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The Kailash Consortium of Academics and Researchers for Experience-sharing
Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative & Transboundary Landscapes
Online
14 June 2022 to 17 June 2022
Organizer: Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative
Registration Call for abstracts Concept note
The Kailash Consortium of Academics and Researchers for Experience-sharing (Kailash CAFE) is a digital platform that brings together researchers working across multiple disciplines within the Kailash Sacred Landscape. The UN has declared 2022 as the International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development. In line with this, Kailash CAFE 2.0 will highlight thematic topics related to mountain ecosystems and sustainable development of the Kailash Sacred Landscape. Special focus will be on the themes of regional cooperation, biocultural diversity, and post-pandemic recovery.
The Kailash CAFE (20-23 April 2021) brought together more than one hundred people from ten countries. Researchers presented on the themes of landscapes and biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainable livelihoods, culture and heritage, technology, and gender and governance. Some of the research presented were published in a special issue of the journal Environmental Challenges.
The Kailash CAFE 2.0 is open to all stakeholders working or residing in the Kailash Sacred Landscape. Technical presentations will be limited to research conducted in the landscape as an entity, or a combination of the following sites: Pulan County in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China; Pithoragarh District in Uttarakhand State, India; and Baitadi, Bajhang, Darchula and Humla districts of Nepal.
The Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI) promotes transboundary cooperation and sustainable development in the Kailash landscape. This landscape is spread over 31,000 sq.km across Pulan County of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, Pithoragarh District of India, and four districts (Baitadi, Bajhang, Darchula and Humla) of western Nepal. The KSLCDI focuses on three components: transboundary cooperation, ecosystems management at scale, and resilient livelihoods.
News
Kailash CAFE 2.0 was hosted by our Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI), in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment, India; and Research Centre for Applied Science and Technology, Nepal. The event brought together more than 350 participants from the HKH and beyond, representing 28 countries and more than 200 institutions.
Publication
The Kailash Consortium of Academics and Researchers for Experience-sharing (Kailash CAFE) is a digital platform that brings together researchers working across multiple disciplines within the Kailash Sacred Landscape. It provides them with an opportunity to share their findings with peers and other interested stakeholders, exchanges ideas and methodologies, and explore research collaboration and networking opportunities. Researchers are also able to assess ongoing research in the landscape, avoid duplication, and explore possibilities for joint research. This publication is a collection of abstracts presented at the second edition of Kailash CAFE in June 2022.
Read more
28 March 2022: Call for abstracts for oral presentations and lightning talks
13 May 2022: Deadline for abstract submission
20 May 2022: Notice of abstract acceptance
30 May 2022: Registration deadline for Kailash CAFE 2.0
14-17 June 2022: Kailash CAFE 2.0
14-17 June 2022 All timestamps are in Nepal Standard Time (NPT, UTC+05:45) Tuesday and Thursday (10:00–13:00), Wednesday and Friday (14:00-17:00)
Moderated by: Srijana Joshi, ICIMOD
China
India
Nepal
TBD, GB Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment (GBPNIHE)
TBD, Research Centre for Applied Science and Technology (RECAST)
Moderated by: Janita Gurung, ICIMOD
Moderated by: Nabin Bhattarai, ICIMOD
CAFE adjourns for the day
Moderated by: Pradyumna Rana, ICIMOD
Moderated by: Basant Pant
Moderated by: Sunayana Basnet, ICIMOD
Moderated by: Binaya Pasakhala, ICIMOD
Moderated by: Sushmita Kunwar, ICIMOD
Uttam Babu Shrestha is the founding director of the Global Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (GIIS), Nepal. He has more than 10 years of experience in teaching, research, student supervision, and project management in various organisations. Shrestha has published more than 65 peer-reviewed papers in journals such as Science, Nature Sustainability, and PNAS. He was a fellow for the global assessments of Biodiversity at the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) from 2016-2019 and the lead author for the assessments of sustainable use of wild species at IPBES from 2018-2021. Shrestha has a Ph.D. in Environmental Science from the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA.
Shichang Kang is a professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Cryosphere Science, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, CAS. Kang mainly focuses on cryospheric changes, environmental chemistry of snow/ice and atmosphere, paleoclimate and environmental variability recovered by ice core records in the Tibetan Plateau. He was awarded the Special Allowance of the State Council of China, National Outstanding Youth Science Foundation, and Excellent Youth Scientist on Tibetan plateau research. Kang was also a council member of the International Glaciology Society and member of the Scientific Steering Group of Climate and Cryosphere (CliC).
Sarala Khaling is a trained ecologist and interdisciplinary researcher from Darjeeling, India. She has more than 20 years of experience in managing projects focused on enhancing sustainable livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem services at the landscape level. Her interests include investigating the drivers of change in human modified landscapes that impact biodiversity, ecosystem and ecosystem services, especially in the mountains and hills of Northeast India and North Bengal. She is currently working on issues of sustainable food systems, sustainable livelihoods, and species conservation. Khaling holds a doctorate in wildlife ecology from North Bengal University.
