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

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.

Foreword
Acknowledgement
Preface

Part 1. Landscapes

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 and Ganga Ram Regmi

HKH in the global and climate context: Major weather systems, monsoon, Asian Brown Cloud (ABC) and global connections
Falk Huettmann

From the mountains and glaciers down to the rivers to the estuaries and oceans: A tale of 18 rivers
Falk Huettmann

HKH in the global and marine context: Major estuaries, 2 billion people and global food security
Falk Huettmann

A view from space on Poyang Lake: What we can already see and what it means
Yuanbo Liu, Guiping Wu

Poyang Lake: A local view downstream from the Hindu Kush Himalaya
Falk Huettmann         

The Future of Biodiversity in the Changing Watersheds of Kashmir Himalaya, Pakistan: Conservation Challenges and Opportunities
Muhammed Naeem Awan, Muhammad Kabir, Shakeel Ahmad and Falk Huettmann

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 and Tirth Raj Ghimire 

Change of Hindu Kush Himalaya region through photo monitoring
Fritz Berger    

Paper parks in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region
Michael Buckley

Forestry Management in Nepal: An example and a review of growth & yield
Sakar Jha, Apsana Kafle, Ganesh Puri and Falk Huettmann

Part 2. Concepts, Cultures, Religions and the Mind

What it is like to be a land-locked nation: Examples from Nepal and Bhutan
Falk Huettmann

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 

Spirituality beats it all: A quick overview, self-organization and great value of (indigenous) religions: 2,000 years later
Falk Huettmann

The terror of your mind: Fear, Anxiety, inherent Chaos and Self-doubt in Himalaya expeditions and research
Falk Huettmann

Part 3. Real-world Policy, Conservation Management of Wildlife, Habitat, and Biodiversity Data

The relevance and role of Mid-elevation for conservation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya: A Nepal example
Apsana Kafle, Sakar Jha and Falk Huettmann

Nature and landscape governance in royal times: Experiences from the Shah and Rana regimes in Nepal re-assembled from literature and interview data
Jamuna Prajapati, Tirth Raj Ghimire^, Ganga Ram Regmi and Falk Huettmann

Urban Ecology in shops and housing: An example of culture, religion and how (nesting) Barn Swallows, House and Tree Swallows create for a lively human-wildlife link at the commercial interface
Falk Huettmann, Lindsay Hansen

Pallas’s Cat in Annapurna, Nepal: What we know thus far and what is to come
Ganga Ram Regmi, Falk Huettmann, Tashi R. Ghale and Rinzin Phunjok Lama

Status of otters in Nepal: A link with ancient waterways and people
Rohit Raj Jha¹, Thakur Silwal¹, Grace M. Yoxon², Kabindra Shahi¹, Harisharan Nepali ¹,Aashish Kumar Joshi¹

Wildlife Diplomacy and Gifting in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region: A chronological history and opinion of Nepalese literates
Tirth Raj Ghimire, Anita Bhattarai, Nirju Ojha, Pitamber Pant, and Sagar Aryal 

Birds of Nepal: their status and conservation especially with regards to watershed perspectives
Hem Sagar Baral and Carol Inskipp 

A governance analysis of the snow leopard, its habitat and data: Who owns charismatic animals and who drives and uses the agenda for what?Falk Huettmann

The Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP): Towards a success story in landscape feature and watershed conservation management.
Jamuna Prajapati, Falk Huettmann, Tashi Rapte Ghale and Ganga Ram Regmi

The forgotten species and their data: Museums in Nepal and examples
Falk Huettmann

A rather short story of the GIS data layers in HKH
Madan Krishna Suwal and Falk Huettmann

A pollination, insect and IUCN view: Ecological Services matter the most
Dayaram Bhusal

Sarus Cranes and Stork species hotspots from geo-referenced rapid assessments in Lumbini: Holy species and religious attitudes drive entire ecological communities and services for the benefit of a nation
Dikpal Krishna Karmacharya, Santos Kumar Yadav, Mi Chunrong, Falk Huettmann

Part 4. Very Serious Problems in the HKH nations

A ‘global change’ eulogy, sermons and obituaries: Everest, the models, the reality, the governmental mis-behavior, associated institutional terror and the global abuse of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region
Falk Huettmann et al.

The gods are angry: A first-hand account and an experience of the earthquake in hindsight
Falk Huettmann

Hydrodams: Death by over 500 cuts and blockages virtually build without Impact Assessment
Falk Huettmann

Hydrodams again: Lost Dolphins, expensive Gharials, cut Fish migration, and energy for non-sustainable mining and societies abroad fueling non-democratric governance and industry
Falk Huettmann, Mina Shrestha, Ganesh Puri and Ganga Ram Regmi

Persistent evidence for a dramatic decline in Langurs in Nepal, and likely elsewhere, too
Purna Bahadur Ale, Ganga Ram Regmi and Falk Huettmann

Snow Leopards in 2100?
Rinzin Phunjok Lama, Tashi Rapte Ghale , Ganga Ram Regmi, Falk Huettmann

The fate of the great woodpeckers and hornbills in Nepal: No big trees, no life
Hem Sagar Baral, Falk Huettmann

Poaching and illegal Trade of Wildlife: What do the media say for the Nepali-Chinese and Nepali-Indian border?
Ganesh Puri, Yajna Prasad Timilsina, Falk Huettmann, Ganga Ram Regmi, Rinzin Phunjok Lama

Looking at Road and Railroad Development Data in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya: Rock-solid impacts created by Globalization, The World Bank and its affiliates, as well as by the Great Himalaya Trail
Falk Huettmann

Why do some many Nepalis, medical doctors, CEOs and Hedge Fund Managers get sick or die on Everest (Sagarmatha, Chomolungma) ? A review and indicators that capitalism went awful while searching human dignity and itself
Falk Huettmann

Part 5. A fresh look and successful templates for HKH: Business as usual is dead

Small and effective NGOs as a role model for bigger success: The Global Primate Network (now ‘Third Pole Conservancy’)
Dikpal Krishna Karmacharya, Tirth Raj Ghimire and Ganga Ram Regmi

When Micro drives the Macro: A fresh look at disease and their massive contributions in the Himalaya
Tirth Raj Ghimire, Falk Huettmann and Ganga Ram Regmi

What Mining has in stock down river for Mongolia and beyond: A personal assessment of watersheds and rivers
GanguIi Rajive

Good Citizen Science experience downstream of Everest: The Koshi Birding Club
Hem Sagar Baral and Laxam Prasad Poudyal

Citizen Science experience: Green Youth Club promoting Cranes in Lumbini region
Dikpal Krishna Karmacharya and Santos Kumar Yadav

When governments cannot do it anymore and capitalism, neoliberal policies and globalization get imposed without democracy: Self-organization beyond E. Ostrom
F. Huettmann

Quo Vadis the Hindu Kush-Himalaya Realistic Sustainable Development horror scenarios while climate change, human increase and global conservation decay rise further?
Falk Huettmann and Ganga

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.