Global Change and Mountains: Consequences, Responses and Opportunities - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 126

opportunities of global change. Payment for environmental services (PES)
can pave the way for rewarding mountain communities for the critical
services they provide. Payment for environmental services would help in
preventing further depletion of mountain natural resources and restoration
of ecosystem services which in turn will make them more resilient to long-
term impacts of climate change.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) and
Enhancement of Carbon Stocks (REDD+) are other important opportunities
under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) which offer incentives for developing countries to reduce
emissions from forested lands and invest in low carbon activities for their
sustainable development. Mountains accounting for nearly 28% of the
world's forests bear a huge potential for carbon storage and sequestration
and are therefore in a privileged position to attract such funds for climate
change mitigation bear a huge potential for carbon storage and sequestration
and are therefore in a privileged position to attract such funds for climate
change mitigation. Hence, the mountain forest-ecosystems are one of the
most vital mainstays of Green Economy and in attaining the goals of both
REDD and REDD+. The forests conservation in mountains therefore needs to
be linked with climate change mitigation and adaptation, poverty alleviation
and food and livelihood security of local people. In view of this, the recent
experiences of Forest Panchayats and lessons learned from Joint Forest
Management (JFM) in the Indian Himalaya and Community Forestry (CF)
in Nepal can best be replicated and used for institutionalizing forests and
for their community-oriented conservation and development. This would
provide mountain people with the opportunity of getting involved in global
carbon credit process and enhancing their quality of lives through reduction
of poverty, improvement of livelihood and restoration of ecosystem services.
In addition, several ecological benefi ts, such as conservation of biodiversity,
increased forest productivity, erosion control, slope stabilization and
hydrological restoration, could be obtained by integrating participatory
forest management with existing carbon markets.
A considerably large proportion of population in mountain regions of
developing countries depends for its livelihood on severely limited arable
land symbolizing distress husbandry of land. Paradoxically, on the other
hand, nearly large forest area put together with water-bodies, high altitude
pastures, etc. characterized with charismatic landscapes, natural splendor,
variety of fl ora and fauna, enthralling wilderness and rich biodiversity have
so far been utilized to provide livelihood to a small percentage of the rural
population. The situation therefore calls for looking beyond the traditional
agricultural system and generation of rural employment opportunities in
off-farm and non-traditional sectors in the mountains area of less developed
countries. This brings out the fact very clearly that restoration of ecosystem