Home to four biodiversity hotspots, six UNESCO natural World Heritage Sites, 30 Ramsar sites, 330 IBAs and a diverse array of cultures hosting more than 1000 languages, the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region is truly a global asset in the fight against biocultural loss. But its future is at stake. Rifts and inequities between the 1.9 billion stakeholders who manage and depend on the region for food, water, energy and resources are placing unprecedented pressure on its ecological and cultural systems, and driving widespread declines in the species, traditions and languages that it sustains.
In this paper, ICIMOD makes an urgent call to action on the region’s deterioration, bringing to light the multi-dimensional challenges afflicting its peoples and ecosystems, while flagging the processes and transformations that COVID-19 will amplify and accelerate unless mitigated.
Watch the corresponding session that took place at the GLF Biodiversity Digital Conference: One World – One Health here: The Hindu Kush Himalayan Call for Action: Maintaining the ‘Pulse of the Planet’
