Natural Resource Governance at Multiple Scales in the Hindu Kush Himalayas

Full text

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ICIMOD Working Paper 2017/4
Natural Resource Governance
at Multiple Scales in the
Hindu Kush Himalaya

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ICIMOD gratefully acknowledges the support of its core donors:
The Governments of Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India,
Myanmar, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
About ICIMOD
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is a regional knowledge
development and learning centre serving the eight regional member countries of the Hindu Kush
Himalaya (HKH) – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan
– based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Globalization and climate change are having an increasing
influence on the stability of fragile mountain ecosystems and the livelihoods of mountain people.
ICIMOD aims to assist mountain people to understand these changes, adapt to them, and make the
most of new opportunities, while addressing upstream and downstream issues. ICIMOD supports
regional transboundary programmes through partnerships with regional partner institutions,
facilitates the exchange of experiences, and serves as a regional knowledge hub. It strengthens
networking among regional and global centres of excellence. Overall, ICIMOD is working to
develop economically- and environmentally-sound mountain ecosystems to improve the living
standards of mountain populations and to sustain vital ecosystem services for the billions of people
living downstream – now and in the future.

International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
Kathmandu, Nepal, February 2017
Authors
Arun Agrawal
Ritu Verma
Natural Resource Governance
at Multiple Scales in the
Hindu Kush Himalaya
ICIMOD Working Paper 2017/4

Published by
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
GPO Box 3226, Kathmandu, Nepal
Copyright © 2017
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)
All rights reserved. Published 2017
ISBN 978 92 9115 459 3 (printed)
978 92 9115 461 6 (electronic)
Production team
Susan Sellars-Shrestha (Consultant editor)
Amy Sellmyer and Christopher Butler (Editor)
Punam Pradhan (Graphic designer)
Asha Kaji Thaku (Editorial assistant)
Photos: Alex Treadway – pp 1, 55; Jitendra Bajracharya – p 13; Nabin Baral – pp 2, 6, 16, 24, 29, 30, 55, 56;
Lowrence Hislop – pp 23, 68, 70; Ritu Verma – cover, pp – 15, 47, 48, 52; Robert Zomer – p 29
Note
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from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. ICIMOD would appreciate receiving a copy of any
publication that uses this publication as a source. No use of this publication may be made for resale or for any other commercial purpose
whatsoever without prior permission in writing from ICIMOD.
The views and interpretations in this publication are those of the author(s). They are not attributable to ICIMOD and do not imply the
expression of any opinion concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation
of its frontiers or boundaries, or the endorsement of any product.
This publication is available in electronic form at www.icimod.org/himaldoc
Citation: Agrawal, A; Verma, R (2017)
Natural resource governance at multiple scales in the Hindu Kush Himalaya
. ICIMOD Working
Paper 2017/4. Kathmandu: ICIMOD

Contents
Foreword iv
Acknowledgements v
Acronyms and Abbreviations vi
Executive Summary vii
Part I: Effective Governance for Sustainable Environments 1
1. Introduction 3
Key Emerging Issues 4
2. Ecologies of Governance in a Rapidly Changing World 7
The Hindu Kush Himalaya: A Complex, Diverse, and Dynamic Region 7
Governance in Mountain Contexts 8
Drivers of Sociocultural, Political-economic, and Ecological Change 11
Part II: Conceptual Framings 15
3. Concepts, Actors, Mechanisms, and Rights in Natural Resource Governance 17
Defining Natural Resource Governance 17
Conceptual Underpinnings: Knowledge and Power Relations 17
Actors and Institutional Forms 18
Multiple and Overlapping Rights 19
Mechanisms of Governance 20
4. Key Dimensions of Effective Multiscale Governance 25
Governance, Legitimacy, and the Rule of Law 26
Governance, Accountability, and Responsiveness 27
Inclusive, Equitable, and Representative Governance 27
Part III: Governance in Diverse Natural Resource Ecologies 29
5. Learning from Experiences of Natural Resource Governance 31
River Water Sharing 31
Protected Areas and Wildlife 33
Irrigation 34
Forests 38
Pastoralism and Rangelands 41
Summarizing the Evidence 44
Part IV: Conclusions and Recommendations 47
6. Challenges and Opportunities in Natural Resource Governance in the HKH 49
Basic Challenges 49
Natural Resource Governance Opportunities 50
7. Conclusions 53
Recommendations 53
Part V: References and Appendix 55
8. References 57
9. Appendix – Author Biographies 69

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Foreword
Governance is an important, but often overlooked, issue in terms of research and development in natural resource
governance in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. Without accountable, equitable, and robust governance institutions,
mechanisms, policies and multiple stakeholders – whether they are statutory or customary - management of natural
resources suffers immensely. Within a context of rapid environmental, sociocultural and political-economic change
emanating from climate change, globalization and geopolitics that affect even the remotest village in the region,
governance across all levels – local, national, regional and global – becomes critical.
In the past, researchers and scientists have tended to focus primarily on biophysical aspects of natural resources.
However, an integrated approach to mountain development and the management of environmental resources
moves away from such singular perspectives, and instead accords sociocultural and political-economic issues equal
weight with biophysical aspects. Hence, research on water sharing, irrigation, forestry, agriculture, protected areas
and pastoralism will remain theoretical unless they are nuanced and deepened with human aspects of natural
resources, and in particular governance. Whether the issue is governance at the level of the household, community,
or vast tracts of land that transgress national boundaries, they are all equally and centrally important for sustainable
and equitable development.
This working paper makes a valuable contribution to deepening our understanding of the way governance centrally
contributes to sustainable environments, transparent and accountable government, enhanced and equitable
livelihoods, and the improved wellbeing of women and men across the vast and diverse cultural landscape of
the HKH. It highlights the importance of regional cooperation, conserving natural resources, and improving the
wellbeing of diverse people in the region. It highlights both the challenges of weak governance, and the important
opportunities created by effective governance knowledge, institutions, and resources. I would like to commend the
authors and the invited contributors of this comprehensive study for the breadth and depth of knowledge contained
in this working power. It will be a valuable resource for those interested in bridging the gap between biophysical
aspects of natural resource management with governance issues, as well as those wishing to further research efforts
and fill urgent research gaps identified in this study on natural resource governance in the HKH and beyond.
David Molden, PhD
Director General
ICIMOD

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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development for its support for
governance issues in the region, as well as for the writing of this working paper. In particular, the Gender and
Governance Division (now the Gender Strategic Institutional Area and the Governance Strategic Institutional
Area) played a key role in championing natural resource governance issues in the HKH. A initial draft of the paper
was presented in Kathmandu at ICIMOD in May 2012 during a roundtable on governance, and we thank the
participants for their thoughtful comments and suggestions that have informed and improved the paper.
This study, the roundtable discussion, and the background paper could not have been undertaken without the
encouragement and support of David Molden, Michael Kollmair, Golam Rasul, and Eklabya Sharma. Rucha
Ghate and Tek Jung Mahat provided useful inputs for drafting this study. Text box authors including Kamal Aryal,
Birendra Bajracharya, Srijana Joshi, Muhammad Ismail, Seema Karki, Manohara Khadka, Rajan Kotru, Hari
Krishna Nibanupudi, Wu Ning, Karma Phuntsho, and Shahriar Wahid contributed useful case study materials and
experiences from the Hindu Kush Himalaya.
Finally, we are thankful to ICIMOD’s core donors including the governments of Afghanistan, Australia, Austria,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

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Acronyms and Abbreviations
AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science
BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
CFUG community forest user groups
CONDESAN Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Eco-region
DFID Department for International Development
DIIR Department of Information and International Relations
EURAC European Academy of Bolazno
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
FCTF Forest Carbon Trust Fund
GNH Gross National Happiness
HKH Hindu Kush Himalaya
ICIMOD International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
IG-CEDP Indo-German Changar Eco-Development Project
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
ISCC International Sustainability and Carbon Certification
LEAD Leadership for Environment and Development
MEA multilateral environmental agreements
MODI Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
MRD Mountain Research and Development
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Association
NORAD Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
PES Payment for Ecosystem Services
PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
REDD+ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
SAARC South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
UNEP United National Environment Programme
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
USAID United States Agency for International Development
WCED World Commission on Environment and Development

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Executive Summary
Human efforts to address poverty, enhance welfare, and conserve natural resources and the environment often
fail because of faulty governance and implementation. Improvements in governance are consistently viewed as
means to address the failures of sustainable development and natural resource management. Indeed, calls by
international development organizations, donors, and researchers for decentralization, stronger development
institutions, better alignment of private and social incentives, and the protection of ecologies are, at their roots, also
calls for improving governance. Effective governance enables and, where appropriate, sets limits on permissible
actors and actions, decisions, and decision makers. It helps determine whether and to what extent actions related
to development and conservation programmes match the design of such programmes, and their appropriateness in
relation to local cultural and ecological contexts.
Answers to what constitutes effective governance become particularly complex in rapidly changing contexts such
as those of South Asia and, in particular, the Hindu Kush Himalaya – the focus of this study. In such contexts,
governance arrangements have to be instituted with particular care and with an eye to long-term processes so as to
reduce the likelihood of perverse outcomes. The empirical focus of this study is on the governance processes that
characterize the use of key natural resources such as river waters, transboundary protected areas, irrigation, forest
resources, and rangelands. An examination of resource governance highlights governance actors and mechanisms
from across the social and political spectrums, their interests, and decision processes. It also brings to the forefront
the importance of coordination across scales levels, and the interests and actions of multiple stakeholders that
invariably shape governance outcomes.
Six key points emerge from the complex backdrop of resource governance in the region:
The first – obvious but worth highlighting – is related to the diversity of benefits from different kinds of natural
resources and the limited coordination that is present for governing them. These benefits may be public or private;
local, regional, or global; and immediate or long-term. If the goal is to improve outcomes in multiple dimensions –
social, cultural, ecological, and economic – which is critical for the sustainability of natural resources, it is necessary
to incorporate the voices of local people into the strategies of governance together with the interests and actions of
other stakeholders. Available on-the-ground evidence shows a clear need for involving those who live within or in
close proximity to natural resources in decisions about what happens to them and their resources.
The second important point to note is that no single actor, agency, or class of actors has the knowledge, capacity,
and interest necessary for improved natural resource governance outcomes. Collaborative relationships across three
different types of actors in the private/market, civil society/NGO, and public/government/development sectors are
typically relevant to natural resource governance. Governance arrangements that seemingly hinge on the actions
and decisions of actors in a single domain, in reality, rely on combined contributions from actors and decision
makers in multiple domains and agencies.
A third key finding of the review is that, although collaborations are necessary for effective natural resource
governance, they are also complex. Collaborations across different actors and interest groups need commitment,
coordination, and the clear delineation of roles, responsibilities, and prospects. The trade-off between more
extensive collaborations for resource governance (and thereby the mobilization of greater resources) and higher
costs of coordination is evident in a variety of settings and for different resources. Ongoing exchanges and
consultations among partners to ensure knowledge sharing in light of changing circumstances are necessary if
collaborations are to be successful and effective.
The fourth finding from the review of the empirical evidence is that actors and decision makers involved in natural
resource governance use three primary mechanisms/instruments to achieve their ends: information, incentives,
and institutions. The specific mechanisms that are in fact deployed may be as varied as trainings, reports, audits,

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funds transfers, committees, user groups, rules, procedural changes, reporting requirements, and so forth. But the
mechanisms used in practice are the expressions of information, incentives, and institutions, or a combination of
these.
The fifth finding is that effective collaborations among different governance stakeholders are more likely when the
actors and forms of governance are matched to the comparative advantages they possess in terms of the use of the
three different instruments of governance that the review identifies. Civil society actors have a greater comparative
advantage in using information to mobilize public opinion and resources, government agencies can effectively
regulate choices through institutional and policy changes as well as the use of incentives, and market exchange-
based governance strategies such as payments for ecosystem services that hinge on performance-based direct
incentives.
The sixth and somewhat preliminary finding is that different forms of governance and different actors have greater
or lesser affinities to accomplish particular socially valued goals effectively. Broadly speaking, the involvement of
local actors and communities for resource allocation choices is particularly important when local livelihoods are at
stake; the contributions of government agencies and actors are critical to enhancing the sustainable and equitable
provision and protection of public goods such as biodiversity, ecosystem health, and national security, and private
market actors can enable greater efficiency in the use and allocation of benefits from resources.
Addressing governance challenges in the region effectively requires more information than we currently possess
about the characteristics, availability, networks, interactions, and dynamics of different natural resource systems.
Data gaps about natural resources, their governance, and the relationship between governance strategies and
outcomes are widespread. At the same time, the need for more and better information about the governance of
natural resources has seldom been more pressing. Regional analysis and regional intergovernmental organizations
are uniquely positioned to address both the existing governance challenges and the need to close existing gaps in
the knowledge about governance.

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Part I
Effective Governance for
Sustainable Environments

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1. Introduction
Human efforts to address poverty, enhance wellbeing, and conserve natural resources and the environment often
fail because of failures in governance and implementation. Improvements in governance are consistently viewed as
means to address problems related to sustainable and equitable development and natural resource use. Whereas
poor resource governance arrangements make societies and natural resources more vulnerable to shocks and
disasters, effective governance enhances resilience and sustainability.
Some of the most prominent global analyses of environmental problems, disasters, and sustainability have identified
the critical need for better governance to address widespread environmental decline (IPCC 2007; MEA 2005;
World Bank 2010). Problems such as elite capture, corruption, free riding, weak capacities, gender bias, and lack
of participation, representation, legitimacy, and accountability are all viewed as being amenable to change through
more effective governance (Bardhan 1997, Dasgupta and Beard 2007, Fritzen 2007, Olowu and Sako 2002).
Indeed, calls by international development organizations, donors, and researchers for decentralization, devolution,
stronger development institutions, better alignment of private and social incentives, bottom-up approaches, gender
equality, and the protection of ecosystems are, at their roots, also calls for improving governance across scales. These
calls are not just about improving how the nation state and its agencies act. They are more fundamentally about
governance processes that span societal sectors, scales, and interests (Cashore 2002, Kersbergen and Waarden
2004, Pierre 2000).
Effective governance enables, and, where appropriate, sets limits on actors and actions, decisions, and decision
makers (Grindle 2004). It helps determine whether, and to what extent, actions and impacts related to development
and conservation programmes match the design of such programmes. We need to know what forms and strategies
of governance of social and ecological domains work better in different settings. An enormous body of scholarly
work has helped identify development solutions in theory, but the translation of this work into practical development
projects that can reliably secure positive and transformative outcomes has been limited by inadequacies in existing
knowledge about governance and its implementation within development. Indeed, development and resource
management projects with similar designs yield widely varying outcomes in different sociopolitical, economic,
ecological, and cultural contexts (Lee 1996). There is little consensus on how to adjust the governance parameters
of projects and programmes for effectiveness across sectors and contexts. Moreover, although effective governance
underpins sustainable development and natural resource management, disciplinary silos constrain the engagement of
governance issues in research and science (German et al. 2010, Chhotray and Stoker 2008).
Answers to what constitutes effective governance in the context of sustainable development become particularly
complex in rapidly changing contexts such as those in much of the global South today. In South Asia and in the Hindu
Kush Himalaya (HKH) – the focus of this study – in particular, the sociocultural, economic, and political context of
governance is changing in ways that could not have been foreseen two decades ago. These changes are occurring
across the national and subnational levels of political economy. They present both challenges and opportunities
for those seeking to improve governance and natural resource outcomes in the region. Globalization, accelerated
growth, changes in demographic and consumption patterns, a large and growing middle class, enhanced social
aspirations, changing gender relations, changing norms, conflict around scarce natural assets, political tensions
around the allocation of available resources, changes in forms of government, the increasing role of media and social
media, and the growing medium- to long-term threats from climate change mean that governance arrangements
have to be instituted with particular care and with an eye to long-term processes so as to reduce the likelihood of
perverse outcomes (Hempel 1996).
After situating the context of the study as the changing political-economic conditions that shape the fiscal exigencies
and governance capacities of the region’s nation states, the paper briefly surveys other pressures related to
globalization, demographic change, economic liberalization and urbanization, and climate threats that will likely

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affect the outcomes of natural resource governance for the region’s decision makers from the local to the national
level. The subsequent section focuses more directly on natural resource governance, relevant actors and instruments
of governance, and how governance across different levels of social and institutional aggregation must address
enduring concerns about inclusion, representation, legitimacy, accountability, responsiveness, and the rule of law.
The empirical focus of the study is on the governance processes that characterize the use of key resources and
generate outcomes in both social and ecological dimensions. The paper focuses specifically on the governance of
water sharing, river water sharing, protected areas and wildlife irrigation, forest, and pastoralism and rangelands. An
examination of these domains of resource governance highlights relevant governance actors and mechanisms and
their decisions and processes. It also brings to the forefront the importance of knowledge sharing and coordination
across scales, levels, and the interests and actions of the multiple stakeholders that invariably shape governance
outcomes. The paper ends with an assessment of the major opportunities and challenges for natural resource
governance in the HKH context.
Key Emerging Issues
Six key points emerge from the complex backdrop of natural resource governance in the region. These issues are
summarized here as a point of departure for the paper based on accumulated learning and experiences. Not
intended to be an exhaustive or complete list, they nonetheless act as a guide or map for the paper through the
sometimes dense and complex academic writings and debates on governance within development contexts.
The first point – obvious but worth highlighting – is related to the diversity of benefits from different kinds of natural
resources and the limited coordination in the HKH in their governance. Hundreds of millions of economically poor
women and men in the region depend on directly consumable goods from resource systems so as to sustain their lives
and livelihoods. These goods include water, fuelwood, fodder, fibre, food, medicines, and non-timber forest products
(Bjønness 1983, Nepal and Weber 1995). Natural resource systems also provide incalculable and indirect benefits
and services. The benefits include carbon storage, biodiversity conservation, disease containment, soil conservation
and fertility, and the regulation of hydrological, carbon, pasture and various nutrient cycles. They may be public
or private; local, regional, or global; and immediate or long-term. However, these resources and the livelihoods
they support under threat from rapid and ongoing changes in climate, social and political-economic dynamics,
and demographic patterns (Sharma and Chhetri 2005; Xu et al. 2009). Appropriate governance arrangements are
urgently needed to coordinate synergistic, positive outcomes related to different kinds of natural resources on which
humans and other living beings depend in the region. The question of what counts as a positive outcome and whether
the same outcome may be viewed positively by some and less so by others is evidently critical. But, at the level of
abstraction and for analysis in this paper, ‘positive outcomes’ can be interpreted from the position of relevant decision
makers and stakeholders, with the caveat that in some cases there will be differences over how to define a positive
outcome. The management of different resources depends on strategies specific to each resource sector. It occurs
through the uncoordinated actions of different ministries and officials, private and public decision makers, and local
actors at higher levels, and it is supplemented by plural informal/customary and formal/statutory institutions.
Thus, if the goal is to improve outcomes in multiple dimensions – social, ecological, economic – which is critical
for the sustainability of natural resources, it is necessary to incorporate the voices of diverse women, men, and
children into strategies for governance (Agarwal 2009, 2010). Available on-the-ground evidence suggests that the
involvement of those who live within or in close proximity to natural resources in decisions about what happens to
them and their resources presents a strong possibility of improving both livelihoods and resource outcomes (Persha
et al. 2011; Sun et al. 2011). The meaningful involvement for people in governance can be mobilized through
many processes and will likely be influenced by preconceived notions about local resource users and managers.
It is affected by rapidly shifting markets and technologies and is subject to changing parameters of global health,
human security, and geopolitics. But it is necessary to secure the participation of local residents, users, and managers
in governing natural resources if one seeks to improve multiple mutually supportive outcomes rather than a single
governance goal.

