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This paper explores possible ways to integrate conservation and development in transboundary landscapes of HKH region based on review of various documents across the region
. Acknowledging trade-offs for achieving twin goals sets the stage for negotiation and collaboration amongst multiple stakeholders to draw agreements on particular strategies. The strategies include engaging stakeholders and political organizations at different scales, their capacity building, establishing nested collaborative structures, strengthening existing institutions and institutional linkages within and across international borders, developing market based incentives for local communities, building trust amongst stakeholders and partnerships with the private sectors.
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Crop productivity is directly dependent on soil fertility
. High organic carbon content in soil is vital as it leads to improved soil quality, increased productivity, and stable soil aggregates. In addition, with the signing of the climate agreement, there is growing interest in carbon sequestration in landscapes. This paper looks at how soil organic carbon (SOC) can be increased so that it contributes not only to the reduction of atmospheric CO2, but also translates to the increased food production, thereby enhancing food security. This synergy between climate change mitigation and enhancing food security is even more relevant for mountain landscapes of the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region where there remains huge potential to increase CO2 sequestration and simultaneously address food security in the chronic food deficit villages. Soil samples were collected from seven transects each in Bajhang and Mustang and from four land use types in each transect. Samples of soils were taken from two depths in each plot: 0–15 cm and 15–30 cm below the soil surface to compare the top soil and subsoil dynamics of the soil nutrients. The lab analysis was performed to assess the soil texture, soil acidity in “power of hydrogen” (pH), and macro-nutrients reflecting soil fertility. Secondary data was used to analyze the level of food deficit in the villages. The pH value of soil from Bajhang ranged from 5.3 to 9.1. The pH value of soil ranged from 5.7 to 8.8 in Mustang. SOC contents of sampled soils from Bajhang ranged from 0.20% to 7.69% with a mean amount of 2.47% ± 0.17%. SOC contents of sampled soils from Mustang ranged from 0.51% to 8.56% with a mean amount of 2.60% ± 0.25%. By land use type, forest land had the highest carbon (C) content of 53.61 t·ha−1 in Bajhang, whereas in Mustang, agricultural land had the highest C content of 52.02 tons·ha−1. Based on these data, we can say that there is potential for increasing SOC through improved soil health and crop production holistic soil management should be practiced for higher productivity, and incorporating livestock for farmyard manure would fertilize cultivated soils, which increases soil productivity. Increasing productivity would aid in enhancing the access and availability of food in these mountain village
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Yi, S.; Rawat, G. S.; Wu, N.; Bubb, P.; Chettri, N.; Kotru, R.; Sharma, E.; Bhatta, L. D.; Bisht, N.; Aryal, K.; Gurung, J.; Joshi, S.; Adhikari, B. S.; Rawal, R. S.; Ghate, R.; Gurung, K.; Goodrich, C. G.; Chitale, V. S.; Shakya, B.; Ismail, M.; Chaudhary, R. P.; Yan, Z.; Wang, J.
This framework document has been prepared by the team at ICIMOD working on various aspects of ecosystem management in collaboration with the United Nations Environment – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP–WCMC), with technical inputs from eminent ecologists, gender and governance specialists, sociologists and economists from the region
. The document provides basic background, principles and key terms for ecosystem management, major considerations in the context of the HKH and the process and practical steps required for the management of ecosystems
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Kotru, R.; Chaudhari, S.; Lemke, E.; Mueller, M.; Chettri, R.; Basnet, S.; Amatya, S.; Pandey, A.; Shrestha, A. J.; Pasakhala, B.; Yao, F.; Gurung, J.; Aryal, K.; Gurung, K; Bhatta, L. D.; Pradhan, N.; Bisht, N.; Joshi, S.; Dorji, T.; Rajbhandari, U.; Chitale, V.; Shaoliang, Y.
The report presents comprehensive updates on the progress made under Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI) in 2016
. The report builds on the reports submitted by partner organisations of KSLCDI and achievements of the year 2016.
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Chaudhary, R. P.; Bhattarai, S. H.; Basnet, G.; Bhatta, K. P.; Uprety, Y.; Bhatta, L. D.; Kotru, R.; Oli, B. N.; Sharma, L. N.; Khanal, S.; Sharma, U. R.
The Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL) is a transboundary landscape (area: 31,252 sq
.km) around Mount Kailash. KSL is exceptionally rich in cultural and ecological diversity and has its own traditional systems of resource use and management. KSL Nepal comprises approximately 42.5% of the total landscape area, and covers Baitadi, Darchula, Bajhang and Humla districts. This study was conducted in different representative villages of four districts of KSL Nepal with the aim of documenting the traditional practice and knowledge of the indigenous and local communities regarding natural resource use and management. Resources like agriculture, forest, pastureland and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) have been managed by indigenous and local communities since time immemorial. People have been growing various crops depending on the location, climate and culture. Similarly, they decide the breed and number of livestock to be raised based on their access to pastureland, purpose, religious belief and location. Pasturelands are managed in two ways in KSL Nepal, either as open access or controlled access. Social institutions/communities decide the timing, duration, and area of grazing communally. Management structure of highland pasture is better regulated than that of lowland pasture. Forests in KSL Nepal are managed as government-managed forest, religious forest, community forest and leasehold forest. Local people develop rules and regulations to conserve the forest as a community forest and local authorities decide the time for collecting firewood and punish people involved in violating the rules. In some areas of KSL Nepal, forests are conserved as sacred forest where grazing and collection of timber, fodder, NTFPs, etc. are restricted. NTFPs have become major economic products in the region. The production of NTFPs is gradually decreasing due to unsustainable harvesting practices
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"Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are the non-material benefits that humans obtain from the natural environment
. They include, for example, getting a sense of community roots and/or religious meaning from natural sites; deriving aesthetic pleasure and satisfaction from natural landscapes; using natural sites/landscapes as a source for recreation and education, and so on. CES are one of the four primary kinds of benefits that humans derives from ecosystems - these different kinds being termed as 'ecosystem services by the major UN-led study, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). The other kinds of ecosystem services include provisioning services, such as the production of food and water; regulating services, such as the control of climate and disease, supporting services, such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination. To help decision makers, such as policy makers, conservationists etc., many of these services are being assigned economic values through quantitative models. However, CES are often experienced intangibly, in the realm of meaning and its effects on practices and behavior. Thereby, while important, their full importance cannot be gauged in quantitative terms, but rather in qualitative terms. One of the most striking examples of CES in the HKH region are those provided by sacred natural sites, hundreds of thousands of which dot this region from east to west. Sacred natural sites include sacred mountains (such Mt Kailash and Mt Kanchenjunga), sacred lakes (such as Gosain Kund and Lake Manasarovar), sacred forests/sacred groves (such as Gwallek Kedar in Baitadi), sacred caves, rocks, streams, etc. Communities often treat these sites with special forms of behavior, symbolism, and practices, that elevates these sites over profane/non-sacred natural sites and landscapes. This working paper lays out a framework devised for assessing the CES of HKH region's sacred natural sites, and includes: a background to the cultural ecosystem services discourse, the need for such a framework; the process of developing this particular framework; the framework and the methodology to use it, and a pilot case study from district Baitadi, Nepal."
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Forests store about 80% of all aboveground and 40% of all belowground terrestrial organic carbon, making forest ecosystems crucial to maintaining the global carbon balance and mitigating climate change (IPCC 2001)
. Forest carbon sequestration is a measure that can be taken up to mitigate climate change. But the amount of carbon stored in forests differs according to spatial and temporal factors such as forest type, size, age, stand structure, associated vegetation, and ecological zonation, among other things. Forest management and associated silviculture treatments are key determinants of forest carbon dynamics. Vegetation, along with associated soil types, are viable sinks and are making significant contributions to sequestering atmospheric carbon, thus mitigating the impacts of climate change. To quantify the amount of carbon sequestered in a forest ecosystem, temporal stocks of carbon within various forest strata need to be assessed. This study presents the results of carbon assessment of protected forests at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Knowledge Park at Godavari. In addition to updating the baseline carbon stock measured in 2012, this 2014 carbon stock assessment provided hands-on training to local resource persons. This will be helpful in the future when additional data has to be collected and for showcasing carbon monitoring techniques and sequestration rates to visitors to the Knowledge Park
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Paulownia tomentosa (Thunb
.) is a fast-growing tree species that was introduced in Nepal from China in 1994 and planted in the protected forest at the ICIMOD Knowledge Park at Godavari, Kathmandu. Allometric equations have not been developed for this species in Nepal and South Asia, nor has its wood specific density or stem volume been estimated or biomass or carbon stock measured. Thus, the 20-year-old plantation at the ICIMOD Knowledge Park was selected for destructive sampling, and allometric equations were developed for measuring biomass and carbon stock in the above and below ground tree components of this fast-growing exotic species. This research report explains the comprehensive methods for developing the new allometric models, which could be used to estimate the biomass stock of P. tomentosa in similar physiographic and climatic zones of Nepal. It also sets out the results of applying these methods to P. tomentosa in the study sites at the ICIMOD Knowledge Park
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