Hindu Kush-Himalaya Watersheds Downhill: Landscape Ecology and Conservation Perspectives

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiii

   PDF

2. Landscapes

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Mountain Landscapes and Watersheds of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) and Their Biogeography: A Descriptive Overview and Introduction for 18 Nations in the Anthropocene

      • Falk Huettmann, Ganga Ram Regmi

      Pages 3-23

   3. The Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) Region in the Modern Global and Climate Context: Major Weather Systems, Monsoon, Asian Brown Clouds (ABCs), Digital Data/Models and Global Linkages of Telecoupling and Teleconnection all Affecting Global Human Well-Being

      • Falk Huettmann

      Pages 25-40

   4. From the Mountains and Glaciers Down to the Rivers to the Estuaries and Oceans: Another Sad Tale of 18 or so Rivers

      • Falk Huettmann

      Pages 41-59

   5. The Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) in the Global and Marine Context: Major Estuaries, Coast-Scapes, Ocean Coupling, Seawalls, over 2 Billion People and Global (Food) Security

      • Falk Huettmann

      Pages 61-77

   6. A View from Space on Poyang Lake: What We Can Already See and What It Means

      • Yuanbo Liu, Guiping Wu

      Pages 79-97

   7. Effective Poyang Lake Conservation? A Local Ecology View from Downstream Involving Internationally Migratory Birds When Trying to Buffer and Manage Water from HKH with ‘Modern’ Concepts

      • Falk Huettmann

      Pages 99-112

   8. The Future of Biodiversity in the Changing Watersheds of Kashmir Himalaya, Pakistan: Conservation Challenges and Opportunities

      • Muhammad Naeem Awan, Muhammad Kabir, Shakeel Ahmad, Falk Huettmann

      Pages 113-133

   9. Towards a Landscape Perspective of Diseases in Plants: An Overview and Review of a Critical but Overlooked Ecology Issue in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region

      • Sandhya Neupane, Tirth Raj Ghimire

      Pages 135-168

   10. Showing True Change of the Hindu Kush Himalaya Region Through the Power of Photo Monitoring as a Visual Memory of Change

       • Fritz Berger

       Pages 169-195

   11. A First-Hand Narrative Account on Tibet’s Paper Parks: How China’s Greenwashing in Tibet Flies Under the Radar

       • Michael Buckley

       Pages 197-212

   12. Forestry Management in Nepal: An Example and a Review of Growth & Yield

       • Sakar Jha, Apsana Kafle, Ganesh Puri, Falk Huettmann

       Pages 213-225

3. Concepts, Cultures, Religions and the Mind

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 227-227

      PDF

   2. What It Is Like to Be a Land-Locked Nation: Some Discriminatory Examples and Details from National Watersheds of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya Under the Neoliberal ‘Free Market’ Participation Paradigm

      • Falk Huettmann

      Pages 229-247

   3. Ethnobiology and Indigenous Regimes in the Conservation of Species, Watersheds, and Landscapes: Experiences and Evidences from the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Nations for a Global Application

      • Tirth Raj Ghimire, Pitamber Pant, Ganga Ram Regmi, Falk Huettmann

      Pages 249-281

   4. Spirituality Beats It All: A Quick Conservation Overview, Self-Organization and the Great Value of (Indigenous) Religions for Hindu Kush-Himalaya Landscapes, Its Geo-Parks, Species, Ecological Processes and Watersheds

      • Falk Huettmann

      Pages 283-311

   5. Settling the Terror of Your Mind with the Deities: About Fear, Anxiety, Inherent Chaos and Self-Doubt in Hind Kush-Himalaya Expeditions and Associated Research

      • Falk Huettmann

      Pages 313-328

4. Real-World Policy, Conservation Management of Wildlife, Habitat, and Biodiversity Data

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 329-329

      PDF

   2. The Relevance and Significant Role of Mid-elevation for the Watersheds and Biodiversity Conservation in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya: The Case of Nepal in the Anthropocene

      • Apsana Kafle, Sakar Jha, Falk Huettmann

      Pages 331-343

This book describes the myriad components of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region. The contributors elaborate on challenges, failures, and successes in efforts to conserve the HKH, its indigenous plants and animals, and the watershed that runs from the very roof of the planet via world-rivers to marine estuaries, supporting a human population of some two billion people. Readers will learn how the landforms, animal species and humans of this globally fascinating region are connected, and understand why runoff from snow and ice in the world’s tallest mountains is vital to inhabitants far downstream.

The book comprises forty-five chapters organized in five parts. The first section, Landscapes, introduces the mountainous watersheds of the HKH, its weather systems, forests, and the 18 major rivers whose headwaters are here. The second part explores concepts, cultures, and religions, including ethnobiology and indigenous regimes, two thousand years of religious tradition,and the history of scientific and research expeditions. Part Three discusses policy, wildlife conservation management, habitat and biodiversity data, as well as the interaction of animals and humans. The fourth part examines the consequences of development and globalization, from hydrodams, to roads and railroads, to poaching and illegal wildlife trade. This section includes studies of animal species including river dolphins, woodpeckers and hornbills, langurs, snow leopards and more. The concluding section offers perspectives and templates for conservation, sustainability and stability in the HKH, including citizen-science projects and a future challenged by climate change, growing human population, and global conservation decay.

A large assemblage of field and landscape photos, combined with eye-witness accounts, presents a 50-year local and wider perspective on the HKH. Also included are advanced digital topics: data sharing, open access, metadata, web portal databases, geographic information systems (GIS) software and machine learning, and data mining concepts all relevant to a modern scientific understanding and sustainable management of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region.

This work is written for scholars, landscape ecologists, naturalists and researchers alike, and it can be especially well-suited for those readers who want to learn in a more holistic fashion about the latest conservation issues.

• • Hindu Kush Himalaya
• • Watersheds
• • Ecology
• • Biodiversity Conservation
• • Global Sustainability
• water policy

• Third Pole Conservancy, Kathmandu, Nepal

  Ganga Ram Regmi

• -EWHALE Lab- Institute of Arctic Biology, Biology & Wildlife Department, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, USA

  Falk Huettmann

Falk spent over 10 years doing field work and research analysis -including a sabbatical- at the 3rd pole: the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region. He is a ‘digital naturalist’ linking computing, open access data and the internet with natural history research for global conservation and sustainability. Working as a professor for Wildlife Ecology with the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) he and many  international students run the -EWHALE lab-. In his lab he pursues biodiversity, land- and seascape approaches, the atmosphere, global governance, ecological economics, diseases and new approaches to global sustainability on a pixel-scale in a transparent and repeatable way. Most of his 220 publications and 8 books are centered on Open Access and Open Source, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, Metadata, and Data Mining/Machine Learning pushing real-world conservation questions forward.

Ganga has 15 years’ experiences in wildlife survey, monitoring and conservation in one of the most difficult terrain of the world, the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region.  He is the founder and long-term director of ‘Global Primate Network’ (now ‘Third Pole Conservancy’), a small NGO actively engaged in wildlife research and conservation activities in Nepal. Ganga graduated in Zoology and Primate Conservation from Nepal and Oxford Brooks/UK, he is also a Manager for the Nepal Snow Leopard Project funded by the Snow Leopard Conservancy, USA. Over the years Ganga has received many grants and prestigious  awards from the international community for his work on wildlife and biodiversity conservation in Nepal.

Policies and ethics