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Our themes
The HKH houses one of the most diverse ecosystems on the earth, featuring a rich biodiversity of species and genetic levels, supplemented by ethnic and cultural diversity, and manifested in a myriad of habitats and vertical heterogeneities in soil, water, climate, and topography. We promote equally diverse management systems for negotiating the interface between human and natural systems.
Ecosystem services ensures that ecosystem health is maintained to sustain the flow of ecosystem services so that people in the HKH have the tools they need for mitigation, adaptation, and enhanced resilience.
Bandana Shakya
Theme Leader, Ecosystem Services
Our focus
Action at the local, regional, and global levels is required to ensure that ecosystem health is maintained to sustain the flow of ecosystem services, so that people in the HKH have the tools they need for mitigation, adaptation, and enhanced resilience.
The HKH houses one of the most diverse ecosystems on the earth, featuring a rich biodiversity of species and genetic levels, supplemented by ethnic and cultural diversity, and manifested in a myriad of habitats and vertical heterogeneities in soil, water, climate, and topography. These factors contribute to the high degree of genetic diversity in terms of crops and livestock species in the Himalaya, which require equally diverse management systems for negotiating the interface between human and natural systems.
The flow of services (e.g., supporting, provisioning, regulating, and cultural) provided by these mountain ecosystems contributes to the wellbeing of the mountain populations throughout the HKH, the downstream areas, and the global community.
However, despite international recognition, mountains, in general, and the HKH, in particular, continue to face enormous pressures due to anthropogenic change on regional and global scales. These pressures have disrupted of the region’s mountain ecosystems and threaten the HKH in various ways: rising poverty, biodiversity loss, ecological degradation, and diminished ecosystem service provisions.
The ecosystem services theme will pursue the following objectives in the next five years:
We will develop methodologies and/or approaches in the following areas:
Events around the HKH
Featured Publication
This open access volume is the first comprehensive assessment of the HKH region. It comprises important scientific research on the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable mountain development and will serve as a basis for evidence-based decision-making to safeguard the environment and advance people’s well-being.
News and features
Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.
Bees are efficient providers of crucial pollination services essential to enhancing agricultural yield and ensuring human food security.
With their steep terrain, fragmented landscape and thermal gradients, mountain ecosystems are host to higher species richness and levels of endemism than adjacent lowlands.
Other themes
Our themes focus on discipline-specific knowledge. Working in partnerships, theme-based staff develop and customize methodologies and tools, and carry out innovative applied research to address the complex issues in the HKH.