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Furthermore, the different types of benefits from natural resources and their flows are not necessarily synergistic.
That is to say, the same actions in relation to a given natural resource – say forests – may enhance some desired
benefits but undermine others, and similar interventions may produce different results from one resource sector to
another. Thus, governing forests so as to limit harvesting may enhance resource sustainability and carbon storage,
but the effects on livelihoods, household welfare, and gender equality might be negative. Consider another example:
interventions that protect vegetation in upstream areas may improve water quality for downstream users, but they
will require coordination over benefit allocation and compensation. In this sense, governing natural resources is an
effort to balance different actions and policy goals, as well as disciplinary domains within research and development.
How this balance is selected can be informed by better science and knowledge, but the execution is also a matter
of national to local interests, and how different levels of decision makers view the importance of some outcomes
over others. Science cannot decide whether decision makers managing pastures should place more value on one
goal among others related to grassland diversity, livelihoods and fodder productivity, carbon sequestration, or social
harmony. However, evidence-based research can inform baskets of appropriate options for consideration and also
demonstrate what has worked, what the hidden and unintended effects and consequences are, and for what reasons.
Governance efforts do not take place in social vacuums and, hence, context-specific social-cultural, political-
economic, ecological, and gender realities play critical roles in shaping outcomes, including benefits and losses.
The second important point to note is that no single agency or domain of actors has the knowledge, capacity, and
interest necessary for improved natural resource governance outcomes. Collaborative relationships across three
different types of actors in the private/market, civil society/NGO, and public/government/development sectors are
typically relevant to natural resource governance. Governance arrangements that seemingly hinge on the actions and
decisions of actors in a single domain, in reality, rely on combined contributions from actors and decision makers
in multiple domains and agencies (Bäckstrand 2003; Karkkainen 2004). For example, community-based natural
resource management is not just about community-level decision makers; it also requires inputs from government
actors and agencies, and sometimes the involvement of market actors where forest products can be exchanged
for cash. More generally, effective collaborations are based on clear expectations, the sharing of information and
resources, matching of capacities to expected actions, and well-defined institutionalized arrangements, and they
are more likely to promote improved natural resource governance (Conley and Moote 2003; Koontz and Thomas
2006). This highlights the importance of networks and the interconnectedness between actors in an increasingly
globalized world. Hence, even the seemingly most isolated communities, such as those commonly found in mountain
contexts, are not disconnected from global forms of sociocultural and political-economic processes that connect even
the remotest regions in the world (Gupta and Ferguson 1997). The global interacts with the local in complex and
multidimensional ways (Mackenzie 2010).
A third key finding of the review is that collaboration for managing resources is complex; it needs commitment and
the clear delineation of roles, responsibilities, and resources. Ongoing exchanges and consultations among partners,
especially local women and men, to ensure knowledge sharing and learning in light of changing circumstances
are therefore also needed for collaborations to be successful and effective (Schusler 2003, Susskind et al. 2012).
Improved benefits from natural resources are likely to be secured only with such collaboration among different
managers, users, and other stakeholders and across scales of governance and decision making. It is important to note
that systematic, informed, evidence-based, corroborated knowledge as the foundation for decision making is more
likely to generate confidence and legitimacy, as opposed to ad hoc, stand-alone, dislocated knowledge. However,
in emergency and disaster situations where time is of the essence, rapid reactions, readiness, and responsiveness
are likely to be more critical (Nellemann et al. 2011). Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge, as well as
technical and indigenous knowledge, together can provide nuanced and shared solutions to pressing issues – a point
to which we will return.
The fourth general point that emerges from the review of different domains of natural resource governance is that the
actors involved in governance use three key mechanisms/instruments to achieve their ends: information, incentives,
and institutions (Newton et al. 2013). The specific mechanisms may be as varied as trainings, reports, evidence-
based researches, audits, fund transfers, committees, user groups, rules, procedural changes, reporting requirements,
information centres, land boards, and so forth (Agrawal and Benson 2011). But the mechanisms used in practice are

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the expressions of one or a combination of instruments among information, incentives, and institutions. Information
and communication are necessary to share knowledge about available choices and their consequences for different
interest groups. Institutions shape expectations and incentives. And specific incentives influence the actual choices
made by decision makers. These three instruments are deployed variably in the examples considered in this review, but
some combination of these is how different stakeholders typically attempt to achieve their goals.
The fifth pattern in the literature is that effective collaborations among different governance stakeholders are more
likely when actors and forms of governance are matched to their comparative advantages in terms of use of the
three different instruments of governance that this paper identifies: information, incentives, and institutions. Civil
society actors have a greater comparative advantage in using information to mobilize public opinion and resources.
Government and development agencies can effectively regulate choices through institutional changes or incentives.
Market exchange-based governance strategies such as payments for ecosystem services hinge on performance-based
direct incentives, while farmer cooperatives bank on the added advantages of collective work, negotiations, and profit
sharing in relation to market agents.
The sixth and somewhat preliminary finding is that different governance forms and actors have greater or lesser
affinities for accomplishing particular socially valued goals effectively. Very broadly speaking, the involvement of local
actors and communities for resource allocation choices is particularly important when local livelihoods are at stake.
Contributions from government agencies and actors are critical to enhancing the sustainable provision and protection
of public goods such as biodiversity, natural resources, culture, ecosystem health, training and extension services, and
national security. On the other hand, private market actors have the potential to enable greater efficiency in the use
and allocation of benefits from resources, provided that they operate under commonly agreed rules, regulations, and
corporate social responsibility principles that counter elite capture, gender exclusion, land and resource grabs, and
unfair trade practices. It is worth noting that international bilateral relations between governments (North-South and
South-South) and development agencies play a critical role in the HKH. International and regional intergovernmental
organizations ensure greater ownership and buy-in regarding decisions reached through consensus. Development
organizations and agencies dedicated to poverty alleviation, environmental conservation, and sustainable
development provide technical expertise, implement projects, and pursue development goals (e.g., sustainable
development goals, the post-2015 agenda, the Paris agreement, etc). However, their effectiveness is varied in different
contexts and dependent on the degree to which they are demand-driven, transdisciplinary, reflexive, and adaptive,
and to which they recognize unintended/hidden consequences and respond to the needs of local women, men, and
children on the ground.
Because natural resources are so central to human welfare, the survival of innumerable species, and the long-term
sustainability of countless social, cultural, spiritual and ecological processes, the ethical imperative is to treat them
as resources held in trust for future
generations. The general definition
of sustainable development –
“development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs”(WCED
1987, p 43) – is equally applicable
to the sustainable management
of resources. The degradation of
natural resources in the region
poses substantial and diverse risks
to livelihoods, the maintenance of
biodiversity, cultural values, spiritual
ecologies, ecosystem and human
health, and regional to planetary
scale processes that support life
on earth.

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2. Ecologies of Governance in a Rapidly
Changing World
Global and regional drivers of change in the HKH have critical implications for understanding the complexities of
governance, designing innovations, and addressing challenges facing the region. Together, they shed light on and set
the background for concepts, key dimensions, and experiences from diverse natural governance ecologies, as well as
sociocultural and political-economic contexts.
The Hindu Kush Himalaya: A Complex, Diverse, and Dynamic Region
The Hindu Kush Himalaya stretch over 4.3 million square kilometres, encompassing high-altitude slopes, valleys,
undulating hills, and plateaus. The region includes the entirety of Bhutan and Nepal as well as the mountain and
hill regions of six other countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, and Pakistan.
The complex, evolving, and dynamic features of the region, coupled with its rich environments, multiple ecological
zones, sociocultural diversity, and spiritual practices, offer a multiplicity of examples illustrating effective governance
possibilities. The natural resources found here are critical for the survival of a large number of diverse people and
cultures, furnishing critically important sources of income, food, livestock, medicinal plants, water, and energy, as
well as important cultural practices, spiritual ecologies, and sacred sites. As we elaborate further below, governance
arrangements in the region are equally complex, dynamic, and diverse.
Figure 1: Map of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region
Salween
Amu Darya
Brahmaputra
Indus
Ganges
Mekong
Yangtze
Yellow
Tarim
Irrawaddy
Downstream river basins
Hindu Kush Himalayan region

88
In these striking mountain environments, livelihoods have been sustained for millennia through creative natural
resource management, innovative land use practices, and intimate knowledge of and relations with existing social-
ecological systems. A substantial dependence on primary sector activities for livelihoods has meant that local
people, especially women, are at the forefront of adaptation to climate change (Nellemann et al. 2011). They are,
however, often at the margins of development efforts because lowland agriculture and privatized/individual forms of
land tenure are often assumed as the norm in mainstream development strategies.
What happens in the HKH is of both global and regional significance. Not only do the mountains and
environments of the HKH offer ecosystem resources for 210 million people living in mountain areas, what happens
in and to the mountains affects 1.3 billion people downstream. For instance, glacial lake outburst floods, the flow
of black carbon, migration patterns, and instances of too much or too little water leading to floods and droughts
impact millions of women, men, and children downstream and in the lowlands.
It can be argued that the sociocultural and political-economic contexts, natural resource use and management
practices, topography, culture, ecosystem diversity, and social and gender relations of the HKH region are unique.
It is a distinct region of the world, geopolitically, culturally, socially, and economically. This unique character is
perhaps the strongest when considering governance in the region.
In terms of its diversity of national-level political organization, the HKH is unique in the world, encompassing the
largest democracy, the largest communist nation, a new democracy emerging from a military government, a new
democratic monarchy, and countries that have witnessed shifts between democratic and authoritarian regimes. The
region includes two emerging super powers and members of BRICS association of emerging national economies
(India and China), and emerging markets with rapidly increasing numbers of middle-class consumers. This means
that the private and corporate sectors operating in the region are large, powerful, and growing. Their activities
have substantial effects on people and their environments. Against this backdrop, economic poverty and large
income disparities continue to challenge the region in many ways, especially in response to globalization and rapid
economic changes.
The region is also characterized by sharp political sensitivities and sovereignty/territorial issues, and there are a
number of long-standing conflicts between specific country dyads. Added to these problems are challenges centred
on gender and different forms of social inequalities, high levels of gender-based violence, and resistance to gender
transformative changes. However, within this environment, there is also a goodwill and interest to share knowledge,
experiences, and best practices. Moreover, some of the strongest feminist movements and champions for equality
are found in the HKH, sometimes powerfully driven from the grassroots.
The HKH also has a long history of civil society participation and movements. One of the largest among these
movements was the non-violent civil disobedience movement led by Mahatma Gandhi that brought colonialism to
an end in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Civil society and civil society organizations continue to play an important
role in the governance of natural resources, aided by diverse modes of communication and through recourse to legal
systems and social media. These features are relevant for emerging democracies such as Myanmar and Bhutan that
have recently opened up to the larger world to varying degrees and with complex outcomes. Isolationist histories
have also led to innovative development alternatives, as articulated in the concept of Gross National Happiness, an
indigenous development path from the Kingdom of Bhutan (Verma 2016, Priesner 1999).
Governance in Mountain Contexts
Mountain contexts challenges and interesting opportunities for effective governance. Some of these challenges
and opportunities are shaped by the physical attributes of mountains and the communities they shelter, while some
are influenced by social, cultural, political, and economic aspects. Further, migration, trade, cultural exchange,
pilgrimage, pastoralism, travel, and even conflicts have characterized mountain communities in the region, and
continue to do so.
Mountain communities are often challenged by inaccessibility and remoteness, which pose problems for the
delivery of development and social services; participation in formal/statutory governance bodies and electoral

9
processes; and access to markets, information, and media. However, this remoteness and inaccessibility also buffers
mountain communities from globalization, markets, and media influences, and allows the maintenance of unique
cultural, spiritual, and social relations, practices and rituals.
Mountain communities are often situated on steep, hilly inclines, making their environments fragile and hazard-
prone. Sloping topographies create problems associated with farming, irrigation, transportation, and forestry, but
they also mean that communities and environments are sensitive to environmental, geological, and climate-linked
shocks such as floods, droughts, famines, hailstorms, earthquakes, landslides, and avalanches.
According to the Mountain Institute, more than half of the world’s 48 ongoing conflicts and wars in 2004 took
place in mountain areas (2004). Many mountain regions across the globe are politically sensitive, based on
long-standing territorial conflicts, independence movements, and disputed occupied territories. The HKH is not
an exception, with ongoing wars and disputes in many crossborder contexts across the region. However, political
sensitivities and conflicts are not limited to transboundary conflicts. They also result from claims brought forward to
national governments by indigenous people over certain rights, knowledge, and ways of life. Balancing national
sovereignty and rights with local rights to self-determination tends to bring to the fore conflicts and political tensions
in many contexts throughout the HKH.
Many of these tensions and conflicts are about land, territorial boundaries, resource access, cultural identities,
self-determination, and contested histories. However, some of the most pressing environmental problems in
mountain regions today defy territorial boundaries alone. For instance, climate change, black carbon, water and air
pollution, and migration defy national borders. Similarly, distributions of natural resources, biodiversity, and water
do not occur by administrative boundaries. Hence, some of the governance solutions to pressing ecological and
sustainability problems also require cooperation across national boundaries.
Mountain communities, contexts, and issues often have peripheral and marginal positions in dominant, mainstream
development agendas. Hence, demand-driven development needs, priorities, and urgent responses required by
mountain women, men, and children sometimes go unheard. As a result, over the past several decades, many
global and regional organizations, initiatives, forums, and platforms have been formed to address the specific and
context-driven needs of mountain communities, environments, and people. For instance, at the global level, several
organizations work on these issues, including the Mountain Partnership hosted at the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) and the Mountain Forum hosted by the Consortium for Sustainable Development of the
Andean Ecoregion (CONDESAN) and the UNEP Vienna Interim Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention (ISCC).
At the regional level, organizations such as ICIMOD (HKH), CONDESAN (Latin America), The African Highlands
Initiative (Africa), and the Carpathians Mountain Forum and European Mountain Forum (Europe) work on
advancing mountain issues in their particular regions. Several networks focusing on mountain issues and contexts
also exist around the world (see Figure 2). In particular, the Convention on the Protection of the Alps and the
Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians are mountain-specific conventions
that have led to declarations, action plans, frameworks, platforms, and forums for supporting regional cooperation,
joint strategies, the conservation of culture and environments, and sustainable development (UNGA 2010, p 5).
Several nationally based organizations and institutes, including the Mountain Institute, the Mountain Research
Institute at the University of Berne, and the European Academy Bolzano (EURAC), are also dedicated to researching
and advancing mountain issues.
Mountain-focused actors have achieved success in advancing such issues and agendas through various governance
arrangements and to varying degrees. While the ’mountain agenda’ has taken time to gain momentum, consensus,
and impact, there have been some notable successes recently in ensuring the inclusion of mountain issues in
international governance mechanisms, most notably through United Nations General Assembly resolutions. An
important political mandate for this at the international level is evidenced by the inclusion of mountain issues in
Chapter 13 of Agenda 21 from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and General
Assembly Resolution 64/205 (UNGA 2010). The seven-page resolution outlines notable advances through various
institutions, mechanisms, organizations, forums, networks, and platforms; UN-observed year and days; links to
other international conventions; mountain specificities and challenges; the role of various governance actors; and

10
encouraging greater financial support, knowledge, action, capacities, and collaboration (ibid.). Similarly, and more
recently, the Rio+20 document ‘The Future We Want’ (UNGA 2012) advocates for mountain issues through three
dedicated paragraphs on mountain development, captured and highlighted in their entirety in Figure.
Mountain Networks
(source, Byers, 1998)
EUROPE
• European Mountain Forum (in the formation process)
• Carpathians Mountain Forum
• Caucasian Mountain Network and Caucasus
Mountain Forum
• Central/Western Middle European Mountain Forum
• Central/Western Middle European Mountain Forum
(French Jura)
• Central/Western Middle European Mountain Forum
(Czech Sudeten)
• Northern European Mountain Forum
• International Commission for the Protection of the Alps
• CH-Regio
• Man and the Biosphere (Russian Federation and CIS)
• International Association of Academies of Science,
CIS Mountain Research Programme (in the formation
process)
• MF-Europe e-mail list
LATIN AMERICA
• Latin American Mountain Forum and MF-LAC e-mail
list
• Consortium for the sustainable development of the
Andean ecoregion (CONDESAN) and Info Andina
• Andean Mountains Association
• Red de los Andes Centrales-Perú
• Selvas de Montaña
• Asociación para Desarrollo Campesino, Red de
Páramos
• Red Latinoamericana de Estrategias hacia la
Sostenibilidad
• MF-Discuss e-mail list (Andean Paramos)
• Latin American Protected Areas e-mail list
NORTH AMERICA
• North American Mountain Forum (in the formation
process)
• The Corridor (Southern Appalachian Culture and
Natural Heritage Forum)
• Appalachian Restoration Campaign/Heartwood
• Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition
• Rocky Mountain Institute
• MF-N America e-mail list
GLOBAL
• Mountain Forum and Mountain Forum e-mail list
• Mountain Protected Areas Network
• FAO Mountain Programme and Interagency Task
Force on Agenda 21, Chapter 13
• International Mountain Society and Mountain
Research and Development Journal
• International Geographical Union, Commission on
Mountain Geoecology and Sustainable Development
• World Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (and
its many national affiliates)
• Banff Centre for Mountain Culture
AFRICA
• African Mountain Forum (in the formation process)
• African Mountains Association
• African Mountain Protected Areas Network
• Lesotho Mountain Research Group
• Community Environment Network, South Africa
• MF-Africa e-mail list
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
• Asia Pacic Mountain Forum and Asia Pacic
Mountain Network
• Australasia-Pacic Mountain Forum
• North Central Asia Mountain Forum
• West Asia Mountain Forum
• South East Asia Mountain Forum
• North East Asia Mountain Forum
• Australian Mountain Protected Areas Network
• Australian Institute of Alpine Studies
• Nepal Studies Association and Himalayan Research
Bulletin
• Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists
• Himalayan Explorers Club and HimalayaNet e-mail
list
• Kathmandu Environmental Education Project
Figure 2: Mountain networks around the world

11
Figure 3: Excerpt related to mountains from the UNGA
Resolution 66/288 (Source: UNGA 2012)
Excerpt from Resolution adopted by the General
Assembly, Sixty-sixth session
Agenda item 19, A/RES/66/288 on the Future We Want
Mountains
210. We recognize that the benefits derived from mountain
regions are essential for sustainable development. Mountain
ecosystems play a crucial role in providing water resources
to a large portion of the world’s population; fragile mountain
ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of
climate change, deforestation and forest degradation, land use
change, land degradation and natural disasters; and mountain
glaciers around the world are retreating and getting thinner, with
increasing impacts on the environment and human well-being.
211. We further recognize that mountains are often home
to communities, including indigenous peoples and local
communities that have developed sustainable uses of mountain
resources. These communities are, however, often marginalized,
and we therefore stress that continued effort will be required to
address poverty, food security and nutrition, social exclusion
and environmental degradation in these areas. We invite States
to strengthen cooperative action with effective involvement
and sharing of experience of all relevant stakeholders, by
strengthening existing arrangements, agreements and centres
of excellence for sustainable mountain development, as well as
exploring new arrangements and agreements, as appropriate.
212. We call for greater efforts towards the conservation
of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity. We
encourage States to adopt a long-term vision and holistic
approaches, including by incorporating mountain-specific
policies into national sustainable development strategies,
which could include, inter alia, poverty reduction plans and
programmes for mountain areas, particularly in developing
countries. In this regard, we call for international support for
sustainable mountain development in developing countries.
(United Nations General Assembly, 2012:41)
The issues and efforts described above are
invariably made more complex by the sheer diversity
and variability of culture, social relations, religion,
spiritual practices, political-economic arrangements,
ecologies, biophysical attributes, altitudes, and
environments in mountain contexts around the
world and in the HKH. Added to this is the dynamic
nature of mountain communities and environments.
In this regard, culture and social relations are not
fixed or static but constantly adapting in response to
globalization, technical development interventions,
climate change, policy reforms, geopolitical shifts,
etc. The complex situation characterized by diversity,
variability, and dynamism suggests that governance
in mountain contexts therefore needs to be adaptive,
flexible, responsive, creative, and context-specific in
light of multiple drivers of change.
Drivers of Sociocultural, Political-
economic, and Ecological Change
It may be argued that the HKH is experiencing
unprecedented rates of changes not experienced
before. Such rapid changes in the region have
several consequences for governance.
Economic Growth and Fiscal Transformations
Nearly all countries in the HKH region have been
growing rapidly in the early years of the twenty-first
century.
Indeed, the World Bank has called South Asia the
fastest growing region in the world.
Faster economic growth in recent decades has been
accompanied by increasing inequality as government
regulations were reduced, market-based economic
policies took hold, and the effects of economic
liberalization were felt widely. But faster growth rates
and increasing government revenues also enabled
a number of countries to expand their programmes
for poverty reduction and social safety nets, with an appreciable impact on poverty. The effects of these economic
policies and social support programmes were felt less deeply in the HKH region compared to the impacts on national
economies. Further, average growth rates have been lower in Nepal and Pakistan compared to other HKH countries.
The global recession of 2008 undermined growth rates in South Asia, but overall growth was still much faster than
it was in the second half of the twentieth century. In the last few years, optimistic expectations about a continued
rapid rate of growth have diminished. Persistent bottlenecks related to infrastructure development, growing
inequalities, conflict, corruption, and fiscal deficits have reduced growth rates and related declines in poverty to
much lower levels than in the first five years of the twenty-first century. Although the most recent projections from
the World Bank for economic growth include some modest revisions upwards for the period 2013–15 (World Bank

