Natural springs in many contexts, including in mountain and water-limited (arid or semi-arid) landscapes, are often biodiversity hotspots and keystone ecosystems that have a disproportionate influence on surrounding landscapes given their usually small size.
As the world gathers for the Conference of Parties (COP)16, discussions under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in Cali, Colombia and later in Baku, Azerbaijan for COP29, the global conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the spotlight is firmly on solutions that tackle biodiversity loss, climate change, and ecosystem degradation.
As the COP discussions progress, it’s an opportune moment to highlight how the work we are doing at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) with our partners in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) aligns with the global agenda. Achieving goals on biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development requires ongoing investment, strong partnerships, and large-scale, tangible actions – particularly in the HKH region, where ecosystems support 1.2 billion people across the mountains and downstream river basins.
Diverse landscapes of the HKH
Our rangelands, wetlands, forests, and ecosystems are vital both for local livelihoods and for global environmental health. They provide essential services like carbon sequestration, water and air regulation, hazard mitigation, habitat protection, and boosting ecosystem productivity. ICIMOD’s work on ecosystems and landscape restoration is dedicated to scaling Nature-based Solutions (NbS) – which include actions to protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural ecosystems that address environmental, social, economic, and gender-related challenges while simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits. In particular, our work addresses societal challenges around water insecurity and ecosystem degradation – that has deeper implications on food and livelihoods security, including biodiversity conservation. Springshed management and rangelands restoration for multiple benefits are foundational NbS, and together with forest landscape restoration, incentives for biodiversity, and addressing issues on human-wildlife coexistence – we are committing to safeguarding critical mountain ecosystems with the aim of generating multiple benefits – both for people and the environment.
Our HKH rangelands and wetlands
Rangelands and wetlands cover 60% of HKH landmasses. They comprise grasslands, shrublands, meadows, steppes, prairies, marshes, and peatlands which serve as habitats for numerous plant and animal species – especially medicinal plants and key mammal species. These ecosystems provide critical services around water regulation and carbon sequestration, and have deep cultural significance linked to the lives and traditions of pastoralist and herder communities.
Our rangeland intervention adopts the NbS design with the aim of generating climate, biodiversity, and livelihoods co-benefits from rangeland restoration. We promote sustainable grazing practices, working together with herders and pastoralist communities. By collaborating with government agencies, we aim to strengthen policy to enable inclusive and sustainable management of rangeland resources. By working with local governments, herders, and NGOs across several countries, we are co-designing actions to protect rangeland biodiversity, reduce degradation, and increase ecosystem services. Such collaborative research and practice focused on the transformation of rangelands and pastoralism align directly with global commitments to restore degraded landscapes and combat desertification, as emphasised in the 2016 Cancun Statement of the CBD and UNCCD’s the Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Rangelands.
ICIMOD’s work on wetland conservation and management, particularly in high-altitude wetlands, has implications for global carbon management efforts – supporting both mitigation and adaptation efforts in line with UNFCCC objectives on wise use and restoration of wetlands and peatlands for mitigating climate change.
Scaling of springshed management and forest landscape restoration
One of the key NbS that ICIMOD has been championing is springshed management. Springs serve as a lifeline for millions of people across the HKH region, providing essential water resources for drinking, agriculture, and sanitation. ICIMOD’s springshed management emphasises community-led spring mapping, sustainable land-water management practices and restoring vegetation cover around spring catchment areas, ensuring equitable access to reliable and sustainable water sources. Aligned to global efforts under CBD, UNFCCC, and UNCCD conventions, springshed management not only enhances water availability but also strengthens climate resilience in the mountain regions.
Similarly, ICIMOD’s forest landscape restoration (FLR) efforts contribute to the global agenda of restoring degraded ecosystems. By promoting afforestation, reforestation, and sustainable forest management, we are helping to restore the ecological integrity of forest landscapes, increase carbon sequestration, and enhance biodiversity. Our work in this area is particularly relevant to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which calls for concerted global efforts to restore degraded forests by 2030. We are working with government agencies to provide the science-led evidence around forest gain and carbon emission reduction, including the economics of forest landscape restoration.