Saurav Dev completed his BTech in civil engineering from the National Institute of Technology Warangal (NITW), India. His interests include geotechnical engineering, geotechnical earthquake engineering, computational methods for civil engineers, and the advancement of civil engineering using machine learning. Dev is currently collaborating with MultiLab, Nepal to set up engineering projects aimed at sustainable development in the construction sector.
Granaz Baloch is an independent climate change researcher with a focus on the gender-water nexus in Balochistan. She is working on her PhD research proposal, which focuses on gender experiences of climate change and access of water in Pakistan. Through her work, she supports gender transformative interventions in Pakistan to amplify the voices of women, agency and needs in water management.
Ritika Srinet pursued her PhD in Forestry with a specialisation in Forest Geoinformatics from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Space Research Organisation, Dehradun. Her interests lie in the applications of remote sensing and modelling techniques for the study of long-term changes in the forest structure and functions, including carbon exchange processes, to better manage climate change impacts on forests. Her research focuses on the regional parametrisation of various models for accurate quantification of the spatio-temporal variability of carbon fluxes in the northwest Himalayan foothills of India.
Soni Bisht is pursuing her PhD ‘Forest structure and carbon dynamics of different forests in Askot Landscape, Western Himalaya’ from Kumaun University in Uttarakhand, India. She has worked in different projects in vegetation science at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. Her area of investigation includes plant ecology, ethnobotany, orchid conservation, and carbon dynamics. Bisht has also carried out extensive field work from sub-tropical to alpine meadows on foot and formed an orchid conservation society in the Kumaun Himalayas.
Shinny Thakur is the Senior Project Associate under the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE TF-03 Phase-II), GB Pant Institute National Institute of Himalayan Environment (NIHE), Almora, Uttarakhand. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Forestry in Kumaun University, Nanital, India. Thakur has worked extensively with forest and local communities in various scientific assessments on climate change and people’s perception, forest vulnerability, as well as scientific outreach programmes, and delineation of management plans as a research scholar. She has also participated in the expedition of Long-Term Observation Sites (LTOS) sites following Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA) and Long-Term Ecological Monitoring (LTEM) across the altitudinal gradient in the Kailash landscape of India.
Samiksha Srichandan is a doctoral research scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. She was an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, and School of Planning and Architecture Vijayawada. She has also worked with leading architectural and landscape firms in Delhi on various residential, commercial, and institutional projects. Her research interests include heritage conservation, vernacular architecture, landscape architecture, and traditional knowledge systems. Srichandan received her master’s degree in architectural conservation from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, and bachelor’s in architecture from the College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar.
Yatika Agrawal is a graduate of Economics with a specialisation in development studies from Symbiosis School of Economics, Pune. Her research interest lies in the field of sustainable development, gender development, labour economics, international trade, and tourism.
Durlave Roy is the Head of Department, Research and Development at Bangladesh Open University. He holds a post-graduate diploma in industrial management from Bangladesh Institute of Management. Roy is currently pursuing his post-graduate degree in sustainable agriculture.
Sudan Bikash Maharjan is a Geologist working as Remote Sensing Analyst in the Cryosphere Initiative at ICIMOD. At ICIMOD, he leads the remote sensing-based glaciers and glacial lake mapping and monitoring in HKH and is involved in the analysis and investigation of various geohazards in the region. He has knowledge and experience in hydrogeology, river dynamics, morphology, and geomorphology. Maharjan has published more than 35 scientific research papers related to glaciers, glacial lakes and its associated hazards, landslides, and hydrogeology.
Can is an OpenStreetMap trainer at the Open Mapping Hub Asia-Pacific, in collaboration with the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT). He has been part of the global OpenStreetMap community since 2012 and has previously conducted field projects in Turkey with HOT. Can also holds a Ph.D. in geomatics, specialising on geoinformation in disaster management and has been appointed to faculty positions in numerous universities in Turkey since 2005.
Tara is pursuing a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. Her dissertation ‘Herders at heart? The role of pastoralism for a borderland community of Tibetan culture in north-western Nepal’ articulates human relationships with landscape, animals, and deities, with a focus on gender. She sheds light on the dynamic and political nature of these entanglements.
Rishav Rawal is a PhD scholar from the Department of History, DSB Campus, Kumoun University, Nainital. Rawal worked as a surveyor at the GB Pant Institute National Institute of Himalayan Environment (NIHE) for the Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI) to document the culture and heritage of the Rung communities.
Quaisar Ali completed his postgraduate degree in Economics from Pondicherry University. His research interest lies in the field of development studies, gender studies, international trade, urban studies, educational, and caste studies.
Yancen Diemberger is a PhD student of Anthrozoology at the University of Exeter, UK. She has had a lifelong passion for horses and following a trip to Limi in 2018, she embarked on a multi-species, multi-sited, multi-lingual investigation on horse-human communication.
Jaclyn is currently a PhD student at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, studying animal nutrition. She worked as a junior field researcher in Uttarakhand on springshed restoration with WOCAT (World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies) and ICIMOD under KSLCDI. Bandy is passionate about exploring diverse approaches to improve food security and agriculture production systems. Her work supports sustainable land management, animal and human nutrition, biodiversity protection, and effective knowledge transfer.
