Introduction and Road Map for Impact of Global Changes on High-Mountains - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 21

it would also be indispensable to establish and strengthen international
research collaboration, and develop international mechanisms on knowledge
and data sharing. A regional geo-political cooperation framework among
riparian countries is therefore highly crucial not only for evolving the
framework of adaptation to climate change and improved governance of
headwaters resources, but also for security and peace. In order to address
the challenges posed by climate change, the mountain countries and regions
should develop mountain specifi c adaptation and mitigation policies,
programs, institutions and think tanks which would be necessary to enhance
their resilience and ensure socio-economic and ecological sustainability
in mountain areas. The authors have discussed some of these adaptation
strategies in their chapter. For example, mountain communities through
their traditional resource management practices contributed signifi cantly
towards preservation of forest and biodiversity, climate change mitigation
through carbon sequestration, water conservation and preservation of
cultural heritage and natural landscapes that provide a variety of ecosystem
services and goods to considerably large populations in the downstream.
In turn, the global community should contribute towards the conservation
of natural ecosystem and improvement of the quality of life of mountain
people by providing adequate incentives. Benefi ts of opportunities such
as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD)
and Enhancement of Carbon Stocks (REDD+) 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, have
also been discussed in this chapter. The forests conservation in mountains
needs to be linked with climate change mitigation and adaptation, poverty
alleviation and food and livelihood security of local people. Tiwari and Joshi
have described some recent experiences of Forest Panchayats and lessons
learned from Joint Forest Management (JFM) in the Indian Himalaya and
Community Forestry (CF) in Nepal that can be replicated and used for
institutionalizing forests and for their community oriented conservation and
development. 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. Strategically,
to preserve forests and biodiversity in the mountain regions, it is important
to look 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. One of such examples can be
promotion of local rural enterprise in different sectors of tourism.
The following chapter by Monreal et al. takes a discursive approach
to explore the importance of adaptation to global climate change as a
viable strategy in mountain regions. After describing the role of global