In Mongolia, grasslands and steppes are currently home to over 25 million head of livestock and 192,000 herding families. Nomadic livestock producers are the backbone of the economy. As in other areas in the region (eg western China), herders are facing very serious pasture degradation. Government officials and herders agree that many local carrying capacities are exceeded. These problems have been aggravated by 3 recent extremely severe winters. A multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team, coordinated by the Mongolian Ministry for Nature and the Environment, is addressing this challenge through a combination of participatory, action-oriented field research activities in 3 of the country's major ecosystems—the dry steppe, forest steppe, and Altai mountains steppe. Efforts include direct involvement in national policy-making, encompassing the drafting of new laws. Two innovative action research activities are the formation of community herder groups and the establishment of pasture co-management teams involving herders, local government, and members of civil society. Together, these diversified, multilevel efforts are resulting in new thinking about natural resource management and new ways of doing research and formulating policies. They are opening up the necessary space for active and meaningful co-management roles for herders and government officials alike.

The present article describes an experiment using the SAMBA role play game as a research tool in Bac Kan province of Vietnam, in the framework of the Mountain Agrarian Systems Program, a joint research project of the Vietnam Agricultural Science Institute, the International Rice Research Institute, the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, and the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement. The role play game was a follow-up to intensive field surveys and multi-agent modeling done in the same commune. We present the game and its rules, the sequence of events during a role play session, and an analysis of the process. The results of this experiment show that role play can be a useful tool, both for validation of hypotheses about the forces behind land use change and for conducting participatory research on natural resource management.

Chitral is an isolated mountainous tract of 14,850 km² in the northernmost part of Pakistan, bordering on Afghanistan to the north and west, and surrounded by the high ranges of the Hindu Kush and Karakoram. As only about 18% of Chitral is cultivable, its people are heavily dependent on livestock for their livelihood. Generally, livestock in the area are undernourished owing to the diminishing supply of feed on deteriorating rangelands. Local livestock feed resources in Chitral include grazing (78.1%), crop residues (20.76%), fodder crops (0.81%), and cereal bran (0.32%). Fluctuating nutrient supply caused by extreme weather conditions has considerably reduced livestock productivity. Feed is scarce during the long winters extending from November to April, during which animals subsist entirely on stall-feeding consisting of mature grass, hay, and crop residues. Concentrate supplements are expensive and not affordable by poor farmers. Molasses-urea blocks, although highly relevant to the feed situation in Chitral as a strategic supplement, cannot be prepared locally due to unavailability of molasses in the area. High transportation costs for molasses and feed blocks from plains areas are additional prohibitive factors. The present study explores the use of mulberry fruit, abundantly available in Chitral (Figure 1), to make solidified multinutrient feed blocks.

Despite abundant wild edible plant resources with immense potential for economic development, Uttaranchal, a newly created hill state situated in the Central Indian Himalaya, remains underdeveloped, owing primarily to inaccessibility and poor infrastructure. Development initiatives show little concern for mountain perspectives. Yet the region is rich in resources and underutilized plant species with potential food value, about which there is little knowledge. For the present study, 13 potentially exploitable wild fruit species and 1 semidomesticated species with good potential for exploitation were selected; 6—Aegle marmelos (bael or Bengal quince), Berberis asiatica (barberry), Hippophae rhamnoides (sea buckthorn), Myrica nagi (box myrtle), Rubus ellipticus (yellow Himalayan raspberry), and Prunus armeniaca (apricot)—were examined closely in terms of economic potential. A variety of value-added edible products such as jam, jelly, juice, and squash were made to generate income from these wild fruits, particularly for poor rural people. This was demonstrated locally to encourage people to engage in small-scale village-level cottage industries.

Bhutan, a mountainous country where 79% of the population depends on agriculture, has a relatively short history of government intervention in the agricultural sector. The first research and extension activities began only 4 decades ago. Developments over this period are generally seen as positive, although it is impossible to separate the influence of social change and the road network from the influence of activities carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture or by development agencies. Despite positive results, farmers are often seen as resistant to change or slow to adopt new technologies. Researchers and extensionists disappointed by low adoption rates often blame cultural barriers, lack of interest by farmers in economic betterment, or, in the worst case, lack of academic training among farmers. Mountain environments are inherently fragile, leaving farmers less room to experiment with risky innovations. Yet this patronizing approach is not limited to agents working with mountain farmers or subsistence agricultural systems. The present article describes 3 examples in which farmers have adopted new technologies at surprisingly fast rates, mainly for economic reasons: 1) potato production, 2) the use of draft animals for mechanized potato production, and 3) fodder pumpkin cultivation. The author's experience, supported by recent research findings and data from published and unpublished records, is used to describe the technologies, the rate of adoption, and factors affecting adoption. The analysis of potato development covers several decades, while the other examples are limited to periods of a few years.