Enhancing human-wildlife coexistence
The HKH region is home to rich biodiversity, including iconic species such as snow leopards, red pandas, wild yaks, and elephants. When human populations exist together in the same habitat, conflicts often arise. For the HKH, such conflicts are becoming more frequent and severe, threatening wildlife populations and undermining local livelihoods and human wellbeing.
ICIMOD’s work on mitigating human-wildlife conflicts focuses on solutions that foster coexistence between communities and wildlife. By implementing community-based monitoring and awareness, local warning systems, livelihood diversification strategies, and transboundary cooperation, we are helping to reduce the negative impacts of wildlife and local communities existing side by side. Our efforts emphasise the role of traditional knowledge, local stewardship and capacity to combat conflicts. This aligns well with Target 4 of the Global Biodiversity Framework to promote human-wildlife co-existence.
Greener incentives for biodiversity: driving conservation action
Incentives play a critical role in motivating conservation actions and sustaining biodiversity. ICIMOD’s work on developing innovative incentive measures for biodiversity and sustainable landscapes is designed to bridge the gap between conservation and development, providing direct contribution to Target 11 of the CBD, and to the Article 6.4 mechanism of the Paris Agreement under UNFCCC. We are engaging with private sectors and banking and financial institutions to innovate blended financing as a collective effort to reinforce sustainable development.
Our work on greener incentives highlights the importance of aligning incentive measures with government policies and private-sector initiatives. By fostering partnerships with governments, NGOs, and private-sector actors, we are ensuring that environmentally positive actions, climate adaptation actions and NbS efforts are financially sustainable and scalable. These incentives are particularly important in the context of the HKH region, where environmental economics have huge potential.
Natural Capital Accounting and OECMs: valuing ecosystems
ICIMOD’s venture on Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) with the Royal Government of Bhutan is bringing to light the value of natural capital stocks and flows, and their contributions to the economy. By quantifying the economic benefits of biodiversity and ecosystem services, NCA is guiding policymakers and stakeholders to make informed decisions about conservation investments. Our work in Bhutan, for example, has demonstrated how NCA can be used to support the management of Protected Areas (PAs) – ensuring that their contributions to national development goals are adequately accounted. We are supporting the Department of Forests and Park Services in Bhutan to develop guidelines for NCA for PAs in alignment with the global SEEA-EA framework.
Additionally, ICIMOD is working to identify and promote Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) in the HKH region. OECMs are areas that deliver biodiversity conservation outcomes without being formally designated as PAs. These areas are often managed by Indigenous people and local communities – which gives us ample opportunities to work with them and acknowledge their contributions. By recognising and supporting these areas, we are contributing to the CBD’s global target of conserving biodiversity across different types of landscapes – especially towards achieving CBD’s Target 3, which emphasises the need to conserve at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030.
Call to action: sustaining efforts on restoring and regenerating landscapes
As the challenges of biodiversity loss, climate change, and ecosystem degradation continue to mount globally and in the HKH, the work done by ICIMOD and its partners in the HKH region offers a model for integrated, landscape-level NbS that are relevant across other mountain regions across the globe.
Sustaining these efforts at scale will require continued collaboration, dedicated investments, capacity, and political will. It is crucial that governments, local communities, and the private sector work together to scale up successful initiatives and ensure that the HKH region’s ecosystems remain resilient in the face of growing environmental and climate challenges. We call for stronger regional cooperation among ICIMOD’s eight member countries. Our collective voice and united efforts for the HKH region will make a decisive contribution to global biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development goals.
Moving forward, we need to prioritise science and research actions, especially long-term monitoring of ecosystem health, enhancing the use of technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS), including data analytics based on artificial intelligence (AI) to inform conservation and management decisions. Innovating incentive mechanisms to scale NbS – especially policy and regulatory incentives – are designed to encourage investments from private sectors. A regional landscape restoration programme targeted to degraded ecosystems of HKH, facilitated through regional cooperation, regional data and information systems, and blended financing can further enhance our commitments to global biodiversity, climate, and sustainable goals.