12
2013), the challenges mentioned above will continue to hinder positive economic transformation in the region.
Moreover, as economic growth rates increase, growing gaps in wealth within nations challenge assumptions about
the ‘trickle down’ of wealth to economically poorer sectors of society. It is also useful to note emerging research that
indicates that measures of economic growth such as GDP (gross domestic product) may not be the most effective
measures of a nation’s health in terms of wellbeing and development (Costanza et al. 2014 SNDP, 1023).
Globalization, Regional Integration, and Infrastructure Development
The economic and fiscal changes mentioned in the previous section have been part of the wider process of
globalization in the last two decades. Driven both by changes in communication technologies and the widespread
accessibility and digitization of print and visual media, as well as economic integration, globalization processes
have had ubiquitous but variable effects on the region’s economies and sociocultural processes. At the same
time, regional integration in the HKH has been a slow and interrupted process, even if apocalyptic predictions of
disintegration are often built on shaky evidence (Dossani and Rowen 2005; Kaplan 2009).
Broadly speaking, integration efforts in the region have been driven by the perceived benefits of greater economic
interdependence, trade, and crossborder investments. Although talks of a common currency seem unduly optimistic
(Saxena 2005), South Asian nations have made a number of efforts to create preferential trade agreements within
the region, and to move towards a free trade area (Pitigala 2005). As early as 1995, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,
the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka agreed to seek full implementation of the free trade area by 2013.
These steps were motivated in part by the fact that intraregional trade had been weak. For example, exports in
South Asia only doubled over the 20 years between 1985 and 2005. In East Asia, exports grew by more than ten
times in the same period (Wilson and Otsuki 2007). Some of the HKH countries have seen quite rapid increases
in their bilateral trade: total trade between China and India, for example, went from a miniscule level of around
USD 3 billion in the early years of the previous decade to more than USD 70 billion in 2011. Even with some
decline in 2013, this figure is on target to reach USD 100 billion by the middle of this decade. Even unilateral
trade liberalization efforts can boost benefits from trade, and thereby help diversify the current narrow export bases
towards the development of new comparative advantages (Pitigala 2005).
However, efforts towards integration are hampered by political differences. The major powers in the region – India,
Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh – have been involved in different conflicts since 1950 and continue to have
Source: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/04/13/south-asia-cheap-oil-reform-energy-pricing
Figures 4a and 4b: Economic growth and poverty in South Asia
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
South Asia real GDP (at market prices, by calendar year)
Percent change
6.3 6.8 7.0 7.4 7.6
SAR Current account balance
(Percent of GDP, Calendar year)
-2.1 -0.8 -0.8 -1.5 -2.3
Real GDP growth (at market prices, by fiscal year) 2013 2014 2015 2016
Afghanistan 3.7 2.0 2.5 5.0
Bangladesh 6.0 6.1 5.6 6.3
Bhutan 2.0 5.2 6.7 5.9
India 6.9 7.2 7.5 7.9
Maldives 4.7 5.0 5.0 -
Nepal 3.9 5.5 5.0 5.0
Pakistan* 3.7 4.1 4.4 4.6
Sri Lanka 7.3 7.4 69 5.6

13
border disputes. Afghanistan has seen remarkable levels of political unrest and transition (Goodson 2012). Nepal’s
economic growth has been adversely affected by one of the most intense internal conflicts in recent times. Despite
achieving a political resolution, the effects continue to obstruct Nepal’s movement towards a fully functioning
democratic polity (Murshed and Gates 2005; Sharma 2006). But perhaps the most important impediment to
greater regional integration are the widespread perceptions of India and China being insensitive to the needs of
smaller regional economies and polities (Nathan 2010). Benefits from regional integration in the HKH, especially
on issues that are of common interest, will require stronger efforts at accommodation by the major powers that
dominate political relationships in the region.
Demographic Change and Consumption Patterns
The total population of the HKH exceeds 210 million people. Mountain populations have long been characterized
by high rates of birth and population growth, outmigration, remittances, movement towards non-agricultural
occupations and employment, and greater interdependencies with lowland economies (Hoermann et al. 2010;
Ives 2006; Massey et al. 2010). More than 30 million people from the region live outside their native countries,
according to ICIMOD, constituting roughly 15 per cent of the world’s migrants (n.d.). According to some observers
(Axinn and Ghimire 2011; Baland et al. 2007), increasing population and growth have resulted in environmental
degradation. However, others have questioned any easy relationship between demographic and environmental
change (Agrawal and Chhatre 2006; Williams 1995).
Among the key transformational dynamics that characterize the HKH, demographic shifts and emerging
consumption patterns because of a rapidly growing middle class are the ones that will have substantial long-term
effects, particularly on economic growth, resource conditions, cultural shifts towards materialism, carbon emissions,
and governance. There are very few comparative studies on how these changes are affecting the HKH region.

14
However, according to a WWF study on the eastern Himalaya, population growth rates continue to be high for the
region – with some exceptions (i.e., China and Bhutan) – despite slowing down in the last few decades (AAAS n.d).
Climate Change and Other Environmental Challenges
Mountain regions are changing rapidly. Climate change, globalization, neoliberal market forces, geopolitical
shifts, and other drivers of change are creating new challenges and dilemmas as well as opportunities for mountain
communities and ecosystems. The effects of such drivers are experienced in various ways, including urbanization,
migration, climate-induced impacts, and social, cultural, identity and land use changes.
In terms of climate change, the Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Third Pole or the water tower of Asia, which
holds the ice sheet of the HKH region, is heating faster than previously anticipated (DIIR 2012). As a result, glacial
meltdown, permafrost degradation, desertification of grasslands, and changes in river hydrology, including the
shrinking and drying up of lakes, wetlands, and rivers, are evident (ibid, pp 10–12). Research from the region indicates
that the rate of warming in the HKH is significantly higher than the global average with great spatial and temporal
variations. For instance, in the eastern Himalayan region – including Nepal, Bhutan, northeast India, north Myanmar,
northwest Yunnan, and southern parts of the Tibet Autonomous Region – from 1977 to 2000 the average annual
temperature increased by 0.01°C in the foothills (< 1,000 masl), 0.02°C in the middle mountains (1,000–4,000
masl), and 0.04°C in the higher Himalaya (> 4,000 masl) (Tsering et al. 2010). Increased warming results in impacts
on ecologies and human-environmental relations. For instance, preliminary research indicates an exacerbation in
women’s workloads related to natural resource management in rangelands (Verma and Khadka, in press). The Tibetan
Plateau is illustrative of the way climate change and other drivers of change are not only affecting the food security of
pastoral men and women but also ecosystem services. Changing climates in rangelands impact the availability and
quality of pastures and other natural resources such as water, soil, and biodiversity of plant species (Lenton 2002;
Thornton 2009; Klein et al. 2007). In Pakistan, climate change impacts include a reduction in crop production,
desertification of land, loss of soil fertility, and increase in pests (LEAD 2008).
For millennia, mountain women and men have adapted to changing seasons and extreme weather conditions
(Leduc and Shrestha 2008), often in response to regularly occurring disastrous events involving too much or too
little water and extreme temperature changes (UNEP 2004; Rhoades 2007; ICIMOD 2009a). In response, they
have evolved adaptation techniques in terms of disaster preparedness and mitigation, food security planning,
and water shortage management (Salick et al. 2009; UNEP 2010). The success of local and national responses
depends centrally on effective and responsive governance, although increasing climate variability is likely to pose
significant threats and pressures in the future.

15
Part II
Conceptual Framings

16

17
3. Concepts, Actors, Mechanisms,
and Rights in Natural Resource
Governance
Governance comprises an ensemble of institutions, powers, and knowledge through which human and social
decisions and actions are made. All governance is political. Effective governance affects decision makers, decisions,
actions, and outcomes. It influences what people know and do not know, what they do and do not do, as well as
what they get and do not get. Governance is not the same as government: it includes the actions of the state as
well as those of actors such as communities, businesses, development actors, and NGOs. Key to different forms
of natural resource governance are the political-economic relationships that institutions embody and how these
relationships shape identities, actions, and outcomes (Ostrom 2001; Jagers and Stripple 2003; Agrawal 2005).
Because governance occurs through customary and non-organizational institutional mechanisms as well (for
example, when it is based on market incentives and self-regulatory processes), there is no escaping them if one is
concerned about natural resources. Natural resource governance is “varied in form, critical in importance, and
near ubiquitous in spread” (Lemos and Agrawal 2006, p 298).
Defining Natural Resource
Governance
Natural resource governance is the set of
interventions that change incentives, information,
and institutions related to natural resource use and
management and thereby influence decisions and
behaviours of agents at multiple scales. Following
Lemos and Agrawal (2006), natural resource
governance refers to the processes, mechanisms, and
organizations through which political actors exercise
power despite physical absence to influence actions
and outcomes related to natural resources.
Conceptual Underpinnings:
Knowledge and Power Relations
It is difficult to discuss natural resource governance
at different scales without at some point discussing
issues of power, knowledge, and resources – key
concepts for the approach that underpins this paper.
We translate the pillars of our approach by focusing
specifically on the institutions, information, and
incentives that influence natural resource outcomes.
A few of the prominent definitions of governance and their
common elements are presented below. In these definitions, the
normal emphasis is on identifying what governance is, what it
does, and, in some cases, how governance accomplishes goals.
Perreault (2006, p 151) conceptualizes natural resource and
environmental governance, “as the legal frameworks and
institutional arrangements through which decisions about natural
resources are taken, and the management practices by which
those decisions are enacted.”
Larson and Soto (2008, p 214) view governance as the “formal
and informal institutions through which authority and power are
conceived and exercised.”
Lebel et al. (2006) citing Young defines governance as “the
structures and processes by which societies share power, shapes
individual and collective actions (Young 1992). Governance
includes laws, regulations, discursive debates, negotiation,
mediation, conflict resolution, elections, public consultations,
protests, and other decision making processes.”
In discussing gender dimensions, Brody (2009) suggests
that governance is about decision making by a range of
stakeholders with different advantaged or disadvantaged
positions in terms of power relations, including those in formal
and informal institutions, as well as citizens. These decisions
significantly affect the ways women and men lead their lives,
the rules they are expected to abide by, and the norms that
shape where and how they work and live. They also shape how
public, government, and development resources are allocated
and whether services (and access to them) take into account
women’s and men’s interests.
Figure 5: The many definitions of natural resource governance

18
Governance by its very nature is political because it involves political actors such as governments, customary
institutions, etc. Hence, issues of power, knowledge, and resources are central to its understanding and analysis. Of
importance to this paper, natural resource governance includes and at the same time extends beyond politics, as
its focus is on natural and environmental resources and the various mechanisms, processes, and organizations that
shape it. Therefore, natural resource governance brings biophysical and sociopolitical issues together in interesting
and important ways. Although many development projects and programmes have a heavy orientation towards
technical fixes, it is important to seek solutions beyond the biophysical that meaningfully integrate issues of culture,
social relations, knowledge, and power into thinking and practice (German et al. 2010).
Based on the above, it is useful to analyse differences in power between varying actors, for example corporations
and local people, and their implications for the principles of good governance. At all levels and scales, important
differences also exist between and among women and men, the economically poor and rich, the urban and
rural, and the agricultural and pastoralist that must be taken into account. For instance, the extent to which
interventions related to natural resource governance in mountains differentially benefit women and men depends
on their meaningful and effective engagement in institutions of decision making, as well as governance institutions,
incentives, and development processes, which are in turn influenced by relations of power.
Most importantly, it is necessary to attend to the changing, contextual, and fluid characteristics of power,
knowledge, and resources when it comes to resource governance. The exercise of power, for instance, is not a
zero-sum game (Long and Villareal 1994; Long 1992). Individual citizens are not ‘powerless’, and governing
bodies are not ‘all powerful’. Even authoritarian governance institutions are influenced, affected, and subverted
by those typically considered ‘less powerful’ (Villareal 1992). Hence, rather than being possessed, power (and
knowledge) is constituted in interaction (Verschoor 1992). Therefore, governance does not act down en bloc on
citizens and actors, but is actively interpreted, negotiated, and resisted. Hence, it is important to address and ensure
the principles of good governance elaborated further below. Similarly, incentives and resources do not exist in
political and social vacuums but are actively negotiated and contested. As we elaborate later, rather than assume a
top-down relation, it is useful to explore the way, through their interrelations, governance dimensions (institutions/
information/incentives), and the people and natural resources they are aimed at are mutually constituted
(Mackenzie 2010).
Actors and Institutional Forms
The different roles of key governance actors and the critical importance of decisions and powers being wielded by
agents most suited to do so have been enduring concerns for scholars of governance. The major interventions in
this regard, as Larson and Soto (2008) point out, include studies of polycentric governance (Ostrom 1999b, 1972),
pluralism (Wollenberg et al. 2005), and institutional choice (Ribot 2006, 2007; Ribot et al. 2008), and include
debates regarding the role of customary authorities (Ntsebeza 2005) as well as user groups and stakeholder
committees (Manor 2005).
Variations in forms of governance create distinctive incentives for those subject to governance, and therefore
prompt different kinds of actions related to the use, management, and conservation of natural resources. A review
of different literature relevant to multistakeholder governance shows that much of it recognizes three ideal types
of governance arrangements, where the ownership of resource rights may rest with one of these different actors.
These include public ownership, where the key actors are central government agencies that make decisions
and own rights; private ownership, under which market actors such as companies and individuals own rights of
different kinds, particularly ownership rights; and collective arrangements, which cover a wide range of practical
arrangements where local communities and their members or groups of individual decision makers jointly own
natural resource rights. Depending on how rights are vested in each of these actors, governance arrangements can
be broadly viewed as falling under public, private, or communal forms. In practice, rights over resources may be
finely divided and distributed among different social groups. For example, Peluso (1996) identifies highly nuanced
distinctions in the allocation of fruit and other trees in Indonesia to different family and community members.

19
Schlager and Ostrom (1992) point to four basic elements relevant to the use and governance of natural resources:
access and withdrawal rights, management rights, exclusion rights, and alienation (transfer) rights. When an
individual, household, community, or group has access and use rights, they can gather benefits from that resource.
When they also hold management rights, they can be viewed as a ’claimant’ to the benefits that has the power to
decide how the resource should be used and/or protected. Those who have access and use rights, management
rights, and the right to exclude other users can be viewed as ’proprietors’. Finally, owners have all the rights that
constitute the full bundle of property rights including the right to transfer these rights to others. Often, these rights
are influenced and shaped by specific cultural norms.
Whether rights to use, manage, exclude others, and transfer resources rest with communities, private owners, or
public agencies has major implications for governance outcomes. Some forms of tenure and distribution of rights
are more likely to lead to greater economic efficiency and higher levels of output. In a review of property rights
and tropical deforestation, one study suggests that private ownership of forests in the United States was responsible
for high levels of deforestation of mature forests during the nineteenth century, but it also generated high levels of
economic benefits for the US economy and private owners. However, the study also suggests that deforestation
does not always lead to economic benefits; badly designed institutions, lack of property rights, and subsidies for
agricultural expansion may lead to deforestation without sufficient increases in economic wealth. In such a scenario,
short-term/individual gains are advantaged over long-term/collective interests, and environmental costs are
externalized.
Just as private ownership of natural resources may have a positive association with high economic benefits
(and resource depletion), other tenure arrangements such as government ownership are seen by many as being
necessary for the longer-term preservation of resources. Because externalities accompany the use and exploitation
of most natural resources, governance regimes that prompt decision makers to internalize the costs of their actions
are necessary to reduce resource overexploitation. Hence, as Ostrom (1990) has highlighted, the common
prescriptions are for either privatization or government control over resources. However, community-based or
cooperative resource governance by different actors including community-level decision makers is superior when
the costs of government enforcement are high and there are substantial transaction costs associated with the formal
delineation of tenurial rights and arrangements. Thus, it is likely that different combinations of tenure rights are
supportive of different ecosystem services from social-ecological relations. This point is elaborated more directly
with reference to different ecosystem benefits associated with forest resources (see below).
Multiple and Overlapping Rights
One way to frame how natural resources are governed is through an examination of how private, public, and
community/civil society actors may combine their complementary interests and capacities (Lemos and Agrawal
2005). Governance arrangements related to natural resources typically comprise a variety of rights and capacities
for specific actors that are separable in practice. Thus some hybrid governance forms may provide community-
level actors the rights to access, use, and manage a resource, while the right to exclude other users and transfer
the resource are vested in government agencies, and market actors are involved in the harvesting and marketing
of resource products. Such co-management arrangements have become common for nearly all natural resources,
and they are particularly visible in the case of forests, fisheries, rangelands, and irrigation systems. Other mixed
forms may bring together different community or civil society organizations that have different rights. Consider, as
an example, the implementation of community-based resource governance by non-governmental organizations.
And, of course, other examples may include public-private partnerships in which irrigation infrastructure may be
built by private market actors and then used by community users. Indeed, there are many efforts to build amalgams
of governance arrangements that seek to combine the interests of private, communal, and public decision
makers. The figure below summarizes some of the existing and potential forms of hybrid tenure and governance
arrangements in relation to natural resources.
Figure 6 suggests that contemporary forms of governance of natural resources are highly diverse and rely on the
differential strengths of different constituent actors and decision makers whose actions have important effects on

20
Figure 6: Actors and modes of natural resource governance
environmental outcomes. As the discussion on specific resource domains below will clarify, there are scarcely any
resources where the actions and choices of actors at a single level or of a single type pose the only consequential
impacts. Different forms of co-management, private-social partnerships, and public-private partnerships have major
effects on how resources are managed as well as their prospects for long-term sustainability. These are in turn
affected and shaped by the differential power relations between them.
The central box in the figure – hybrid governance – is a special case of integrated governance in which ideal-typical
forms combine. It can be viewed as an approach to governance that is relevant for particularly complex mixed-use
outcomes related to both sociocultural and ecological dimensions of natural resource governance.
Mechanisms of Governance
Many different kinds of social mechanisms can help accomplish governance objectives. Existing writings on the
subject certainly cite a multitude of examples from this wide range of possibilities. For example, Ebrahim (2003,
pp 816–823) focuses on five mechanisms that NGOs use to enhance accountability in governance: disclosure
statements and reports, performance assessments and evaluations, participation, self-regulation, and social
auditing. Devas and Grant (2003), although they do not carry out a systematic review, mention such mechanisms
as elections, participation, opinion surveys, audits, media reports, meetings, and grievance procedures mechanisms
that are also cited in earlier writings on decentralization and governance (Blair 2000: 32; Goetz and Gaventa
2001; Rakodi 2001). Grant and Keohane (2005) present a classification of seven mechanisms in their review of
accountability in international politics: hierarchical, supervisory, fiscal, legal, market, peer, and reputational. Ribot
(2004) similarly lists a large number of means through which different dimensions of governance relationships –
representation, accountability, inclusiveness, responsiveness, and so forth – can be enhanced and made to work
better. His discussion includes the separation of powers, courts, media, third-party monitoring, social movements,
public discussions, reporting, meetings, supervisory oversight, trust and reputation, etc.
STATE
MARKET
COMMUNITY
Hybrid
governance
Public-private
partnerships
Private-social
partnerships
Co-management
(Concessionary arrangements;
terrestrial carbon projects)
(Private-community timber harvesting agreements)
(Co-management/community-
based natural resource
management)
(Adapted from Lemos and Agrawal 2005)

