional in both technique and strategy, mountain agricultur-
ists everywhere must cope with pressures exerted by modernization, population growth
(except in developed economies), environmental sustainability, and surging economic
globalization. Since one in eight humans lives in the mountains, and an additional 60
percent rely on mountain resources, the choices individual farmers make reverberate
well beyond their highland homes. Yet, as the controversy surrounding the theory of
Himalayan degradation illuminates, mountain agroecology revolves around a complex
milieu of socioeconomic and cultural parameters, where the value system and object-
ives often differ—and may not be readily apparent—to those who live and work in a low-
land economy.
Ellis-Jones (1999) identifies world bright spots where land improvement and poverty
reduction are forging a sustainable future—even though sustainability is a moving