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.

Autorentext
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.

Inhalt

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 Ar…