21
Other studies of governance focus on specific mechanisms to highlight the importance of the mechanism in
question, whether it is participation, elections, reports, evaluations, audits, exits, or protests (Agrawal and Ribot
2012). Instead of reviewing this entire panoply of different mechanisms, it is useful to discuss some of the key
emphases through brief discussions on revenue transfers, public reporting, participatory processes, and elections
as different governance mechanisms. The first three correspond to incentive-based, informational, and institutional
mechanisms – the analytical focus of this section – and the fourth, elections, constitutes a hybrid mechanism
combining aspects of all three mechanisms.
Resource transfer to reward desired achievements in performance is one mechanism whereby the expectations and
choices of actors and decision makers at a given level can be shaped by higher-level decision makers. But the
reverse also holds. Moore (1997) argues forcefully about how governments that are dependent on the taxes they
collect from their citizens are also more likely to be responsive to the taxpayers – in part because populations are
then more likely to make demands on the government. Therkildsen (2001, p 30) has found that user charges serve
a similar function. Governing agencies that depend on outside assistance (such as development aid) are less likely
to be influenced by their populations (Guyer 1992; Siegel-Jacobs et al. 1996).
Public reporting, discussions, and meetings offer other means through which influence can be exercised by helping
different stakeholders gain knowledge about the performance of those exercising power and making decisions
and by enabling improvements in the quality of service provision based on better data (Marshall et al. 2000). If
information is available publicly, it increases transparency and enables citizens to arrive at their own conclusions
about whether decision makers have performed at a satisfactory level. The practice of holding public meetings
with representatives to discuss budgets and policy decisions can also increase transparency (Adams 2004; Roberts
2002). At the same time, it should be noted that public forums can have serious limitations since women, religious
minorities, or migrants are sometimes excluded and therefore may not find it easy to voice their views. The public
reporting of budgets or other information such as employment rolls for public work programmes can be another
mechanism to hold decision makers accountable (Lee 2004). If budgets, decisions, spending, and the salaries/
benefits/land holdings of elected officials and planned programmes are publicly posted, it becomes easier for
citizens to discern whether their local government is serving their interests. National surveys, such as national
censuses or Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) and its articulation through an index of measure, also
provide both policy makers and the public periodic data on the performance of governments (Verma 2017). The
common set of indicators in the GNH index enables Bhutanese citizens to hold leaders accountable, evaluate
whether government policies are effective and being fulfilled, and assess current and future support for the
conditions of wellbeing and happiness in relation to policy contexts (Ura et al. in press).
Participatory processes can improve dialogue between government agencies and their constituents. As Fung
(2006, p 69) observes, “discussions and decisions exert a communicative influence on members of the public or
officials”. The exchange of information through participation can help citizens learn about the services government
agencies can provide, lead them to revise their expectations about what kind of benefits and/or services they should
get, and teach them how to make demands on their representatives or government officials (Wampler 2004).
Participation can also increase public involvement in decision making in a way that complements or strengthens
other representative organs of a government, and it adds to the public’s ability to make demands on authorities
(Gaventa 2002; Brett 2003). In this sense, it leads to a representational influence on decision makers by members
of the public. Other scholars have argued that there are many different varieties of participation in the context of
natural resource governance (Agarwal 2001), and that there is no definite link between participation, accountability,
and governance effectiveness (Ribot 2004). Fung (2006) sees participation along dimensions of who participates,
how they participate – as in voice versus deliberation – and the degree to which participatory decisions are backed
by powers of implementation.
Elections are central and pervasive means of limiting the arbitrary exercise of power, and therefore a major
mechanism associated with effective governance. Grant and Keohane (2005) differentiate between the participation
and delegation models of accountability through elections, because elections serve a key role in enabling both.
According to the delegation model, elections allow voters to exercise some control over those they elect as their
representatives and decision makers because, in case of non-performance, the representatives can be voted

22
out of power. This fear of sanctions forces decision makers to perform the functions of their office while keeping
the interests of their constituents in mind (Przeworski et al. 1999). Under the participatory model, elections help
voters participate in decision making and in having their preferences represented through those they elect. The
representatives make choices that satisfy their agents’ (voter) preferences. For example, Yao (2007) finds that the
introduction of village-level elections in China is associated with higher expenditures on public goods rather than
administrative expenses, as well as with greater income equality. However, an overemphasis on re-election can
also render a government unable to perform its tasks effectively. Ultimately, the degree to which elections can
serve the purposes of effective governance depends at least in part on the extent to which voters view elections as
opportunities to punish past non-performance as opposed to opportunities to assess candidates in terms of their
capacities to deliver on promises about the future (Fearon 1999).
Generating lists of mechanisms and investigating specific ones are useful steps in understanding how different
mechanisms to pursue governance may be relevant to particular situations or to organizational relationships in
a given domain. As discussed above, the literature discussing these different mechanisms forms a narrative in
possibilism. When effectively implemented, a given mechanism may improve the performance of decision makers,
enhance democratic processes, and enable improvements in project outcomes. But it is not easy to use the existing
literature to offer an assessment of the conditions under which some mechanisms of governance perform better
than others, and of whether there are elective affinities or likelihoods of association between certain classes of
mechanisms and resource outcomes.
An assessment of different mechanisms in terms of their utility, analytical scope, effects, and relative advantages
requires, therefore, an approach that can enable their classification deployed in practice along some underlying
common dimensions, as well as comparisons across different types of mechanisms with respect to some common
criteria. To facilitate such a comparison, it is possible to distinguish among three analytical axes that underpin the
observed practices or mechanisms of governance (e.g., audits, elections, protests, resource transfers, and so forth).
These three fundamental axes are incentives, information, and institutions, as outlined earlier. This conceptualization
of the analytical underpinnings of governance mechanisms used in practice builds on existing literature but also
goes beyond it. For example, a recent World Bank study of decentralization notes that, if civil society actors are to
hold service providers accountable, “relevant and accurate information” must be available to them (World Bank
2009, p 74). Schroeder (2003), in a careful review, focuses on four sets of actors at the local level (residents and
citizens, local governments, higher-level governments, and service providers), and identifies the flows of information
and incentives as the two basic keys to influence local governments. Although Schroeder schematically describes
the institutional arrangements linking the four sets of actors that have been listed, his analysis does not recognize
that the flow of information and incentives itself is structured by institutional arrangements, and that reconfiguring
institutions, rather than focusing on incentives or information, can also restructure how local governments govern.
More importantly, the three axes – incentives, information, and institutions – make up the fulcrum around which
organizations and decision makers construct the observed practices related to their governance. Thus, resource
transfers, shares in the use of available natural resources, fines and punishments, and payments for the monitored
provision of environmental services are examples of incentive-based mechanisms through which governance
reforms can affect changes in relationships among actors, their expectations, and project/policy outcomes. Audits,
reports, and evaluations are ways to use information to craft mechanisms through which changes can be brought
about in governance practices and outcomes. Analogously, changes in rules or in reporting requirements, the
creation of new centres of decision making, and the exercise of power by new organizations such as community
user groups are examples of the use of institutional mechanisms to restructure governance.
Figure 7 below summarizes how these three domains structure choices made by actors and organizations involved
in governance relationships. According to the logic represented in the figure, agents and decision makers involved
in natural resource governance can deploy various combinations of the three governance mechanisms as they
attempt to reconfigure what governance accomplishes and how. The figure does not attempt to capture all the
different influences on outcomes of development and conservation interventions. Instead, it attempts only to
represent how governance mechanisms may have an influence on outcomes.

23
Figure 7: Institutions, incentives, and information in natural resource governance
New incentives
(eg. PES interventions)
Changes in
resource related
strategies
New
Information
(eg. about crops)
Governance
reforms
New
institutions
(eg. user groups)
Information
Focus
Institutional
Focus
Incentive
Focus

24

25
4. Key Dimensions of Effective Multiscale
Governance
In an important paper on governance and scale, Cash et al. (2006) remark on the complexity generated by
influences that operate across scales and levels of governance. Following Gibson et al. (2000), they “define ‘scale’
as the spatial, temporal, quantitative, or analytical dimensions used to measure and study any phenomenon, and
‘levels’ as the units of analysis that are located at different positions on a scale.” Figure 8 represents the different
scales that are relevant to natural resource governance processes, and the units of analysis that are often used to
represent different levels for the scales.
Figure 8: Scales and levels relevant to natural resource governance
(Cash et al. 2006)
A. Spatial
Area
B. Temporal
Rates, Durations, and
Frequencies
C. Jurisdictional
Administrations
D. Institutional
Rules
Fast
Annual
Daily
Slow Long
Seasonal
Short
Inter-
Governmental
Provincial
Localities
Long
National
Globe
Landscapes
Patches
Long
Regions
Constitutions
Laws,
Regulations
Operating
Rules
E. Management
Plans
F. Networks
Links
G Knowledge
Truths
Contextual
Contextual
Specific
Specific
Strategies
Tasks
Projects
Trans-society
Kin
Family
Long
Society

26
The role of multiscale, multilevel interactions and their complexity has increasingly been recognized in writings
on natural resource governance (Brondizio et al. 2009). Together with this recognition have come tools and
approaches to study cross-scale and cross-level social and ecological phenomena. But, as Cash et al. (2006)
highlight, the dominant mechanisms of cross-scale interactions are still not well understood. Brondizio et al. (2009,
p 254) identify five relevant factors through which such interactions are enhanced and amplified: global market
chains for land and water resources, overlaps among government jurisdictions, interregional migrations and
interconnections among social groups;,regional trade blocks, and changes in global climate patterns. To these,
one might add at least three more integrating mechanisms and forces: interconnected financial and commodity
markets, the related flows of aid for conservation and development, and the digitization and globalization of media
technologies. The social complexities of these influences and forces make it necessary that governance structures
and strategies take into account how interventions at one point and level in the complex web of relationships may
influence outcomes at points that are at a substantial physical, social, cultural, or temporal distance.
In particular, natural resource and social-ecological systems characterized by high levels of interconnectivity in
flows of influence across scales and levels are also more likely to be highly dynamic and have tipping points
and thresholds, complex non-linear relationships, and feedback loops among parts and subsystems. These
characteristics increase the need and importance of coordination among decision makers across scales and
levels, systematic monitoring, decision-making flexibility, and adaptive management strategies for more effective
governance. Careful and systematic monitoring is critical to detect changes in a timely fashion. Flexibility is
necessary to address unpredictable changes. Adaptive management responses are needed to address the potentially
perverse consequences of management interventions. Finally, coordination among decision makers across scales
is necessary so that the impacts of interventions at one point can be assessed and addressed by decision makers
operating at other levels and scales in interconnected social and ecological systems.
In the context of natural resource governance, another way to interpret the issue of scale is to consider some of the
key dimensions of governance and how they are related to efficient, equitable, and sustainable natural resource
outcomes (Brondizio et al. 2009). In this context, three basic dimensions of governance strategies are important:
legitimacy, accountability, and inclusion/representation.
Governance, Legitimacy, and the Rule of Law
A substantial amount of research now makes the distinction between government and governance. A number of
scholars, attempting to explain the retrenchment of state capacities and the emergence of new collective forms such
as networks, have sought to understand the role of alternative organizational logics beyond that of the state (Rhodes
1996, 1997; Stoker 1998). Another set of writings, approaching the problem of governance by focusing on civil
society organizations, has examined how these organizations accomplish their ends as well as their relationships
with corporations, state agencies, and international bodies (Elkington 1998, O’Brien 2000). But both these bodies
of work have raised similar questions, even if implicitly, about the nature of the relationship between the state and
new organizational forms, and about the extent to which networks and civil society organizations can be legitimate
and effective.
Because the state can be viewed as both the agency through which laws are created and enforced as well as the
institutional means that has a monopoly over the use of coercive force, the legitimacy of new forms of governance
also rests on their recognition by state agencies and their adherence to the rule of law. Additionally, an alternative
source of legitimacy of new governance forms may stem from their capacity to accomplish tasks that the state itself
may not be well equipped to manage. Doubts about state capacity may stem from the need for greater efficiency,
limited time, and place-specific knowledge about natural resources that are critical for effective management but
not easily available to state agencies – or because of these agencies’ problems related to the delegation of tasks.

27
Governance, Accountability, and Responsiveness
Discussions of accountability are pervasive in popular as well as scholarly writings. From shareholders wanting
accountability from managers and board members (Bradley et al. 1999; Roberts et al. 2005; Valor 2005) to
citizens wanting it from decision makers (Kitschelt 2000; Strøm 2000) and politicians wanting it from civil servants
(Huber 2000; Müller 2000; Moe 2001), the need for accountability is all-present when it comes to organizations
and governance (Mulgan 2000). Effective accountability relations improve the performance of organizational tasks,
make the delivery of services more efficient, and enable the accomplishment of the goals for which an organization
stands (Adsera et al. 2003; Halachmi 2002; Heinrich 2003). They are indispensable for modifying processes,
changing course, and achieving specific goals when organizations function in ways that diverge from their stated
missions (Brown and Moore 2001; Devas and Grant 2003). The breakdown of accountability in an organization is
often tantamount to the breakdown of the functioning of that organization.
Koppell (2005, p 96) identifies five dimensions to accountability in the exercise of power: transparency, liability,
controllability, responsibility, and responsiveness. These dimensions can be seen as being equally important for
accountability to exist in natural resource governance. Transparency refers to whether information is available
about how power is exercised, the purposes for which it is exercised, and the consequences of the exercise
of power. Liability refers to whether powerful decision makers will face the consequences of exercising power
inappropriately or making decisions that they are not entitled to make. Controllability concerns the degree to
which a decision maker’s actions and decisions can be influenced during the exercise of power and making of
decisions. Responsibility simply pertains to whether decision makers in fact make the decisions they are expected
to make. Finally, responsiveness is about whether a decision maker acts in accordance with expectations about the
appropriate exercise of power, especially where such exercise concerns those affected by decisions (West 2004).
Issues of corruption, elite capture, grabbing of resources, and violation of governance rules through the exercise
of arbitrary power arise in natural resource management, as has been the case with recent large-scale land
transactions, or land grabs, in the global South (Verma 2014a).
Clearly, these dimensions of accountability are related, although empirical work on the degree of overlap between
them remains unavailable. One major question in relation to accountability in natural resource governance has to
do with the identity of stakeholders involved in an accountability relationship: who is accountable and to whom is
the agent accountable. Agrawal and Ribot (1999) contrast downward and upward accountability based on whether
decision makers can be called to account by those above or below them in a territorial-administrative hierarchy.
Further, they argue for the importance of downward accountability in ensuring that decision makers exercise power
to advance the interests of those on whose behalf they are entrusted to make decisions. In some ways, then,
responsiveness in an institutional setting may be viewed as being analogous to downward accountability.
Inclusive, Equitable, and Representative Governance
Debates around inclusive, equitable, and representative governance focus on the relationship between formal
governance actors and everyday citizens. These dimensions are often linked to the depth and quality of
participation, equity, and diversity in governance and decision-making institutions and practices (Brody 2009). It
is often argued that these dimensions of governance strategies – equity, representation, and inclusion – are both
principles as well as goals of good governance, in that they strive for the right of all citizens to have an equal say in
governance processes and benefit equally from their outcomes (ibid.).
A key focus of interest and advocacy is groups of people who are disadvantaged in terms of equitable participation,
voice, and representation in governance institutions and decision making (from meaningful involvement in informal
and customary to formal and statutory processes), generation and access to information, and access to and benefits
from resources and incentives. They often include women, men, children, or indigenous people differentiated by
class, caste, status, identity, nationality, race, ethnicity, age, marital status, etc., or an intersection of these domains
of difference, as is often the case. Hence, literature on the governance of natural resources often explores the ways
different groups of people resist dominant forms of governance that may be experienced as being exclusionary,

28
inequitable, oppressive, and non-representative (see for example, Scott 1990, 1985). Scholars have researched the
ways that women and men negotiate different governance dimensions, including institutions/power, information/
knowledge, and incentives/resources related to development in varying contexts (Mackenzie 2010, 1995; Verma
2001; Kabeer 1994; Carney and Watts 1990). Noteworthy findings indicate that even the most top-down
governance arrangements are actively negotiated and/or resisted by local women and men, thus pointing to their
agency and knowledge in negotiating important dimensions that affect their lives. Such forms of gender struggles,
resistance, and negotiations take place at the intra-household, inter-household, community, district, provincial,
national, regional, and international levels.
In the HKH, the existence of gendered institutional and legal barriers, socioculturally constructed norms and
practices, as well as skewed gender power relations – particularly in relation to land and property – perpetuate
gender inequalities that especially disadvantage women in many contexts (Verma 2014c). Concentrations of power
and decision making often advantage men and elite actors in terms of access to legal and development institutions,
information, and resources. Skewed gender power relations are the most limiting factors towards women’s equality,
underlying all issues including land, property, and justice. In other parts of the world, women’s inequality within
overall social, economic, and political inequalities mean that women are regarded as the ‘property’ of men or as
‘dependants’, whereas men are viewed as ’commanders’ of the household (Tsikata 2011; Verma 2001). These
concepts have real influence in terms of practices within institutions and policy frameworks, which in turn reinforce
and perpetuate women’s disadvantaged status and negotiating power.
The HKH region is characterized by governance, legal, and justice arrangements that discriminate against women
in many ways: limiting their access to justice in statutory and customary legal domains, allowing for impunity in the
violation of women’s rights and violence against women, and creating multiple political-economic and sociocultural
barriers that block their access to land and property resources and opportunities. Women’s knowledge, agency,
organization, rights, and contributions to different productive, reproductive, community, and governance spheres
also tend to be undervalued and under-researched. The result is discriminatory policies and mechanisms that do
not meet women’s needs, benefit them in terms of meaningful participation, knowledge and capacities, or facilitate
their strategic or practical interests. Given that land and property rights “are fundamental to the life and operation
of society” (Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, 2008:51), gender inequalities negatively impact
women, the societies they live in, and the region. Hence, manifold dimensions of exclusion and discrimination result
in the fact that women are disadvantaged in many governance arrangements and processes.
Given the above context, gender and governance issues are areas of growing interest, consciousness, and attention
in the region. However, efforts to ensure gender equality in governance reforms have often been slow, superficial,
and under-resourced. To ensure gender equality, efforts must address gender-related accountability issues. When
they are narrowly limited to privatization or market orientation, governance reform efforts are unlikely to be
sympathetic and may undermine gender equality goals (UNRISD 2005). For gender inequalities to be tackled
and overcome, it is critical to take into account the way governance institutions, information, and incentives are
shaped by unequal gender power relations; without such recognition and active advocacy/reforms, unequal
gender relations are likely to be reproduced (ibid.). Such reforms might include support to changes in statutory
and customary laws and institutions, the creation and strengthening of dedicated institutions for gender equality,
increased access to information and knowledge (as well as the capacity to engage in its production, analysis, and
dissemination), equitable access to incentives and resources for women (including gender positive quotas and
affirmative action), and the strengthening of incentives for gender champions – both women and men. Recent
studies have also indicated the importance of shifting from failed and outdated gender ’mainstreaming’ approaches
(Cornwall et al. 2007) to gender transformative approaches that are multidimensional (e.g., research, policy,
capacity strengthening, organizational change, action, etc.) (Verma 2013, 2014b). In order to realize this potential,
discerning attention will need to be paid to governance issues such as accountability, representation, access,
control, ownership, justice, equality, voice, meaningful participation beyond mere numbers, and – most importantly
– a shift in gender power relations that enables sustainable natural resource management.