This paper examines the impact of two multisectoral highland development projects on ethnic minorities in northern Thailand. While social sector interventions were relatively successfully delivered and locally appreciated, strategies for agricultural development failed to take account of local cultural and production systems, and were fraught with a range of design and implementation difficulties. These uneven outcomes are traced to the assumptions underlying project design, contradictions in policy (especially relating to land tenure), and the institutional cultures of implementing agencies.

By combining research on individual forage plants and plant communities, significant information about the changing condition of rangelands under specific management practices can be produced; this has rarely been done to date. On the one hand, studies on individual plants provide rather mechanistic, isolated insights, making it impossible to identify interactions and the properties of plant communities relevant for adequate vegetation management. On the other hand, plant community analysis alone only reveals shifts in the composition of species and biomass, but does not explain cause-and-effect relationships related to the impact of grazing at species level. The combined and participatory approach suggested in this paper describes how a more tangible, quantifiable relationship can be established between individual plant and community level processes. Such an approach, which involves herders in expert assessment and data collection, enables better monitoring and forecasting of those changes in plant community composition that are relevant for livestock husbandry and sustainable resource use. In this study, the highest dry matter production (DMP) was recorded at altitudes between 1200 m (with 1945 kg/ha) and 1600 m (with 1921 kg/ha). In “freely grazed rangeland”—where access is not limited and no manual improvement measures are taken—the proportion of palatable forage species is much lower than in “fenced rangeland,” where access is limited and the stocking rate reduced to one third. Such integrated assessment of rangeland conditions ultimately provides the baseline for evaluating changes in ecosystems over time; it also provides a sound basis for negotiation among stakeholders with different interests.

Agricultural sustainability problems related to soil erosion and fertility depletion have arisen throughout the agro-ecological zone of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). Introduction and exploitation of clover is predicted to be beneficial and useful under these conditions because of its potential for herbage production, N₂ fixation, and soil cover characteristics. A 1-year field study with a local ecotype of white clover was carried out. Vegetative growth, herbage yield, nitrogen (N) uptake, and soil N content were investigated. Additionally, Rhizobia infestation was studied by isolating Rhizobia in culture media. The annual herbage yield (fresh fodder) of clover, and of clover and grass mixture harvested twice during the season was 7–15 t/ha while dry matter production was 3–6 t/ha. Protein content of white clover was 16% as compared to 5% in the indigenous grass species, demonstrating the superior feed value of white clover. The development of Rhizobium colonies in the culture media and the presence of about 20 nodules per plant indicated the purity of Rhizobium and its N₂ fixing potential. The N content of clover and clover and grass mixture was 2–2.5% compared to 0.87% for grass alone, showing that clover was able to fix an average of 77 kg N/ha, a very encouraging figure even under low moisture conditions. A 70% increase in total soil N in clover-growing plots relative to control plots was observed. It was concluded that white clover can easily be grown and established in the hilly areas of Rawalakot, and would sustain a high level of pasture production and provide inputs of N through N₂ fixation which, in turn, would increase the productivity potential of soils in mountain eco-regions in AJK.

The present article reports the results of a survey on the views of persons involved in commercial alpine medicinal and aromatic plant (MAP) exploitation and conservation in Nepal. Open-ended questionnaires were administered face to face to 175 respondents in the following categories: 1) collectors, 2) traders, 3) district forest office staff, 4) staff at the departmental and ministerial levels in the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, and 5) (I)NGOs and donors. The issues explored are related to striking a balance between poverty alleviation and halting MAP resource degradation. Stakeholder beliefs about the benefits derived from MAPs, the current state of the MAP resource, the tenure of MAP pastures, the effectiveness of government bans on collection and the possibility of community management, and the trade-off between collection and conservation are presented. Widespread misconceptions about collectors and local management are identified, and implications of differences in belief among stakeholder categories are discussed. The main findings show that collectors are seen as gaining important financial benefits from MAPs, but that 71% of non-collecting respondents believe the MAP resource to be degraded. Most stakeholders, other than district forest office staff, favor collection over conservation, and find that current collection bans are inefficient, indicating the potential for addressing village poverty by, for example, changing the present centrally-based regulation mechanisms and handing over some MAP resources for community management.