Ashmita Acharya is an agriculturist is a graduate in Science of Agriculture from Tribhuwan University. She is interested in sustainable agriculture system and resource management. Acharya worked as a researcher in Bajhang district, Nepal under an ICAV project on livelihood status. Her research work is based on developing sustainable farming systems.
Binaya Pasakhala works as a Governance and Institutions Analyst at ICIMOD. He has more than eight years of experience working with interdisciplinary teams on social-ecological systems and climate change, focusing on governance and institution, gender, and other social dimensions. Pasakhala has a masters’ degree in natural resources management from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, and a doctorate degree in Global Environmental Studies from Kyoto University, Japan.
Sunayana Basnet is a Tourism Research Associate at ICIMOD. She holds an undergraduate degree in hospitality and tourism management from Kathmandu University and is currently pursuing a postgraduate degree in rural development from Tribhuvan University. Her research interests include sustainable destination management, community-based tourism, inclusive tourism recovery, and eco-tourism.
Sabarnee Tuladhar is a Research Associate under the Livelihood theme at ICIMOD. Her work focuses on conducting socioeconomic and statistical data analysis for poverty and vulnerability mapping that will provide information on population statistics. She has also been involved in identifying resilient markers using the Systems Dynamics method of Social-ecological systems (SES) framework. Tuladhar holds a master’s degree in international development and environmental analysis from Monash University, Australia.
Naresh Newar is a Knowledge Management and Communications Officer at ICIMOD. He has more than 25 years of experience working in media and communications for national, regional, and international media and development organisations. His work has been published in the Nepali Times, The Guardian, Thomson Reuters, Inter Press Service, UN Humanitarian news (IRIN), Huffington Post, and Panos London. Newar has also worked as an editor for Panos Radio South Asia and has led several international media tours for journalists from South Asia, USA, and Europe to bring attention to environmental issues.
Currently a part of ICIMOD as a media associate, Anshu Pandey has been in the media and digital marketing field for the last five years while doing her bachelor’s in environmental science. Before joining ICIMOD, she worked for ad agencies to craft marketing campaigns for brands and organisations such as Worldlink, USAID Nari Paila, and Samsung.
Mujeeb Hussain Gattoo is a PhD Scholar at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India. Gattoo is also an Assistant Professor with the Department of Higher Education, Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. His areas of research are economics of growth and development, institutional economics, economics of education and political economy of development.
Saurav Pradhananga is a Water and Climate Analyst working in the Water and Air Theme at ICIMOD. At ICIMOD, he supports the development and assessment of hydrological models of river basins and sub-basins under different climate change scenarios, conducts climate change assessment of historical climate data and carries out downscaling of climate change scenarios. He also provides technical support to capacity-building training and workshops on hydrological modelling and climate change, and support studies on soil erosion and sedimentation by providing inputs through literature review, documentation and analysis of relevant issues, and field visits. Saurav holds a post graduate degree in water resources engineering from the Institute of Engineering, Tribhuwan University, Nepal.
South Asia Director of The Third Pole and India coordinator of Internews Earth Journalism Network, Joydeep Gupta writes, commissions and edits articles on climate change, water, biodiversity, pollution and sustainable development. He also trains environmental journalists and teaches environmental journalism at OP Jindal Global University. Gupta won the 2012 Green Globe Award at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit organised by the Energy and Resources Institute. He has reported earlier for Indo-Asian News Service, The Statesman, Sunday Observer, and Sunday Mail. He is also the Vice President of the Forum of Environmental Journalists in India.
Ishwari Bhattarai is a Political and Governance Analyst at the Democracy Resource Center Nepal (DRCN), a research-based organisation in Kathmandu. His field of research includes federalism, sub-national governance, gender, policy review, and natural resources management issues in Nepal. Since 2018, Bhattarai has been actively involved in field-based research in DRCN and in producing reports on the implementation of federalism and subnational governance in Nepal.
Anu Rai is currently pursuing her postgraduate degree in Environmental Science at Kathmandu University. She is also a co-founder and CEO of the Sustainability and Environmental Studies Endeavor. Her research interests lie in freshwater studies, biodiversity conservation, and geospatial analysis. Rai is involved in two research studies – applying nature-based solutions for the restoration of Nagdaha, Nepal through Wageningen University’s Nature Based Solutions Challenge 2022 and in promoting sustainable fishing to conserve the last river dolphins in Nepal through the Conservation Leadership Programme.
Suwash Kunwar is an Assistant Forest Officer at the Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Forest and Environment, Division Forest office in Dadeldhura and Kailali districts of Nepal. He has a postgraduate degree in Forestry from Nanjing Forestry University, China. Kunwar focuses on diversity and forest functioning especially above ground biomass and or carbon/stocks in natural forests which is key to climate change mitigation. He is also interested in the study of sustainable management of natural resources for the benefits of rural people and income generation.
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