29
Part III
Governance in Diverse
Natural Resource Ecologies

30

31
5. Learning from Experiences of Natural
Resource Governance
The empirical review of different types of natural resources and their governance in this section is organized
according to the framework introduced in the previous section. It identifies key governance actors and stakeholders,
the mechanisms and strategies used to achieve desired outcomes, and some of the relationships among
governance arrangements and observed outcomes. The five resource domains – river waters and their sharing
across national borders, protected areas and wildlife, pastoralism and rangelands, irrigation, and forests – are
among the most important sources of livelihood benefits and ecosystem services for the region. Their effective
governance raises issues of levels and scales, coordination among actors and decision makers with different
interests, sustainable use versus protection, and equitable access.
River Water Sharing
River water sharing between countries in the HKH region, and in South Asia more generally, is mainly governed by
bilateral agreements, like the one between India and Bangladesh for the effective use of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-
Meghna through the Indo-Bangladesh Ganges Waters Treaty of 1996, the Indus Treaty of 1960 between India and
Pakistan for sharing Indus river waters, and the Mahakali Treaty of 1996 between India and Nepal for the integrated
development of the Mahakali river (Iyer 1999). Nearly 40 bilateral treaties exist within South Asia, and a similar
number of treaties have been signed by China with countries outside the region (OSU n.d.). With the sheer number
of international agreements for HKH river waters – India being party to most – the sharing of river waters is more a
story of the willingness to find grounds for cooperation than one of conflict.
This is not to say that tensions and disagreements have been absent. Nor has the reality of international
cooperation come appreciably closer in the past few years despite optimistic assessments in the mid-1990s that
such cooperation could be facilitated by higher levels of economic exchange and lead to the mitigation of droughts
and floods as well as support for irrigation and industrial development (Crow and Singh 2000). Indeed, existing
treaties and agreements have been beset by disputes in many cases, particularly between India and Bangladesh
(Brichieri-Colombi and Bradnock 2003) and, at times, between India and Nepal (Subedi 1999). On the other
hand, the Indus Treaty between India and Pakistan has been more effective as a basis for water sharing (Sahni
2006) compared to the various treaties signed by India with Nepal and Bangladesh.
Key stakeholders, interests, and constraints
The key stakeholders in decisions and negotiations around river water sharing are national governments and their
relevant agencies. Indeed, this is one area of natural resource governance where hybrid forms of governance
are notably absent, and much of the overall framing and enactment of governance is undertaken by national
politicians, central government agents, and their representatives. Implementing partners tend to be multinational
or national engineering firms and government agencies. A challenge in this power-laden arrangement is the
meaningful inclusion of local knowledge and the participation of local communities. Moreover, interests and
constraints are changing in response to the different drivers of change that result in increased consumption patterns,
which demand greater quantities of hydropower; climate change, which affects water supply and quality; as well as
too much or too little water, which results in disasters.

32
EXPERIENCES FROM THE HKH
A Call for Improved Water Governance for Sustainable Hydropower Development and Management
By Shahriar Md Wahid
Contemporary global and regional changes pose immense challenges to water management in the Hindu Kush Himalayan
river basins because of their diverse topography, young geological formations, high degree of glaciation, and strong
monsoon influence (Babel and Wahid 2011). Though countries in the region have put in place national policies and
strategies for sustainable water management to reduce water-related vulnerabilities, there is a critical governance deficit for
basin-wide cooperation and extensive regional engagement for water resources management that can overcome narrow
national or bilateral interests and instead address shared concerns in a concerted manner (Babel and Wahid 2008).
A particular case in point is the region’s renewed interest in ‘green’ hydropower development, which is touted as a “passport
out of poverty” (Dixit and Gyawali 2010) in the face of rising energy demands and the price of fossil fuel. However, these
development plans remain controversial in part because of concerns about the redistribution of the region’s hydrology with
concomitant impacts on fisheries, livelihoods, aquatic ecosystems, and environmental services as a whole (Dharmadhikary
2008; Moore et al. 2010). For example, past experience in Nepal clearly illustrates the immense challenge of resettling
displaced people. Sedimentation of reservoirs, financial and institutional implementation modalities, and questions about
the overall contribution of hydropower projects to national development processes are also issues. At the same time, the
Nepal government’s policies of decentralization and regional benefit sharing have stimulated intracountry competition over
hydropower development in order to generate financial resources. At the regional level, hydropower projects also raise new
questions about the sharing of transboundary water resources between countries, questions that are long-standing sources of
disputes (Rahaman 2012).
Some of the controversies, conflicts, and solidarities emerging around hydropower development in the Hindu Kush
Himalayan region have evolved in the last few decades, as have the concerns and positions of the protagonists. Important
new investors including the private sector in emerging economies such as China and India have different approaches in
dealing with the social and ecological consequences of hydropower development compared to traditional development
funders like the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank. At the same time, the information revolution is raising
the awareness of even remote and marginal mountain communities, potentially empowering them to find new ways of
engaging in discourse related to hydropower (Moore et al. 2010).
However, the ferocity of the debate around hydropower development should not fuel a priori ‘anti-dams’ stance, but
instead the need to understand how development trajectories might reallocate land and water resources, incomes, and
risks, and therefore have different consequences for different social groups. The challenge is largely to address the
question of how different stakeholders and resource users will organize themselves to initiate and sustain coordinated
and collaborative actions to harness hydropower. Thus, attending to the structures and interrelationships of organizations,
sharing strategies, sophisticated monitoring and communication mechanisms, and coordinated response structure must
form the core of resource management. Broad, regional umbrella mechanisms (e.g., SAARC, ICIMOD, etc.) within which
international and regional environmental institutions can work with national focal partners should be strengthened for
effective governance (ICIMOD 2011). Recent regional development like the Koshi Basin Programme and the Himalayan
Climate Change Adaptation Programme initiated at ICIMOD provide new avenues to bring together diverse stakeholders
on a common platform for basin-wide cooperation, provoke social action, and advise policy makers to arrive at more
socioecologically robust and egalitarian governance transformations. These initiatives can be further strengthened through
the establishment of adequately mandated regional groups/bodies – hosted by a relevant organization – to independently
facilitate and coordinate regional dialogue and the strategic processes of regional water governance.

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Principal mechanisms of river water governance
The main mechanisms of river water sharing and governance include all the three main types discussed
above: information, incentives, and institutions. It is necessary to have information about hydrology, water flow,
sedimentation, costs and benefits of different infrastructure options to regulate water flow and sharing, historical
allocation of water, environmental and social impacts, and the returns to different stakeholders from projected water
allocations. But the information is only a starting point for negotiations – specific levels of allocation also represent
incentives to government agencies and national politicians about how differently positioned citizens will benefit or
lose, and thereby promote strong position taking in relation to appropriate water allocation. Finally, different water
treaties form regulatory and institutional mechanisms that simultaneously instantiate the existing understandings of
how water is to be shared, and expectations about future water allocation.
Outcomes and relationship with governance arrangements
Although roughly 40 treaties the different efforts to negotiate the allocation of waters in South Asia, and a
somewhat smaller number of treaties have been put in place by China, only a few are directly relevant to the key
lessons that emerge from a review of these treaties. These cases suggest that, despite tensions over water allocation,
the likelihood of conflict in South Asia over water is relatively low. Indeed, few international water wars have ever
been fought and the situation is not different in contemporary South Asia. Lessons from other regions of the world
may be useful for the HKH, as globalization, climate change, and other drivers of change create massive social,
political, and environmental impacts in the region.
Further, domestic politics is as important as international negotiation for assessing the effects of a treaty in terms
of effective water allocation and the likelihood of continuing disputes (Wolf 1998). Numerous examples of the
ways large water projects have been negotiated exist in the region, including those involving India, China, Bhutan,
and Bangladesh. National politicians who negotiate treaties must keep in mind the interests of their domestic
constituencies, and these calculations play an important role in deciding the terms of a treaty.
Protected Areas and Wildlife
Protection of wildlife through land classification and efforts to combine conservation and development goals
(Wells and Brandon 1992) have grown rapidly since the 1950s. In the HKH, protected areas exist in all member
countries, but their numbers vary. And, although protected areas make up a centerpiece among efforts to protect
forests and biodiversity, debates about their success continue (Naughton-Treves et al. 2005; Porter-Balland et al.
2012). Differences in the assessment of the successes of protected areas result at least in part from variations in the
scale and location of studies, methods used, and outcomes upon which analysts focus. However, a spate of recent
global and national studies uses sophisticated analytical approaches to show that protected areas have successfully
reversed or at least slowed deforestation in many contexts, and in some cases helped improve local incomes
(Andam et al. 2008, 2010; Nelson and Chomitz 2011). Within the HKH, there are few rigorous studies on the
effects of protected areas that employ a counterfactual framework to attribute impacts.
Most studies of protected areas in the region tend to describe outcomes in specific locations or areas (Mishra 1997;
Nepal 2000; Seeland 2000; Sharma et al. 2010), with a few prominent protected areas receiving substantial
attention: the Great Himalayan National Park and the Askot Wildlife Sanctuary in India (Baviskar 2000; Samant et
al. 2000), the Nandadevi Biosphere Reserve and the Chitwan National Park in Nepal (Rao et al. 2000; Sharma
1990), etc. Much of this work points to pervasive conflicts between people and wildlife, exacerbated by the creation
of protected areas.
Key stakeholders, interests, and constraints
The most important stakeholders in efforts to manage wildlife and wild species are the local residents themselves,
wildlife biodiversity managers, conservationists, donors, government agencies, NGOs, and researchers at multiple
levels. The interests of these agents and the power relations between them are quite divergent, with perhaps the

34
starkest differences being between wildlife agencies and local people – who are the first to suffer from wildlife
encroaching on their crops or lands – on issues related to access to vital resources in protected areas.
Donors, NGOs, and biodiversity managers have sought to reduce the costs of coordination across stakeholders
and the difference between the public and the private good by providing incentives to local residents through
cash, employment opportunities, or restricted access to protected area resources. But the implementation of these
strategies is piecemeal and ad hoc, without a clear set of guidelines about the conditions under which local peoples
are entitled to support.
Principal mechanisms of forest governance
Protected area governance rests on a similar set of mechanisms as is the case with forests and irrigation. It includes
user groups, management committees and regulations, which represent institutions; biodiversity surveys, activity
reports, monitoring reports and audits, which represent information mechanisms; and funds transfers, revenue
sharing arrangements and training, which serve as incentives. The mechanisms for coexistence between humans
and wildlife also vary across cases. There are contexts where humans are barred from protected areas, where they
are allowed controlled access, and where they coexist and cohabitate with wild species.
Outcomes and relationship with governance arrangements
Two key outcomes have been noted in the literature on protected areas: Co-governance across scales, information
about wildlife and local interests, benefit sharing, and enforcement are critical for improved wildlife outcomes.
Given the mobility and long spatial ranges of many wild species, the involvement of multiple actors in different
spatial units is a must for effective wild animal governance. Such arrangements help to minimize human-wildlife
conflicts and create more open, transparent, and participatory situations.
Ecotourism with local involvement is perhaps the most promising source of revenue that can also contribute to
livelihoods and cash incomes for local populations. It has proved to be able to attract economic benefits in other
countries and locations and, even in the HKH, remains a key predictor of improved incomes (Kala and Maikhuri
2011). However, questions remain regarding the use of the term ‘ecotourism’ without the proper certification and
procedures that make it authentic, or the equitable distribution of benefits to women who often carry out the bulk of
the work in supporting such activities.
Irrigation
In early reports on irrigation management, Coward (1977) and Wade (1976) identify three potential strategies
for improving outcomes: develop physical infrastructure, create economic and financial incentives, and enhance
organizational form. Since that early period, the scholarship on irrigation systems has more carefully described the
kinds of organizational and governance reforms that can strengthen the likelihood of superior performance. Over
subsequent decades, scholars have continued to critically question large infrastructure investments (McCully 2006),
and a slow consensus has emerged that South Asian irrigation suffers from “lack of maintenance, low fee collection,
inadequate institutional arrangements, and lack of user participation” (Easter 2000, p 370). Addressing these
problems requires major governance changes, extensive efforts to acquire stronger involvement from those that are
supposed to benefit from irrigation, stronger attention to gender asymmetries, accounting for externalities including
environmental costs, coordination across decision making units at different levels (Briscoe 1997; Moore 1989),
and the acknowledgement of indigenous irrigation knowledge and management systems (Lansing 1991). A large
body of research has provided careful accounts of institutional reforms (Mollinga and Bolding 2004; Svendsen and
Meinzen-Dick 1997) and policy disjunctures (Mosse 2005, 1999, Verma 2009), but actual progress on the ground
in terms of improved system performance and outcomes has been slow and limited.
Broadly speaking, irrigation systems in South Asia include both large- and small-scale arrangements. According
to some estimates, perhaps half the irrigated land in the region is covered by small-scale systems (Gill 1991),
suggesting that the number of small-scale systems is much larger compared to that of large-scale systems. The

35
EXPERIENCES FROM THE HKH
Governance Issues in Shifting Cultivation
By Karma Phuntsho and Kamal P Aryal
In the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, shifting cultivation is found in all eastern Himalayan countries. It is mostly practised
by indigenous communities that are socially and economically marginalized. It largely occurs on steep hilly terrains
that are unsuitable for terracing, irrigation, or the use of machinery. It depends on basic human labour and simple
hand implements. It is mainly a community-based farming system and occurs often on community lands governed by
the principles of common property regimes. Shifting cultivators possess time-tested and rich knowledge, land use and
management practices, and institutions and traditional tenure. They practise it not just for food, but also as part of their
cultural, social, and spiritual repertoire.
There are many variants of shifting cultivation, which involves the slashing and burning of forest fallows followed by
cultivation of food crops for one to two years. In general, shifting cultivation with shorter fallows is less sustainable
because it prevents the regeneration of forests and limits the revitalization of soil fertility. Other systems are innovative and
contribute to biodiversity conservation, the nurturing of forest resources, and the maintenance of sustainable land use.
However, many decision makers perceive shifting cultivators as destroyers of natural resources – particularly forests and the
associated biodiversity.
Existing government policies across the HKH region promote alternatives to replace shifting cultivation rather than improve
it. The alternatives include sedentary agriculture, annual and perennial horticultural crops, forest plantations, community
forests, joint forest management, and leasehold forests. Shifting cultivation harbours a great variety of agrobiodiversity.
Therefore, replacing it with alternatives such as sedentary agriculture, horticulture, and forest plantations reduces
agrobiodiversity.
Practising such alternatives is beset with difficulties. Transforming shifting cultivation to sedentary agriculture or the growing
of horticultural crops requires private land tenure to secure the needed credit and investment. Shifting cultivators mostly
lack private tenure. In Bangladesh, about 40% of shifting cultivators have been granted private tenure to cultivated land.
Similarly, in Nepal, shifting cultivators in the eastern region could only legally register their customarily owned shifting
cultivation lands under private ownership. Further, small and privately owned land holdings are unsuitable for alternatives
such as forest plantations and perennial horticultural crops. These alternatives do not generate annual income in the
beginning, which is critical for the food security of shifting cultivators.
In some cases, for example in Bhutan, alternatives such as perennial horticultural cash crops that worked in the past have
failed to survive fungal diseases, and feasible options are yet to be found. However, existing policies do not allow shifting
cultivators to revert horticultural lands back to shifting cultivation use. Similarly, in northeast India, alternatives such as joint
forest management are not popular among shifting cultivators. By policy, joint forest management is to be set up on state-
owned forest lands. Therefore, shifting cultivators resist putting forest fallows of their shifting cultivation lands under joint
forest management.
Generally, alternatives are input intensive, and governments are unable to provide the required inputs and investment
support. The level of credit needed to develop alternatives, agricultural research and extension support, or marketing
support has remained largely inadequate if not absent. Shifting cultivators, on their own, are unable to finance the cost of
setting up alternatives. Hence, government policies remain unimplemented to a great extent.
Modernization requires shifting cultivators to deal with increased dependency on external markets and political forces.
However, customary institutions and organizations are not well placed to deal with such external forces. Besides,
governments have created local government bodies and given these bodies many of the roles and responsibilities of
customary authorities instead of strengthening them. So traditional authorities have lost strength and significance, since
governments prefer to source both funds and authority through these new bodies (Kerkhoff et al. 2006). There is a need to
build synergy between customary institutions and local government bodies.
Customary tenure, collective action, and safeguarding of community interest are good governance practices in shifting
cultivation. In the allocation of shifting cultivation resources, customary tenure ensures shifting cultivators equitable
access to shifting cultivation lands and the associated natural resources. Sharing and exchange of labour among shifting
cultivators enable them to overcome labour shortages. Working together and collective action facilitate exchange of skills,
experiences, knowledge, and innovation. Also, customary institutions dictate that community interests supersede individual
interests.