The present paper describes land cover classification and habitat mapping for the Tibetan wild ass (Equus kiang), also commonly known as kiang, in the Surkhang VDC, Upper Mustang, Nepal. Remote sensing techniques were applied for this classification, employing an ASTER satellite image from October 2002. The whole region was classified into 6 land cover types, relevant to the application of habitat mapping for the kiang. The classes are: grassland, shrubland, bare land, water bodies, snow cover, and agriculture and settlement. The area of each land cover type was tabulated to give a general picture of the land cover situation. Habitat information was collected mostly from the literature and partially from a field visit. GIS tools for spatial analysis were used to identify the suitability of the habitat in the region. The whole region was classified into 3 different suitability levels, ie primary, secondary, and non-suitable, based on use and potential use by the species in the particular area. The region with suitable habitats was delineated so that any further conservation activities related to kiang habitat can be concentrated within this boundary as a management implication.

Bamboo is a giant grass that takes on tree-like functions in forest ecosystems. Around 75 genera and 1250 species of bamboo are known to exist throughout the world. Five hundred species in 40 genera are recorded in China, mostly in the monsoon areas of south and southwest China. Of these, 250 species in 29 genera grow naturally in the mountainous province of Yunnan, in the Chinese Himalayan region. Bamboo has a long history of being used for multiple purposes by various mountain communities in China. Among others, bamboo has served—and still serves—as construction material, fiber, food, material for agricultural tools, utensils, and music instruments, as well as ornamental plants. Yunnan as a landlocked mountain province in southwest China holds a great number of species in its natural bamboo forests. This article presents the diversity of bamboo species and of their utilization in Yunnan Province, China.

A bioclimatic model was used to simulate distributions of the dominant tree species on the Tibetan Plateau. The model is based on physiological constraints to alpine plant growth. The bioclimatic variables used in this model are: minimum temperature in the coldest month, maximum temperature in the warmest month, accumulated growing-season warmth, and minimum value of soil moisture availability in the growing season. A comparison was made between simulated current distributions of tree species and their actual natural distributions on the Tibetan Plateau. It was shown that there is good agreement between simulated current and actual natural distributions. The simulated current distribution areas of tree species such as Abies spectabilis, Picea likiangensis var. linzhiensis, Pinus densata, Larix griffithiana were a little larger than their actual distributions. For Quercus aquifolioides and the relict species Betula platyphylla, simulated areas were a little smaller than their actual distributions. Future distributions of dominant tree species were predicted under a climate scenario with a CO₂ concentration of 500 ppmv in the year 2100. The distribution areas of Abies spectabilis, Picea likiangensis var. linzhiensis, Pinus densata, Larix griffithiana and Quercus aquifolioides would shift and extend towards the north and west under the future climate scenario. For Betula utilis, the distribution areas would shift towards the north but they would shrink.

First results from field measurements leave no doubt; the extreme warm and dry weather conditions in the summer of 2003 had a profound impact on Alpine glaciers. According to data from global glacier monitoring programs, the thickness of European Alpine glaciers decreased roughly 5 times more than the average loss per year recorded during the already exceptionally warm period 1980–2000. This makes the loss of one single year about an order of magnitude higher than the reconstructed average loss per year during the 20^th century (Prof. Wilfried Haeberli, personal communication 2004). These results demonstrate in an impressive but disturbing way how the impacts of climate variability or climate change are increasingly becoming perceptible. Such changes can only be documented and analyzed if high-elevation measurement sites are available.

According to an ancient Shinto belief, a god descended to a high pine on an elegant mountain, to exist in a large or old tree. Sacred places, despite occupying only 0.55% of Japanese territory, have been marked by shrines for many years. The precinct of a shrine is distinguished by special trees. Twigs with leaves of Cleyra japonica or Illicium religiosum are offered to a god or the soul of a dead person. More than 15 species in Japan have been identified for religious use. Because sacred forests and trees have significant roles, preserving a solemn atmosphere as well as the natural environment, they should be protected and conserved as a heritage for citizens.