FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES NO. 2 - 1998 Population Pressure, Agricultural Change and Environmental Degradation in the Western Himalayan Region of India Stein T. Holden and Prem L. Sankhayan 1. Introduction The population-development-environment nexus has received re- newed attention during the past decade. The relevance and severity of land degradation, particularly in the context of developing countries, have been broadly recognised (WCED, 1987). The population pres- sure hypothesis was advanced to relate land degradation directly to population pressure (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987; Srinivasan, 1985). Another school of thought, however, considered increased population density as a precondition for technological innovation and economic development, leading to preservation and improvements in land re- sources (Boserup, 1965; 1981). The empirical evidence in support of or against these two opposing views is scarce, mainly due to lack of availability of reliable and detailed time-series data. According to conventional wisdom (Cleaver and Schreiber, 1991), continued population growth, poverty, environmental degradation and stagnation in agricultural technology pointed towards a Malthusian __________________ Note of acknowledgements.This article is a part of the output of the research project: Population pressure, agricultural development and environmental degradation: A Study in the Himalayan Region, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. An ear- lier version was presented at the 1997 Annual Conference of the Norwegian Associa- tion for Development Research organised by the Centre for International Environment and Development Studies at the Agricultural University of Norway. The usual dis- claimers apply. 271