36
ratio is likely higher in the mountains owing to the large variations in slope and topography that constrain the
construction of large-scale water distribution networks. Indeed, in his analysis of the performance of 150 irrigation
systems in Nepal, Lam (1996) finds that only 14 are large-scale systems. Studies of different kinds of irrigation
systems suggest that smaller-scale systems tend to perform better than those that are very large (> 5,000 hectares),
and that governance arrangements are central to the superior performance of irrigation systems (Ostrom 1992;
Pradhan 1989; Tang 1992).
Key stakeholders, interests, and constraints
Lam’s study of small-scale irrigation systems in Nepal (1996) identifies four types of actors and stakeholders
relevant to irrigation governance: government officials and agencies, donors such as the Ford Foundation, farmers
at the head end of irrigation systems, and those at the tail end. These actors clearly have very different interests,
perceptions, and power relations between them: Farmers want more water, but those at the head end do not
necessarily recognize scarcities, while tail-end farmers must devise ways to address recurrent scarcities. Government
officials have a general interest in ensuring that irrigation systems work well, but to the extent they are accountable
to higher-level decision makers rather than to those receiving water, so their incentives to ensure well-functioning
systems will be weak. Donors want to see their aid dollars produce positive effects, but they are constrained to work
with actors and organizations in the locations where their projects are being implemented; they cannot implement
projects themselves. Often, pre-existing indigenous irrigation infrastructure and management systems normally found
in mountains that support rice cultivation and/or agriculture remain invisible to government officials, donors, and
engineers (Lansing 1995; Verma 2009). This lack of recognition creates overlapping but inefficient, competing, and
non-congruent governance regimes, as both indigenous and engineered systems remain invisible to one another.
When indigenous systems or actors are recognized, it is sometimes still problematic, especially when certain actors or
brokers claim to speak on ‘behalf’ of a community (Frankland 2003; Lewis and Mosse 2005; Verma 2009).
The idea that irrigation systems and their governance hinge on the cooperation of multiple actors is reiterated
in a recent review of agricultural water resource management (Mollinga et al. 2007). Indeed, recent studies on
irrigation highlight the connectedness of the interests of actors across different levels of irrigation governance:
local level actors – whether they are farmers or decision makers in water user associations – act in ways that are
influenced by the decisions of electricity boards, politicians, administrative officials, irrigation engineers, and local-
level bureaucrats. Analyses of their actions and interests must therefore also take into account how they are affected
by those seemingly at a substantial distance, and differential power relations. It is also worth noting the research
regarding the spiritual-ecological aspects of irrigation systems that shape their management and governance
(Lansing 1991, 1987; Verma 2009).
Principal mechanisms of irrigation governance
The major existing governance mechanisms in Lam’s study concern the incentives of farmers – adequate and
more reliable water supply, which translate into higher crop yields and incomes – and government officials – their
salary payments and the development of uniform rules that are easy to implement. In general, the key mechanisms
through which decision makers in irrigation projects attempt to meet their objectives include infrastructure,
information on water use and availability, irrigation schedules, management plans, training programmes,
performance evaluation reports, fund transfers, water charges, and, of course, the rules developed by local water
user associations and higher-level decision makers (Alauddin and Quiggin 2007; World Bank 2008). Important
to the principles of inclusive governance, unless otherwise addressed and taken into account, women are often
excluded from decision making as well as water user associations and resettlement schemes, although they carry
out a disproportionate amount of labour in agriculture in many contexts within the HKH (Nelleman et al., 2011).
Outcomes and relationship with governance arrangements
Meaningfully and actively involving farmers in new irrigation governance arrangements so as to take advantage of
their place-specific and resource-specific knowledge, creating incentives for them to participate in and contribute

37
to irrigation governance, and ensuring that technical improvements are accompanied by governance changes that
enable collective action by farmers are all key to improved system performance according to Lam (1996: 1311).
These conclusions point to the need for greater capacity among farmers’ organizations to organize and maintain
their systems – also highlighted in earlier studies such as Baxter and Laitos (1988). New arrangements will need to
take into account pre-existing governance arrangements to avoid tensions between the conflicting goals of different
institutional architectures.
Farmer involvement in irrigation governance through inputs in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance
of systems, together with financial contributions and institutional changes to develop greater local capacity, has
indeed been a refrain in studies of irrigation systems in South Asia as elsewhere (Small and Carruthers 1991;
Uphoff et al. 1991). The brunt of many of these studies is threefold: There should be opportunities for enhancing
farmer participation. Farmers have the capacity, experience, and knowledge to make substantial contributions, and
their contributions will improve irrigation system performance (Bruns 1993). However, in efforts to decentralize, the
maintenance of irrigation infrastructure has sometimes been offloaded to farmers without the adequate provision of
financial and development resources to farming communities.
The slow translation of these ideas in terms of action on the ground can be attributed in no small measure to the
high transaction costs around water delivery to small farms, lack of coordination across sectors and ministries, the
political economy of elections and water delivery that undermines efforts to charge for the costs of water delivery,
and local power asymmetries that prevent the emergence of effective collective action as well as the inclusion of
indigenous knowledge and/or pre-existing governance arrangements. Some observers have suggested that stronger
involvement of the private sector and privatization of water delivery is a way out (Easter 2000, pp 385-86), but that
will come at high costs in terms of equity concessions. As Moore points out, the application of scarcity pricing is
rarely practicable in the context of developing countries (Moore 1989, p 1,743). Indeed, the application of such
pricing in the case studied by Moore required central government enforcement. Shah et al. (2003, 2008) have
highlighted the ecological costs associated with the groundwater boom in irrigation, and suggested that solutions
to irrigation problems in the region will require demand side management, resource inventories and planning, and
basin-wide management (Shah et al. 2003, Shah et al. 2008).
Other scholars have argued that the limited achievements of participatory irrigation management have resulted
from incomplete efforts at reform. Indeed, most of the thousands of water user associations in the countries of the
region continue to be weak in terms of their financial, political, managerial, and technical capacities. Yet others
have criticized the attention to governance itself (Espeland 1998; Harriss et al. 1995), suggesting that the new
institutional-economic focus is convenient for policy makers but detrimental to the cause of actual reforms, because
it does not permit an effective analysis of the multiple levels at which politics influences analyses and outcomes
(Bernal 1990; Mollinga 2001).
Key contributions in this regard have come from Mosse (1999), whose astute analyses of tank irrigation in
south India lays to rest the idea that successful local irrigation institutions functioned autonomously from wider
relations of political and social patronage, and on the need to situate institutional analyses of governance in
multilevel social contexts of power and oppression. In a related vein, Mollinga et al. (2007) have argued for the
necessity of recognizing the multiplicity of interests, institutions, actors, and functions in any analysis of irrigation
and governance. From this recognition flow some of their strategic emphases necessary for improved outcomes:
implementation of reforms through coalitions, open debates and information sharing towards capacity building
(Bruns et al. 2005), and the necessity of state involvement for ensuring adequate financial and technical resources
and, most importantly, for moving beyond project-based engagement alone.
Lastly, the lack of congruence between engineered systems of irrigation and indigenous systems requires some
attention. As both operate with different governance arrangements including institutions, knowledge, and
actors, several disjunctures and conflicts can arise when engineered systems are constructed on top of or with
disregard to pre-existing indigenous systems – at times ignorant that such a system exists or is operational (Verma
2009). Effective and representative governance requires recognition, analysis, and the placing of value in such
arrangements, including their sociocultural, spiritual-ecological, and biophysical characteristics. Transdisciplinary

38
approaches that give equal weight to different disciplines and participatory approaches that accord meaningful and
equitable decision-making power to and the within local bodies, such as water user associations, are perhaps best
in enabling such practices (Verma et al. 2010; Verma 2009).
Forests
Himalayan forests harbour unique forms of biodiversity and are unparalleled sources of ecosystem benefits. They
provide livelihood benefits to millions of households, and most of the agriculture in the region depends on the
integrated cycling of nutrients from forests to fields (Bawa et al. 2007). The large volume of literature on these
forests attests to the changing governance arrangements for accessing, using, and managing them – with the most
recent trend being towards the transfer of substantial areas community control, co-management, or other related
forms of governance (Blaikie and Springate-Baginski 2013).
The enormous importance of forests to livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and, most recently, as a mitigation
strategy through terrestrial carbon sequestration may be one reason why there is such a large body of research on
forests, forest governance, and forest outcomes in the HKH (Karky and Skutsch 2010). These studies cover both
vegetative and ecological (Singh and Singh 1987) as well as social and institutional aspects of forests in the region
(Agarwal 2001; Rangan 1997). In latter studies, the role of governance in forest livelihood outcomes is appreciated
widely (Agrawal and Ostrom 2001; Buffum et al. 2010; Shahbaz et al. 2007).
Key stakeholders, interests, and constraints
Because of the integral role of forests in hill agriculture, the range of stakeholders in forest systems includes not
only those who derive some direct food or fuelwood from forests but also those farmers and forest users who may
depend only to a limited extent on forests for direct benefits. In addition to fodder, fuelwood, and timber, forests in
the HKH also provide non-timber forest products and help store carbon, either of which – depending on market
prices and demand – may have greater value than more conventional forest products. As a result, local residents,
community-level organizations such as user groups and NGOs, government forest and agriculture departments,
donors, and politicians are key stakeholders when it comes to forest outcomes.
The interests of these stakeholders in forests are diverse. Some are more interested in longer-term use benefits
from forests (local residents and NGOs), whereas others, such as those interested in terrestrial mitigation,
would prefer little or no harvesting activities. Forest departments and timber companies are typically interested
in the management of forests for sustainable timber yields, although the point at which timber harvests become
unsustainable may be a point of dispute between them. Donors and NGOs have diverse interests as well,
depending on whether they seek to advance biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, or sustainable
livelihoods goals (Chettri et al. 2007; Larsen et al. 2005; Negi et al. 2011; Phelps et al. 2010). But these divergent
interests are also accompanied by different kinds of constraints on what any of these actors can achieve in forests.
Principal mechanisms of forest governance
The key mechanisms of forest governance include resource transfers from central governments or donors to lower-
level decision makers, revenue sharing in different proportions, management plans to rationalize forest use and also to
develop information about how a given forest is being managed, meetings and activity reports by lower-level decision
makers, training of villagers, monitoring and sanctioning at the local level and also by guards appointed as government
officials, and land cover and use maps through remote sensing and on-the-ground techniques. These different
mechanisms can be categorized through a three-way classification of information, incentives, and institutions. But
consideration of their specific forms also provides a clearer sense of how they influence forest outcomes.
Outcomes and relationship with governance arrangements
Public or government tenure, according to much of the literature on forest governance, goes together with an
emphasis on the exclusion of multiple types of use rights in forests, a focus on conservation and protection, and the

39
EXPERIENCES FROM THE HKH
REDD+ Governance: Experiences from the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region
By Manohara Khadka, Rajan Kotru, Bhaskar Karky, and Seema Karki
Potential of REDD+ in rural development: The global agreement on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation (REDD+), with the ‘+’ denoting an emphasis on biodiversity, sustainable management of forests, and
enhancement of forest carbon stock (UN REDD 2011; Suzuki 2012), has been central to discussions of global and
national mitigation strategies (Seymour 2008). The core idea of REDD+ and related programmes is to reward individuals,
communities, projects, and countries that demonstrate good forest management with a focus on reducing carbon dioxide
emissions from forests and/or increased forest carbon stock (Angelsen 2008; Phelps et al. 2010; Karky and Rana 2011).
REDD+ has the potential to contribute to climate change mitigation, conservation, and development goals if REDD+
governance is inclusive and empowers local communities to have control over REDD+ design and implementation (Phelps
et al. 2010; Agrawal et al. 2008). In the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, REDD+ can improve the livelihoods of
the forest-dependent poor and socially marginalized women and men if REDD+ governance is participatory and gender
inclusive and ensures that these people have rights to forest lands and carbon as well as its incentives (Gurung et al. 2011).
REDD+ governance: Although the REDD+ process is at an initial stage in the HKH region, we can draw some lessons,
especially from Nepal, referring to required institutional structures, policies, decision-making mechanisms, and consultation
processes (Agrawal 2012; Yadav 2012; Khadka et al. 2012). REDD+ governance in the HKH context requires
recognizing the credible roles and knowledge of female and male forest users in good forest management, and ensuring
their rights and decision making roles over REDD+ processes as well as access to benefiting sharing (Gurung et al. 2011).
Gaps and challenges: Policy processes related to REDD+, including various piloting activities, are so far influenced by
a techno-bureaucratic and centralized approach (Khatri 2012). As a result, urban and rural elite groups have greater
access to REDD+ processes and policy debates. Women have not been systematically identified as stakeholders in REDD+
initiatives (Gurung et al. 2011) and are generally excluded from decision making. In general, the discussions so far
are undermining the agenda on rights to forest lands, carbon, and participatory governance associated with inclusive
incentives from the sequestering of carbon. In addition, biophysical perspectives and male-centric attitudes dominate in
the design and implementation of ongoing REDD+ pilots, policy dialogues, research/studies, and strategy preparation
methods. Thus, the ten experts consulted in the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation in Kathmandu for the REDD+
readiness proposal preparation (R-PP) are all men (GON 2010, p 100). Texts about Nepal’s R-PP process appear to be
inclusive in terms of the representation of Dalits, indigenous peoples, grassroots women, civil society, and the private
sector. However, concrete operational measures that ensure inclusive access to and control over REDD+ policy making,
monitoring, reporting and verification, benefit sharing, and participation in decision-making bodies are absent. Tackling
existing governance issues such as the lack of transparency in carbon fund utilization, influence of elites and patriarchal
values in decision making, and top-down planning and management across all types of actors including at the grassroots
forest institutions is a big challenge.
Good practice in Nepal: A few pilot initiatives on REDD+ payment in Nepal tend to focus on the inclusion and capacity
strengthening of forest civil society organizations in dealing with REDD+. For example, a NORAD-funded pilot
project entitled ‘Design and setting up a governance and payment system for Nepal’s community forest management
under REDD+’ has led to the development of the Forest Carbon Trust Fund (FCTF), and is supporting its participatory
governance mechanism in assessing the forest carbon stock/increment in community-managed forests and defining the
amount of REDD+ seed grant to grassroots forest institutions (ICIMOD 2011). The institutional architecture established
includes representatives of traditionally marginalized citizens. For example, the national- and district-level FCTF advisory
committees have representatives from the forest civil society, women, Dalits, and indigenous peoples, in addition to
government organizations. In addition, the watershed-level REDD+ network – a body consisting of both female and male
representatives of community forest user groups (CFUGs) – is involved in the determination and reimbursement of REDD+
seed grants (ibid.), although the meaningful participation of women in decision-making processes within the network is
inadequate (Khadka et al. 2012). Importantly, the REDD+ pilot project has developed criteria for forest carbon payment
to CFUGs, in which socioeconomic dimensions (e.g., percentages of the population of women, discriminated caste/
ethnic groups, and poor households) receive high weightage (60% of the total score) over the biophysical dimension
(e.g., carbon stock and carbon increment in forests) (ICIMOD 2011). The ongoing national REDD+ strategy development
initiative in the HKH can adopt some of the lessons from Nepal’s pilot project regarding REDD+ governance.

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EXPERIENCES FROM THE HKH
Bridging Forest Sector and Local Governance Divide: Himachal Pradesh, India
By Rajan Kotru
The joint forest management concept in India was made possible by the National Forest Policy (1988). The policy sought
to achieve the goals of forest conservation, productivity improvement, satisfying local needs for forest products, and
community participation. Himachal Pradesh in the northwestern Indian Himalaya has been a leading state in terms of
promoting local empowerment and good governance for managing forest resources. In alignment with the National Forest
Policy (1988) and National Forestry Action Programme (1999), the state of Himachal Pradesh has strongly promoted
planning as well as structural and operational processes on decentralization and devolution to local communities, giving
them greater responsibility for forest management. This is reflected in the policies and programmes of the state government,
donor agencies, and nongovernmental organizations. Several state initiatives including the Indo-German Changar Eco-
Development Project (IG-CEDP) based on a watershed approach integrated participatory forest management into planted
forests between 1994 and 2006. The project mobilized local communities and enhanced both conservation and production-
oriented forestry and livelihood improvements. In its final evaluation, the project was credited with focusing on women’s
empowerment – social, economic, and political – across all project activities, especially by facilitating institutional space for
equitable roles in local decision making.
With the seventy-third constitutional amendment in 1992, India started working on strengthening local governance systems.
Taking a cue from the declared policy of decentralization and the empowerment of Panchayati Raj institutions, the IG-CEDP
pioneered the linking of selected Panchayats to forest and natural resource management. Given its innovative concept
and results, this model of natural resource-based community empowerment was replicated in 92 sites under the Himachal
Pradesh Forest Sector Reform Project and, subsequently, in all districts of the state through the Mid-Himalayan Watershed
Development Project. The mechanism represents the devolution of sector governance by engaging local governance bodies,
inter alia, in forest governance. With community control, for instance, over planting and management decisions, local
resource governance has received a positive thrust. Research indicates that there are interesting lessons related to local
empowerment, behavioural change, economic transition, conservation of natural resources, and replicated initiatives of
microenterprise building adopted by several NGOs and government programmes. One such model initiative is represented
by a women’s enterprise ‘Samridhi’, which adds value to wild fruit products and markets these to sustain income and
employment for local women. Despite the upscaling of such forestry related good practices, a rapid assessment in the
post-project era of the Changar area shows that forest governance in practice is yet to be embedded effectively into local
governance systems. Several reasons lead to such a predicament (IG-CEDP 2006).
First, common pool resources are important sources of livelihood for the resource poor. However, econometric estimations
indicate a positive fallout shows that, as households grow richer, they tend not to depend on these resources. However, they
very much influence local decision making on conservation, often at the cost of resource use restriction for the poor who are
left out. Second, among the key public resources, forests have the most controlled land use in terms of state authority. This is
evident from the fact that all the participatory forest management agreements under the above-mentioned projects have yet
to get the forest department’s permission for thinning measures to extract and sell small timber. This brings up the issue of the
legal sanctity of these agreements, as well as lack of clarity about larger economic benefits to local communities, through
timber sales for instance. Third, given the legacy of fragmented local communities (due to the caste system, politicization of
development, multiplicity of informal institutions, etc.) and the resultant inadequate sense of collectivism, local governance
bodies are often very weak and not recognized to be able to handle forest resource governance issues that another agency
dominates. Fourth, with human migration becoming more of a norm than an exception, formalizing women’s participation
through their involvement in decision-making institutions and income generation activities is of great significance for natural
resource conservation, management, and control for sustainable gains. Fifth, local empowerment and forest conservation
are the twin objectives of sustainable forest management. Although civil society, researchers, political leaders, and
community champions have advocated for adequately balancing the social, economic, ecological, and climatic values of
mountain forests, governance and management deficits have hindered such balance.
To maintain the sustainability of the impacts achieved so far, the following key recommendations are made:
• Lessons pertaining to improved enabling frameworks need to be further validated by studying other state interventions
in forest resource governance.
• Participatory approaches must be universally applied (across sectors through local governance bodies) to get maximum
integration between a wide range of stakeholders and, first and foremost, the local communities and their institutions.
• Monitoring and evaluation must be effectively carried out to harness innovative knowledge and disseminate learning
from science, policy, and practice, leading to an adapted approach to good forest resource governance at all levels of
decision making.
• It is important to continue support to policy/practice/science advocates to galvanize debates and research on
marginalized issues such as social inclusiveness, poverty, and entitlements to forest yields.
• Continual research is needed to assess how sociodemographic changes (e.g., youth outmigration) and climate impacts
will affect forest governance (Kotru 2011).

41
capacity to restrict use. Indeed, the most restrictively protected forests in the region are under governmental forms
of tenure. Governments own most of the protected areas. They also own and manage closed-access forests for
soil and water conservation purposes, and they are one of the few groups of actors that can spend more on forest
protection than they receive as income from forests.
In contrast, private ownership is associated with greater efficiencies in the management of forests, the capacity to
generate greater economic outputs and profits, and to enhance economic development-oriented objectives. Only
a small area of forests in the region is under private ownership, but these forests are often managed for profit.
Plantations are managed by both governments and private actors, but plantations oriented towards high profits
– whether through the sale of timber, cash crops, or carbon trade – tend to be owned and managed by private
companies. Indeed, a major new market in terrestrial carbon is likely to become viable in the future owing to efforts
by private companies to own more land in tropical countries and secure profits accruing from higher carbon prices.
Finally, customary or community tenure typically goes together with the management of forests for multiple uses
and objectives: local livelihoods, promotion of use-oriented diversity in forests, and, often when tenure rights are
secure, for enhancing forest biomass. The long-run livelihood interests of communities, local populations, and
indigenous groups in forests are seen to translate into a willingness to manage forests for longer-term benefits, and
the willingness to protect forests in the short run so as to secure future gains.
Recent studies have also identified a range of more specific relationships between improved forest outcomes
and specific governance features. For instance, local enforcement, participation in rule making at the local level,
downward accountability of decision makers, and lower levels of economic inequality are all associated with
improved forest conditions (Gibson et al. 2005; Ostrom 1999a). In addition, more equitable distribution of benefits
from forests is also associated with widespread representation in decision making. These findings are corroborated
by a host of both case-based and quantitative studies, and they find their echoes in similar findings in other resource
domains as well.
Pastoralism and Rangelands
Approximately 100 million pastoralist women, men, and children in the HKH region derive their livelihoods from
rangeland resources (Yi and Muhammad 2010). Rangelands constitute more than 60 per cent of the total HKH
region, covering 4.3 million square kilometres (Verma and Khadka, in press; Zhao-Li 2009). Most HKH countries
have pastoralist and rangeland regions, which are not only important for natural resources, livelihoods, and survival
but also for culture, identity, social relations, and spirituality. Rangelands also play an important role in supporting
and regulating water resources, biodiversity with many species of fauna and flora endemic to the region, and
ecosystem functions and services, as well as in providing a scientific research base for critical knowledge, retaining
clean air and common spaces for recreational purposes, and supporting sacred landscapes (Dong et al. 2009,
p 174; Miller and Craig 1997). Pastoralist knowledge and governance practices built up over generations are
invaluable for managing fragile, harsh semi-arid to arid, often rugged environments found in mountain contexts.
Key stakeholders, interests, and constraints
Rich and diverse rangeland resources found over vast tracts of pastoralist land mean that several stakeholders,
interests, and constraints interact and overlap with one another in terms of governance. Mountain resources such
as livestock, high-altitude pastures, biodiversity, medicinal plants, water sources, cultural and spiritual practices,
and land are vital for the survival of pastoralists, and play a crucial role in the national interests of HKH countries.
Hence, pastoralists themselves – as well as customary leaders; governments; departments that oversee livestock,
agriculture, forests, tourism, culture and the environment; and civil society, development, and private sector actors –
are key stakeholders in terms of rangeland outcomes. Often, governance in rangeland and pastoral areas involves
a multiplicity of customary and statutory institutions and actors. Given the remoteness of many rangeland areas,
customary leaders and institutions play significant roles in day-to-day governance decisions. More broadly, because
rangelands straddle neighbouring countries, they are important geopolitically as well as in terms of national interests.

