Global Change and Mountains: Consequences, Responses and Opportunities - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 120

providing shelter for rare and endangered species of plants and animals,
generation of hydro-power and potential carbon sink. The value addition
to raw produce through local processing would be necessary for ensuring
the maximum benefi t of these emerging opportunities should go to the
mountain communities. However, these changes may lead to the over-
exploitation of mountain natural resources (Jodha 2002).
It is now well understood that the carbon sequestration and conservation
potential of the forests is much higher than total carbon sequestration
capacity of all other terrestrial ecosystems of the planet. The forests of the
world account for 90% of the annual carbon fl ux between the atmosphere
and the land surface of the Earth (Gupta 2007). This has further improved
our understanding of the importance of forests to the global environment,
and has infl uenced forest management policy decisions around the world
during the recent years. Over the past decades, forests have emerged as
a major consideration in global discussions on sustainable development.
Since, the United Nation's Earth Submit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in
1992, remarkable progress has been made in advancing the worldwide
consensus on the protection, conservation and sustainable development of
forest resources (Tiwari and Joshi 2001). At the same time, the globalizing
economy has increased the demand of forests in various economic sectors,
and thus unlocked the valuable and rich forest resources of remote and
inaccessible regions, such as high mountains, for their exploitation,
degradation and depletion. However, the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM) of The Kyoto Protocol gives more emphasis on afforestation and
reforestation programmes, and conservation and management of existing
forests are not included under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
(Geoffrey 2005). Since, a signifi cant proportion of the population is currently
involved in the conservation and management of their forests, particularly
in the developing countries, the incorporation of forest management in the
Kyoto Protocol or alternatively voluntary carbon market would benefi t a
large number of communities in developing countries (Climate Community
and Biodiversity Alliance 2005).
Economic globalization, participatory resource management systems,
decentralized governance mechanism, public-private partnership based
infrastructure development, growing urbanization, development of
information technology and communication system have sensitized
mountain communities for capturing the potential of these drivers of
transformation. Fast emerging economies, particularly in South and East
Asia and Latin America have also increased fl ow of resources and thereby
accelerated the pace of economic growth in mountains. As result, mountain
communities which suffered from marginalization and underdevelopment
have been able to attract the attention of national as well as international
agencies for their sustainable development. Despite prevailing uncertainty