42
Despite the critical importance of rangelands in the region, pastoralists are often marginalized from mainstream
policy making, political decision making, and development processes (Verma and Khadka 2016). This is perhaps
more critical in mountainous terrains where pastoralists’ access to development resources and governance
mechanisms is more difficult, arduous, and isolated (ibid.). Pastoralism is a unique and important livelihood, way
of life, and culture. Pastoral logic and wisdom provide important knowledge in fragile mountain ecologies, as well
as the basis for the coexistence of humans and wildlife through a process of checks and balances over generations
(Verma 2007).
Principal mechanisms of pastoralist and rangeland governance
Several mechanisms are associated with pastoralist and rangeland governance. In terms of information, knowledge
about livestock and vegetation/crops that can survive in arid to semi-arid regions that are characteristic of the
rangelands is important. Similarly, locally specific knowledge regarding the migration patterns of animals and
pastoralist as they negotiate changing seasons in fragile landscapes is critical for survival. In many contexts, pastoral
livelihoods are characterized by residing in and dividing time between summer and winter pastures. The nomadic
and semi-nomadic nature of pastoralist communities means that providing and gaining access to information and
development resources can be difficult. Likewise, public reporting, elections, and participatory processes, as well as
providing development and government services, tend to be challenging. In some cases, rangeland communities
traverse national borders. In such situations, transboundary cooperation becomes especially important. As
rangelands are sources for valuable natural resources, they are sometimes subject to extractive industries such
as mining, or viewed as good areas for the establishment of national parks or carbon sinks. Information sharing,
ownership, and participatory governance processes in these situations are crucial in order to avoid potential
conflicts, or the exacerbation of pre-existing ones.
Incentives in rangeland and pastoralist contexts include resource transfers which may involve input, extension,
veterinary, and social services and benefits to remote, vast, and sometimes inaccessible mountain territories and
communities. Other incentives require information and benefits to be shared with communities, and – where
resources are harvested – include intellectual property rights (for example, over locally found medicinal plants),
financing mechanisms (for instance, carbon sinks or carbon sequestration), and land rights (normally over common
property or communal land). Resource transfers, for instance, take several forms including the transfer of land,
which is perhaps the most critical resource in rangelands in terms of being governed through local governance
arrangements.
Institutions that facilitate governance processes include both customary and statutory institutions, as well as co-
management and/or self-governance arrangements in autonomous regions. Governance mechanisms most often
involve livestock, its management, and the services associated with it. However, pastoralist institutions are often
dominated by men. Decision making and rights to ownership tend to exclude women and other marginalized
groups (Verma and Khadka 2016). Issues of marginalization and accessibility are especially critical when
considering the election and representation processes in remote areas.
Outcomes and relationship with governance arrangements
Key outcomes and relationships in pastoralist and rangeland governance arrangements centre on unique aspects of
mobility, accessibility, marginality, and common property within the context of rapid change. Often, pastoralist and
rangeland communities are located in remote, inaccessible, and fragile mountain and high-plateau environments.
This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, living in these places ensures that rich culture, livelihoods, beliefs,
and spiritual practices are preserved to varying degrees. On the other hand, it hinders the provision of development
and government services to those communities and creates challenges for them to access the same services that are
accessible in urban centres. In cases where pastoralist livelihoods are characterized by nomadic or semi-nomadic
lifestyles, ensuring access to development and social services, information, and institutions becomes especially
challenging.

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EXPERIENCES FROM THE HKH
Rangeland and Pastoralism
By Muhammad Ismail, Srijana Joshi, and Wu Ning
Rangelands cover about 60 percent of the 4.3 million km2 of the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region and directly provide
a source of livelihood to the large population living there. Present-day pastoralism and rangeland management in the HKH
is challenged more than ever before by population pressures – over the last 50 years, the number of people has doubled
and the livestock population has quadrupled. In addition, two other issues of immediate concern are climate change and
the fact that pastoral production is not considered by some as competitive in a globalized marketplace. The important role
of pastoralists, the custodians of rangeland ecosystems, has not been sufficiently valued by decision makers. On the whole,
rangelands remain a generally neglected sector in terms of research, legislation, government planning, and particularly
for sustainable development investments. This situation has resulted in sometimes inappropriate management decisions and
has been a root cause of rangeland degradation and desertification.
The economic practicality of mountain pastoralism is itself being questioned as rangelands have low productivity and a
long production cycle, lack accessibility to markets, produce undervalued products, and require local people to suffer
remoteness and hardship. The livelihood strategies that HKH pastoralists have traditionally used to cope with changing
conditions are often ill suited to cope with the demands of contemporary market economy, globalization, and demographic
and environmental changes. Rangeland degradation and desertification is taking place throughout the HKH region,
thereby diminishing rangeland ecosystem services and the sustainability of livelihoods, not only of the local people but also
of those in the region and beyond. A significant area of rangelands has now been put under protected area management.
Hence, conflict has arisen between conservation and livelihood related interests as a result of restricting the access of and
benefits to pastoralists. There is either limited or no coordination across administrative boundaries among the institutions
charged with managing rangeland resources. Long-term monitoring data is required to assess the impact of changes
arising from various driving forces on the rangelands, for providing better inputs to sustainable adaptation strategies, and
ultimately to adjust policies accordingly.
One of the most important changes that could address a substantial part of the accumulated governance deficit would be
to move away from centralized decision making and planning processes for rangeland management to a more ‘bottom-up’
process in the region. Such a change would make it possible for the voices of local people to be heard by policy makers
and will ensure that sound indigenous knowledge can be integrated into sustainable rangeland management practices.
Governments and NGOs should also support communities by funding locally employed facilitators to develop and promote
local strategies and planning processes for enhancing sustainable rangeland management.
One successful example among governance programmes in rangelands is co-management in the upper Mustang region
(Nepal) where an acute shortage of forage led to a breakdown in traditional winter-spring and summer-autumn pasture
systems. The disordered use of seasonal rangelands exacerbated the shortage, especially during winter and spring, and
increased conflicts between households and village development committees (VDCs). In this context, ICIMOD and some
local partners supported the formation and functioning of pasture management subcommittees (PMSCs) at the VDC level.
These committees built three-dimensional participatory models and brought the villagers together to use the models to jointly
define the boundaries between VDC areas and seasonal pastures. The villagers nominated the PMSCs to monitor and
enforce these commonly agreed upon regulations. They also started to grow fodder and forage species for supplementary
feeding for livestock in winter.
Similarly, in the sparsely populated Chiang Tang plateau in the northern Tibet Autonomous Region of China, ICIMOD
and its partner the Chengdu Institute of Botany documented and provided support to local initiatives for the collective
management of livestock and rangelands in Nima county and adjacent areas, after the livestock and rangelands had
been allocated to individual households. Through collaborative arrangements, local herders helped each other graze
livestock on the vast but not so productive rangelands; they managed to sell their livestock products at markets hundreds of
kilometres away and bring back household and other goods at reasonable prices; they organized a surplus labour force
to work in local infrastructure construction and factories; and they gathered regularly to share information and discuss new
issues. People in these collectively organized communities were able to live well above the poverty line. They are also in
a better position to talk to, and obtain support from, local conservation authorities in fencing their winter pastures so as to
minimize the otherwise acute livestock-wildlife conflicts.
Enabling better rangeland governance to address contemporary challenges will be a landmark step in improving the
conditions of rangelands. Settling divergent interests by creating awareness and incorporating local views into management
practices is necessary to make traditional governance systems more responsive to people’s needs. The involvement of women
and other neglected groups in governance will be helpful in making systems participatory and increasing local ownership.
A roundtable conference to initiate discussions on the views of key stakeholders will be helpful in reconciling differences
more amicably and in better understanding various perspectives. Building local governance systems based on the
principles of good governance is needed for the sustainability of rangeland areas. Developing separate policies
for rangeland management at national and state/provincial levels will be the key to improving the governance and
management of rangelands resources.

44
Most notably, pastoralists often find themselves at the margins or excluded from development and government
decision making the world over (Verma and Khadka 2016; IUCN 2011). This problem is often exacerbated by the
lack of specific pastoralist policies in many countries of the HKH. Rangeland management and policies are often
subsumed under departments of forestry or agriculture. Hence, complex issues around livestock management,
common property, culture and tenure regimes may not be given the due attention that they require. As pastoralist
livelihoods depend on complex interrelations between access; management; and control over lands, pastures,
and natural resources (versus private forms of property), this leads to an equally complex domain of overlapping
rights that are continuously being negotiated and contested (Scoones 1995). Such rights and incentives are often
mediated through relations of trust, reciprocity, and common cultural norms and incentives. Statutory governance
arrangements may not always capture the complexity and nuances of such arrangements (IUCN 2011), and it is
therefore important to consider governance through a plural legal framework that pays due attention to customary
institutions, laws, and norms.
More often than not, mainstream governance arrangements seek ‘easy’ solutions through the promotion of
privatization, commodification, and the enclosure of pastoralist land, which do not reflect the realities or needs of
pastoralist communities, and sometimes disenfranchise them from their rights (Verma 2007). On the other hand,
pastoralists tend to be in legally and politically weak positions in advocating their needs due to their low visibility
and lack of access to information regarding governance institutions, procedures, and incentives (IUCN 2011). This
is exacerbated by the fact that customary and communal forms of governance tend to be marginalized or invisible
at higher and formal scales.
Summarizing the Evidence
The review above of five domains of natural resource governance – river water sharing, protected areas and
wildlife, irrigation, forests, and pastoralism and rangelands – shows clear patterns in how governance works in the
HKH. These patterns relate to key actors and their interests, the principal mechanisms through which governance
goals are translated into practice, and the outcomes to which governance leads. Although the outcomes of
governance interventions will always remain somewhat uncertain given the enormous diversity of contexts, actors
and their interests, and implementation processes, a review of visible patterns still holds lessons for attempts to
improve the design and implementation of natural resource governance.
Summary: Stakeholders, interests, and constraints
The governance of all natural resource domains considered in this review depends on the actions and interests
of multiple stakeholders. This is true even in the case of river water sharing, where the principal negotiators for
the allocation of water at the national level are central governments and their agencies. The actions of these
stakeholders and their negotiating positions are influenced by perceptions about how lower versus higher levels of
water availability will affect farmers and irrigation, industries, and urban water users, and the likelihood of floods
versus droughts. For wildlife, irrigation, forests, and pastoralism and rangelands, the multiplicity of stakeholders is
even more evident. The interests of these stakeholders differ, and the constraints under which they operate include
resource constraints, information deficits, lack of access to relevant decision makers, inadequate linkages among
organizations at different levels, and the pervasive tension between public and private benefits.
Because key actors and agencies span diverse levels, work across different spatial and social scales, and belong to
differing societal sectors – private, civil society, public – coordination among them is not easy. But the differences
in the competencies, skills, power, endowments, and capacities of different decision makers that are important to
securing improvements means that coordination is needed to yield improvements in governance outcomes. Those
with the formal power to manage natural resources have assumed for too long that those without such powers are
not relevant to governance, livelihoods, and conservation outcomes. Yet the history over the past several decades of
natural resource management demonstrates the flaws in and consequences of such thinking.
Whether they relate to water, forests, pastures, irrigation, or wildlife, the actions of those marginalized
from mainstream politics are still consequential for resource outcomes. The interests of these marginal and

45
disadvantaged groups in improved access to resources for livelihood purposes require that they work to gain the
support of other stakeholders who can help secure such access. The interests of civil society organizations involved
in resource governance – whether they are about improved knowledge production, supporting marginal groups
and representing the relevant demands, or creating better conservation and development outcomes – require that
they strengthen the linkages between resource-dependent users and decision makers. Only through such working
linkages, greater transparency, and stronger coordination would it be possible to shift away from persistently
negative resource governance outcomes. That such negative outcomes lead to unsustainable and inequitable
outcomes is critically important to consider and reflect upon.
Summary: Mechanisms of governance
Of the different mechanisms of governance (discussed in section 3 above), some can be viewed as being
specifically about enhancing upward accountability, and others for enhancing downward accountability. Table 1
below identifies a suite of governance and accountability mechanisms, identified through a meta-review of
accountability and governance mechanisms in 63 studies on natural resource governance conducted globally. Of
these 63 cases, approximately 14 focus on natural resource governance in the HKH.
The studies were selected from a larger set of 446 articles identified by coupling “decentralization” or “governance”
with keywords representing specific domains of natural resource governance such as forests, pastures, irrigation,
and fisheries, and undertaking a search through the Web of Science citation indices. The selection of the 63 cases
depended on whether the studies contained adequate information about higher- and lower-level decision makers
Table 1: Mechanisms of governance and accountability to connect local- and higher-level institutions, and their
effects (N=63)
Mechanisms Effects
(D = enhance downward accountability; U = enhance upward
accountability)
Information mechanisms
Accounting reports and audits
Mechanisms for reporting corruption
Activity reports
Management plans
Technical oversight
- Allow multiple levels of government to influence planning (D and U)
- Improve transparency (D)
- Improve coordination (U)
- Increase accountability of decision makers (D and U)
- Provide local institutions and actors better knowledge for making decisions (D)
- Reduce corruption (D)
Information+incentives
(Human resource and capacity building)
Advice to local authorities
Appointment of local officials
Approval of local rules and laws
Education
Training
- Increase ability to make decisions and carry out plans
- Increase monitoring of resource use (U)
- Improve quality of planning and implementation at local level (U)
- Promote formal recognition of local management and rules (U)
- Promote interactions among local institutions
Incentive
Funds transfers
Patronage resources
Revenue-sharing arrangements
Taxing authority
- Improve transparency (D and U)
- Increase efficiency
- Increase local capacity to implement decisions
Institutional change and new decision making
bodies
Authority to monitor, sanction, or adjudicate
Authority to recognize user groups
Creation of laws, policies, and regulations
Elections
Government officials serving on user groups
Performance monitoring
Power to dissolve user group
- Create accountability relations between decision makers at the local level and
their superiors as well as lower-level constituents (D and U)
- Enforce resource-related rules (U)
- Increase government recognition of user groups and their management
capacities (D)
- Promote conflict management strategies (U)
- Protect/improve resources and local governance strategies
- Reduce free riding (U)
- Restrict local authority (U)

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and their relationships so as to enable an identification of the mechanisms that link the two levels of action and
decision making. Column 2 of the table below shows the ways in which these mechanisms affect governance and
accountability. The letters ‘D’ or ‘U’ indicate, where appropriate, whether the effect is to enhance accountability in
an upward or downward manner.
In addition to reporting on the encountered mechanisms through which decision makers at local levels of
governance are linked, Table 1 seeks to accomplish two other goals. It shows that existing attempts to govern
natural resources deploy a substantial diversity of mechanisms to govern concretely. Information, incentives, and
institutional mechanisms might seem highly abstract, but they represent concrete examples that produce very
different resource use and management effects. The table also serves to provide a catalogue of the different ways
in which governance actors interested in revising existing forms of governance and accountability can pick from
a menu of options to influence those at higher or lower levels of decision making. Also important to consider are
issues of representation and inclusion in mechanisms of natural resource governance.
Summary: Relationship of governance forms with outcomes
Although an examination of different resource types suggests substantial variation across specific cases of resource
governance, it also shows the importance of examining the incentives of stakeholders and how these incentives
translate into attempts at creating governance strategies that would improve their share of benefits from resources.
Table 2 summarizes the discussion about the relationship between major stakeholders relevant to different modes
of governance and different governance and resource outcomes. It is based on an assessment of the incentives and
interests of different actors that exercise governance decision-making powers, and how different outcomes relate to
these interests.
The table suggests that none of the three major actors and associated forms of governance is likely to enhance all
governance and resource outcomes in which decision makers might be interested. Of the five outcomes listed in the
columns of Table 2, some are general across resource types (sustainable livelihoods, greater equity, and resource
sustainability); others (carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation) are specific to particular resources.
Trade-offs are likely pervasive in natural resource use and management. It is necessary to recognize their existence,
and it is incumbent for decision makers to work with actors and agencies that might be best suited to promote
specific combinations of outcomes.
Table 2: Affinities between governance and socially valued natural resource outcomes
Outcomes
Major actors and forms
of governance
Sustainable
livelihoods
Greater equity Resource
sustainability
Carbon
sequestration
Biodiversity
conservation
Public/ government Medium Medium Medium High High
Private/market Low Low Low High Low
Community/civil society High High Medium Medium Medium

47
Part IV
Conclusions and
Recommendations

48

49
6. Challenges and Opportunities in
Natural Resource Governance
in the HKH
Basic Challenges
Over the past three decades, it has become evident that the mountain of research on natural resource governance
has helped build a useful vantage point for understanding and shaping the sustainability of natural resources in
the region. The attention to different actors, particularly those in marginal social positions but with high levels of
interdependence with and knowledge about resources, has shown that natural resources such as forests, pastures,
water, and biodiversity can be managed well even by communities and local user groups, particularly when policies
are enabling. These studies have also highlighted the importance of collaborative exchanges and work, and the role
of collective action in strengthening natural resource institutions.
Despite the large research output over the past three decades, it is evident that much of the current and historical work
remains constrained by different kinds of boundaries that have proved hard to overcome in practice. Although Elinor
Ostrom’s path-breaking work, Governing the Commons (1990), sets an exciting example for subsequent natural resource
governance researchers by considering a variety of natural resources together, most subsequent work has tended to
focus only on either forests, pastures, wildlife, irrigation waters, livelihoods, or gender in siloed approaches. Attempts to
examine the effectiveness of different forms of governance across resource domains remain rare or non-existent.
The siloed nature of research on natural resources is evident in other ways as well. For example, most existing
research tends to focus on a single level – whether it is the national, the local, or the regional. Although the
importance of cross-scale and cross-level interactions among social and institutional processes are acknowledged
by many researchers, the specific ways in which these relationships work is neither spelt out nor assessed with a view
to generalization. Other silos also exist in terms of disciplinary research, often driven by biophysical considerations
over and above sociocultural ones, thereby creating scientific hierarchies that work against effective governance
(German et al. 2010).
Several contradictions and challenges are worth noting. Taking governance into account is critical to advance
research and strengthen interventions related to natural resource management, economic poverty reduction, social
inclusion, equity, sustainable livelihoods, climate change adaptation and mitigation and sustainable environments.
However, structures of governance often remain hidden or neglected in writings about natural resource conditions
and resource-dependent livelihoods. Often, different conceptualizations and definitions of governance coexist
without efforts to ensure coherence across these various conceptions. The result is typically an apolitical approach
focusing on ‘technical’ issues and lacking engagement with the multiple drivers of change. Avoiding issues of
power, knowledge, and agency also means that work on governance is not well engaged with key regional and
global debates shaping the landscapes and lives of disadvantaged women and men in the HKH.
Governance needs to become more central to the activities of development research organizations and other
boundary organizations that seek to make knowledge relevant to processes of change. Research on the subject
has immense potential to serve as a bridge between more technical work on resources, and society and decision
making concerned with bringing about improved outcomes. Such research must also seek to overcome natural
divisions across resource systems and the resulting research divisions noted above. Indeed, perhaps the most
important work on resource governance – Governing the Commons (1990) by Elinor Ostrom – shows how studies
of governance across resource systems usefully inform policy, as well as the need to move beyond the silos within

50
which such research tends to remain bracketed. Continued advances along this dimension require conceptual
engagement of specific resource domains across levels and scales of analysis and attention to the dynamics,
network relationships, relations of power and knowledge, spatial processes, and interactions among resources.
To take advantage of the density of work on governance and to go beyond it requires the adaptation of concepts
and theories to institutional priorities and imperatives through focused research, capacity strengthening, networking,
organizational change, and institutional arrangements. Although many international development and conservation
research organizations have carried out studies of natural resource governance, few are recognized as key
contributors to the sociopolitical aspects of governance and natural resource management innovative. Sometimes
this is because of low dedicated funding, which makes it difficult to allocate budgetary resources for innovative
crosscutting programmes where governance is integrated into various natural resource subject areas. At other times,
it is due to lack of understanding or commitment, and action.
Natural Resource Governance Opportunities
Future advances in natural resource governance research will depend on how well scholars address existing gaps
in different understandings of the dynamics of resource systems and their connections to social groups, the role
of network relationships in shaping resource outcomes, spatial processes, and interactions among different kinds
of resources that are in fact connected to each other. But greater understanding by itself is surely inadequate to
improve natural resource governance. Improvements in understanding can help identify opportunities, but taking
action on the basis of these opportunities will require the links between the worlds of research, policy, and action
to be bridged. Stronger links are necessary to enable information flows about the need for new research and policy
lessons from existing research.
Achieving advances in these directions will require that international development and conservation research
organizations in the region work on building their programmes of research on natural resource governance in a
more focused and systematic fashion innovative than the current status. Part of the problem is that with low and, in
some cases, declining funding for research, it is difficult to allocate substantial resources to crosscutting areas of
knowledge such as governance. Within such constraints, preference continues to be given to biophysical domains
and technical aspects (Verma et al. 2010).
One of the most important issues that governance stakeholders must address is that of trade-offs versus synergies
across outcome dimensions. Addressing this effectively is likely to require far more information that we currently
possess about the characteristics, availability, networks, interactions, and dynamics of different natural resource
ecologies in the region. Data gaps about different natural resources, their governance, and the relationship
between governance strategies and outcomes are widespread. As a result, the conclusions in this background
paper are based on a small number of studies and case-based evidence that follow different research designs, rely
on information that is in fact difficult to compare across sectors and levels of decision making, and use analytical
frameworks and methods that are at times incompatible. Further research is needed in the future to gain greater
confidence in the patterns identified by this paper.
Fortunately, the information networks, modes of sharing, and knowledge base necessary to make informed decisions
and find balance among competing goals have improved tremendously over the past two decades – particularly with
the availability of spatial and remotely sensed data. Yet, for many resources and areas in the region, there is a genuine
lack of needed information, knowledge, and resources. More information and understanding is certainly needed.
What is required most urgently are meaningfully coordinated interdisciplinary research efforts that can generate
comparable information across resource types and governance regimes – as well as across various levels and scales
of decision making – so as to address enduring questions concerning: the extent of reliance of different socio-cultural
groups on different kinds of natural resources; trade-offs across resource outcomes such as livelihoods, biodiversity,
climate adaptation and mitigation, carbon sequestration, or water conservation; how different types and levels of
decision making affect desired outcomes; and the effects of governance versus socioeconomic versus biophysical
factors on outcomes. For instance, governments and international agencies need to invest more resources in creating
better forest and rangeland information and knowledge infrastructure than is currently available.

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EXPERIENCES FROM THE HKH
Data Sharing for Natural Resource Management Governance
By Birendra Bajracharya
The text highlights the potential of satellite information and geospatial tools to support natural resource management (NRM)
governance at the local and national levels through examples of applications developed by the SERVIR-Himlaya initiative.
SERVIR aims to translate satellite data into useful information and streamline access to this information through state-of-the-
art geospatial tools to support informed policy decisions that benefit communities and the planet as a whole.
Natural resource management has many interlinked political, socioeconomic, and natural functions that need a delicate
balance of conservation and livelihood objectives. Availability of reliable information and its transparent use is essential for
good NRM governance. An integrated information management approach combining people, technology, applications,
and data with appropriate tools and procedures is required to support the NRM decision-making process. ICIMOD in
collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) is implementing SERVIR-Himalaya, a regional visualization and monitoring system that
integrates Earth observations such as satellite imagery and forecast models together with in situ data and other knowledge
for timely decision making. Ecosystems and biodiversity are among the thematic priority areas of SERVIR-Himalaya – which
are also essential components in NRM. Two applications that are relevant here are the forest fire detection and monitoring
system in Nepal and the decadal land cover dynamics in Bhutan.
Forest fires are common in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region during summer, with 80,749 fire incidents recorded in the
year 2012, including 3,145 in Nepal. Steep increases in fire incidences and reductions in forest productivity during
dry years are observed in the region, which have the both economic and ecological consequences as forests play an
important role in the livelihood support systems of rural populations. Among the potential impacts of climate change is
a predicted increase in wildfires in forest ecosystems, which means scientific understanding of and capacities for fire
monitoring and mitigation strategies must be strengthened. The system developed by SERVIR-Himalaya detects fire locations
using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data downloaded by a receiving station at ICIMOD. The
system automatically adds important information such as district and village development committee names, land cover,
and elevation to the fire locations by overlaying other data layers. The system then sends email and SMS notifications to
subscribers, which include district forest officers and community forestry users. The information is also published online
in ICIMOD’s mountain geoportal (http://apps.geoportal.icimod.org/NepalForestFire). The system is in operation in
collaboration with the Department of Forests in Nepal, which manages the user database.
This is an example of using available technology to derive information and sharing it with concerned users that can play
important roles in strengthening NRM governance at different levels. Historical information on fire incidences and its
analysis at the regional level gives a better understanding of forest fire trends and impacts on ecosystems. At the national
level, the information supports the development of suitable fire management strategies, damage assessment on fire risk
assessments, and early warning systems by looking at spatial patterns and the times of the year during which there are
onsets of fire. The information will be useful in planning awareness campaigns such as FM radio programmes in the
districts, which are seen as effective means to reach communities. Similarly, the system is designed to store feedback data
for monitoring the responses to each fire incidence at the local level.
Similarly, land cover assessment and the monitoring of its dynamics are essential for the sustainable management of
natural resources, environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, and the livelihoods of people – particularly for
rural communities in the HKH. The application on decadal land cover dynamics in Bhutan shows the changes in land
cover using from data derived from LandSat images from 1990, 2000, and 2010. The information on different land
cover classes and changes from one class to another are made available through an online web application (http://
apps.geoportal.icimod.org/BhutanLandCover). Interactive tools are provided to visualize information both in tabular and
map forms, and explore the changes by overlaying and swiping different data layers. Users can also look at the change
statistics for the whole country or a specific district, zooming into the areas where changes have been taking place over
the last two decades. Land cover is considered a fundamental variable that impacts and links many parts of social and
physical environments. Such information on land cover and forest changes at national and local levels are important
for policy makers dealing with NRM and climate change issues. The spatially disaggregated information will help to
understand changes in the local socioeconomic context.
These applications demonstrate how modern information and communication technologies can be used to generate
information and be made easily accessible to relevant users. The availability of such evidence-based information and its
sharing is indispensable for establishing sound governance mechanisms at national and local levels. The technologies
and skills for creating data sharing platforms are at our disposal. It is now high time to start working on relevant policies
to facilitate and institutionalize data sharing among stakeholders for the benefit of the larger society. Proper management,
maintenance, and access to natural resources data will be valuable to many institutions to reduce the duplication of
efforts. ICIMOD’s mountain geoportal is one such effort to promote the use of GIS and Earth observation applications,
and regional data sharing. Efforts are being made to generate awareness at local and national levels through targeted
communication strategies. Building the capacities of institutions will be key to enabling the people to use available
information and tools in their decision making processes and enhance NRM governance.

52
Making a difference in effective natural resource management governance will also require drawing lessons and
comparative analysis for regional cooperation in the mountains, as appropriate, keeping in mind the best practices
and successful regional governance processes from the Alps, Carpathians, Caucasus, Balkans, etc. Several
mechanisms and institutional arrangements at the development to implementation stages offer opportunities for
improved governance through regional cooperation. One possible mechanism would be the creation of a Himalayan
Council (modelled after the Arctic Council) that is driven by science and research, but also oriented towards dealing
with environmental and policy challenges posed by melting Himalayan glaciers, which will adversely affect millions
of people. Organizations and institutional arrangements such as SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation) and ICIMOD also provide specific models for regional cooperation. SAARC focuses on economic,
social, and geopolitical cooperation among eight member states (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives,
Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) and nine observer states, while ICIMOD focuses on improving cooperation on
improved livelihoods and environments through knowledge management, and it involves eight mountainous member
states (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan).
Another mechanism that is fully operational is SERVIR-Himalaya (in partnership with NASA, USA), which aims to
improve environmental decision making in the region through the analysis, application, and dissemination of earth
observation and geospatial information. Such efforts are useful to a range of natural resource management issues,
stakeholders, and decision makers at different scales and levels – governments, donors, development practitioners,
researchers and scientists, civil societies, and communities – for transboundary issues that could benefit from
connecting space information to practical applications in villages. Another institutional arrangement that is being
taken forward is the development of the Himalayan University Consortium, which brings together universities from
around the region for enhancing research and knowledge, curricula development, learning and teaching, capacity
and institutional strengthening, and the exchange of information regarding key mountain subjects and issues. This
initiative aims to address some of the challenges that universities in the region may be encountering in terms of
capacities, funding, and recognition.
Regional cooperation offers enormous potential to advance the theoretical and empirical frontiers of natural resource
management governance. Cooperation with leading research organizations is possible within multiple resource domains.
Regional organizations have tremendous opportunities to overcome the so-far siloed nature of research on governance
by moving across levels and scales of analysis, resource countries. However, their success gender equality, requires
a systematic design of research protocols around ethics, institutional accountability and transparency, meaningful
participation, knowledge sharing, equity, gender equality, and interdisciplinarity across ongoing and future projects.
Opportunities and possibilities abound in terms of strengthening the research and policy relevance of natural resource
management governance, given the demand that exists for useful research that is rigorous, systematic, grounded,
and applicable
among donors,
decision makers,
and researchers
from the South.
To achieve this
will require due
attention to be
paid towards
training, capacity
strengthening,
and networking
possibilities, which
to some extent still
remain unexplored
and under-
researched in the
region.

53
7. Conclusions
The research and review presented in this paper lead us to seven key conclusions and related recommendations
that can enhance research on governance and lead to a stronger relationship between governance research and
decision making.
Recommendations
Our first recommendation flows from the fact that developing a focused research programme on governance across
natural resource management research projects and research organizations is important and does not require
substantial new funding. A programme on governance can help identify key opportunities that can strengthen
knowledge-policy linkages and a two-way flow of information and knowledge. We therefore recommend that such
a programme needs to be and should be established by regional organizations and organizations in the region.
The second recommendation concerns the identification and relevance of governance in ongoing data collection
efforts (i.e., how it is exercised, forms, and effectiveness), and the need to address hard data problems and gaps.
The governance knowledge-policy interface programme should be charged with addressing data gaps as one of its
key tasks.
Our third recommendation concerns funds needed for governance research. Many bilateral organizations (for
example, Department for International Development (DFID), Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
(Norad), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), etc.) are interested in supporting governance
and resource management related work that match their mandates in terms of specific resource domains (for
instance, at the time of writing, forest governance for NORAD; livelihoods and governance for DFID), as well as
in the context of cross-sectoral funding (eg., from DFID). Making concerted efforts to raise funds for governance
research is necessary to increase and strengthen capacity.
Our fourth recommendation concerns the need for capacity building in relation to governance research in the HKH
region. Mechanisms to develop such capacity could be new trans-disciplinary trainings and summer courses around
natural resource management governance for different stakeholders ranging from researchers to policy makers and
civil society members. Such courses are likely to find substantial interest if they are undertaken systematically.
Our fifth recommendation also concerns capacity building for governance research. Efforts at organizing training
seminars and summer courses can be usefully synergized with the creation of a regional governance network that
reaches out to researchers, civil society organizations, government officials, donors, rural organizations, the private
sector, and so forth. Such a network will also have the effect of greatly increasing the visibility of regional knowledge
and resource centres for work on governance.
Our sixth recommendation focuses on the human resource needs for staffing such a governance-policy interface
programme. Dedicated governance research positions for work on governance will likely pay for themselves and
more in terms of impacts and outcomes – not to mention fundraising.
Our seventh and final recommendation is that a knowledge network on governance has the potential to bring both
small and large countries in the HKH together given the universal interest in effective governance. We recommend,
therefore, that such networks are created and sustained so that institutional arrangements can bring together both
small and large countries into dialogue.
In addition to the above, it is worth noting that, although governance is critical for the sustainable, equitable,
and effective management of natural resources and the environment in the HKH, it remains an under-researched
subject area in the region. The limited research on governance, sustainability, and natural resources is all the more

54
lamentable because a rigorous research programme on the subject has tremendous potential to translate scientific
findings into practice, and to improve the science-policy interface in the region.
While governance research cuts across many disciplinary efforts and considerations, it is not always part of the
central conceptual frameworks of many natural resource management projects and programmes. The assumption
is often that governance will just ‘happen’ on its own. However, unless research efforts, resources, and conceptual
frameworks explicitly integrate governance issues, a crucial component of human-environmental relations will
remain unknown. Moreover, critical opportunities for positive outcomes with regard to effective governance,
its implementation, and participation in decision making will be lost. Or worse, well-intended development
interventions will likely fail or negatively impact the women, men, and children that they are intended to benefit.
If well thought out mechanisms, implementation processes, and institutional arrangements for effective governance
are made central to research, action, and policy making, it would be more likely that outcomes effectively address
economic poverty, wellbeing, and environmental conservation issues. Although governance improvements can
address failures in development and natural resource depletion, they can also do much more. Equitable and
participatory governance involving effective mechanisms and processes can support everyday practices, decisions,
rules, actors, and norms towards environmental sustainability and improved livelihoods. Research on governance
issues can help determine the extent to which actions related to development and conservation programmes are
aligned with their design, as well as question their design with respect to the everyday lives, ecological needs, and
realities women and men.
The Hindu Kush Himalayan region is experiencing rapid changes driven by climate change, geopolitical shifts,
globalization, development, etc., which impact local communities and their environments in crucial ways. The
need for effective, participatory, and equitable governance has never been more critical. Likewise, the need for
collaboration, cooperation, and knowledge sharing across national boundaries is important for the region. This
can be achieved through innovative governance mechanisms and processes that focus on effective institutions,
information, and incentives for implementation. To make this happen, research on the management of natural
resources must break free from the siloed approach of the past that focused on biophysical factors, and instead
head towards one where issues of governance and associated sociopolitical issues play a central role. This is
essential given that, in reality, governance issues permeate and mediate all human-environmental relations. When
governance becomes central in the conceptual and implementing framework for understanding and managing
natural resources, it will be possible to holistically achieve goals of sustainability, and equity and wellbeing.
This review paper has identified both a framework for the analysis of governance by identifying information,
incentives, and institutions as the key components for understanding how decision makers can influence resource
management outcomes, as well as a structure for analysing concrete governance interventions in different resource
domains. The framework for analysis builds on a substantial body of work on governance and prepares the ground
for the set of seven recommendations that we have outlined. We believe that action on these recommendations will
position regional organizations in the region as important locations for research on governance, help them achieve
their goals for informing natural resource decision making in the region, and create new channels for connecting
research with policy making that enables positive outcomes for people, sentient beings and their environments.

55
Part V
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56

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9. Appendix – Author Biographies
Lead Authors
Arun Agrawal is a professor at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. He
works on natural resource governance and international development in the Himalayas, and has authored several
books including Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects (2005, Duke University
Press) and Greener Pastures: Markets, State, and Community among a Migrant Pastoralist People. His research
has appeared in Science, PNAS, Global Environmental Change, Conservation Biology, World Development, and
Development and Change, among other journals. He is editor-in-chief of the journal World Development.
Ritu Verma is an adjunct professor and founder/coordinator of the Wenner Gren Institutional Development Grant
at the College of Language and Culture Studies, Royal Government of Bhutan; Senior Researcher and Strategic
Advisor at the Tarayana Centre for Social Research and Development; Director of Out of the Box Research and
Action, and a member of the international expert working group for the Royal Government’s New Development
Paradigm. She works on the anthropology of development and natural resource governance in the Buddhist
Himalayas and east and southern Africa, and has authored several books including Beyond the Bio-Physical:
Knowledge, Culture and Power in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (2010, Springer) and Gender,
Land and Livelihoods: Through Farmers’ Eyes (2001, IDRC). Her work has appeared in the Journal of Peasant
Studies, Journal of Political Ecology, Druk Journal, Feminist Economics, and MRD, among other journals.
Text Box Authors
Kamal Aryal is a natural resource management analyst at ICIMOD. He holds an MSc in biodiversity from the
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. He has 12 years of work experience in community-based natural
resource management and biodiversity conservation, and has published a number of papers.
Birendra Bajracharya is currently the acting regional programme manager of the Mountain Environment Regional
Information System (MENRIS) at ICIMOD. He holds an MSc in geo-informatics and has worked on decision support
systems, GIS and remote sensing applications in the field of natural resources, biodiversity, conservation planning,
and protected area management.
Muhammad Ismail from Pakistan joined ICIMOD as a researcher for the ecosystem services theme in 2005 and
has been working in natural resource management and development since 1999. Currently, he is leading a team
of multidisciplinary professionals working on rangelands, climate change science, the economic valuation of
ecosystem services, biodiversity, and the promotion of the transboundary landscapes transects of the Karakoram-
Pamir landscape.
Srijana Joshi, as an Ecosystem specialist within Ecosystem Service Thematic Area at ICIMOD. She holds a PhD on
evolutionary ecology of invasive plants from University of Tuebingen, Germany and a Master Degree in Ecology
from Tribhuvan University. She is a plant ecologist with over eight years of experience in the field of Ecology. She
joined ICIMOD in 2011 and was involved in conducting action research program for promoting sustainable
ecosystem services for rangeland areas in Hindu Kush Himalayan region.
Seema Karki is a research associate at ICIMOD. Enlisted under the dean’s list for her MSc on natural resources,
she is currently leading action research on REDD+, biodiversity, and climate change issues to form the basis for
upscaling/downscaling climate change models to develop resilience strategies. She has published papers on
biodiversity and REDD+.

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Manohara Khadka, a gender specialist at ICIMOD, has a PhD from the International Institute of Social studies and
an MSc in natural resources management from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. For the past 18 years, she
has been engaged extensively in the programmatic, policy, and research aspects of forestry, water resources, and
agricultural development with a focus on gender, social inclusion, and institutional change processes.
Rajan Kotru is the regional programme manager for Transboundary Landscapes at ICIMOD. He has a PhD
from the Ludwig-Maximillians University, Germany. For over 25 years, he has been conceptualizing and steering
policy- and practice-level research and development cooperation projects in watershed management, forestry and
livelihoods, local governance, monitoring and impact evaluation, and institutional building.
Hari Krishna Nibanupudi is a senior disaster risk reduction specialist at ICIMOD. He has over 18 years of
experience in disaster diplomacy, governance, leadership development, and institutional building. He is a certified
trainer on water diplomacy from Tufts University and is a recipient of the Mary Fran Myers Award (2013) for his
contributions to disaster risk reduction.
Wu Ning is the theme leader for ecosystem services at ICIMOD. He is an expert on alpine rangeland and
wetland ecology. He is a professor at the Chengdu Institute of Biology, CAS and has published over 150 peer-
reviewed articles in international academic journals, on various topics about environmental change and ecosystem
management in HKH region.
Karma Phuntsho is a natural resource policy specialist at ICIMOD. He has an MSc in forestry from the then Indian
Forest College, Dehra Dhun, and an MSc in earth resources from Colorado State University. He has worked for the
Royal Government of Bhutan for over two and a half decades, and has managerial and developmental experience
in community-based natural resource management, integrated conservation and development, conservation
finance, protected area management, and development management related to agriculture, livestock and forestry.
Shahriar Wahid is a water management expert and has conducted research on transboundary water issues, climate
change impact on hydrology, and land degradation in Asia. He enjoys experimenting with various interdisciplinary
techniques to decipher complex water-food-energy nexuses. As an enthusiastic scholar, he has extensively published
in many journals and books.

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