Synthesis of an e-discussion on Sustainable Mountain Development in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region
Rio: 1992 to 2012
20 years and still counting
Where do we stand in promoting sustainable mountain development?
May 2011
Synthesis of an e-discussion by Dr Sudhirendar Sharma
Twenty years ago the historic United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held at Rio de Janeiro, had brought sustainable development on the forefront of global attention through a prescriptive agenda - Agenda 21. Elaborating on the interconnectivity between environment and environment, the agenda had identified series of programs to be ratified and implemented by the member states. Mountains as exclusive ecological niches featured in Chapter 13 of the ambitious Agenda. With focus on sustainable mountain agenda, two predominant action points were listed to address the fragility of mountain ecosystems:
- Generating and strengthening knowledge about the ecology and sustainable development
- Promoting integrated watershed development for conservation and livelihood generation
Following the Rio Summit, not only was the Agenda 21 ratified by member countries but new initiatives were launched at various levels too. Two decades later, Rio+20 provide an excellent opportunity to assess the achievements till date and count the challenges that lie ahead in the pursuit of sustainable mountain development.
Having played a stellar role in drafting Chapter 13, the task of assessing the progress on sustainable mountain development in the Hindu-Kush Himalayas has been entrusted on ICIMOD. As a member of the global Mountain Partnership Consortium (MPC), the objectives of the Regional Assessment Report have been generic in nature:
- To take stock of what has, and what has not, been achieved in promoting sustainable mountain development since 1992 in different parts of the region
- To learn what has worked and what has not -- and why
- To identify current and future challenges and to explore pathways and opportunities on how these can be addressed in the context of the HKH mountains
- To identify the role of different stakeholders and to propose a ’plan of work’ towards the preparation of a draft regional report by September 2011
In the run up to the preparation of the status report, that will be ready for pre-conference global presentation as well as for distribution during the Rio 2012 conference, a series of steps in the assessment process have been planned. A virtual discussion to get a feel of issues, concerns and challenges have been the series opener.
Mountains matter
The pervasive notion that the mountains are distinct `ecosystems’ which must be preserved is seemingly passé'. The renewed understanding on its connectivity to everything downstream and its regulatory role in global climate regimes has brought mountains back into serious contention as areas of strategic priority, both for building ecosystem integrity as well as for ensuring human survival. The forceful transformation in the recent past and the resultant impact on account of development interventions, enhanced mass communication and rapid market expansion have further accentuated the need to view mountains differently.
While the Rio 1992 action points on sustainable mountain development have been vigorously pursued, the shift in focus on green economy and institutional framework has necessitated a perspective review of the same. Between now and the upcoming summit, in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, the governments will work overtime to provide fresh inputs in guiding the global negotiations on mainstreaming environmental concerns.
In parallel, several knowledge platforms and advocacy networks across the world will contribute to governmental efforts towards developing the Rio+20 agenda. The insights from the electronic discussion being reported on these pages have been aimed to feed into the process about what has worked and what hasn't in the Hindu-Kush Himalayas since Rio 1992. This synthesis report together with a set of case studies from across the region will help in weaving the Regional Assessment Report from the Hindu Kush Himalayas.
| Virtual Dialogue Working closely with other members of the Mountain Partnership Consortium (MPC), especially the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation (SDC), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), ICIMOD has been motivated to contribute to a global status report on `sustainable mountain development’ for Rio+20. Mandated to contribute to the advancement and improvement of the living conditions of the mountain communities in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region, ICIMOD contribution to the status report has been considered strategically significant. With a view to set-up a consultative process for developing a status report, an electronic discussion on Sustainable Mountain Development in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region was held from April 4-24, 2011. Attracting as many as 200 contributions from 296 participants, representing 28 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and North and Latin America, the e-discussion was enriched by wide-ranging contributions on issues in the context of sustainable mountain development. The virtual dialogue was led by a team which played complementary roles in keeping the conversation tuned to the questions/issues under reference. Coordinator: Madhav Karki Moderator: Sudhirendar Sharma Administrator: Tek Jung Mahat |
Significantly lot of knowledge about mountains is already in the public domain: from resource endowment to mountain variability and from distinct approaches to impending challenges. In addition, there are innumerable issues (ranging from water, farming, roads, communication, migration, wildlife, urbanization etc) that communities and governments continue to grapple with. To top it all, disconnect between `policy’ and `practice’ poses a formidable institutional and governance challenge.
Each week, a set of questions were posed to the discerning participants and discussants. Far from being answered, some of the questions generated additional questions. The crucial question remains: should there be answers to all that is questioned? French anthropologist & ethnologist Claude Levi-Strauss had rightly remarked: `the researcher is not a person who gives the right answers he is one who asks the right questions.'
Week 1
Understanding different mountain systems and their contribution to providing goods and services
Mountain ecology is highly complex, reflecting interplay of several interdependent and inter-related features. Within the ambit of people-centered sustainable mountain development, however, it is either the resource perspective or the livelihood perspective that comes to the fore. Being source of water, minerals and biological diversity, mountains’ worth is economically assessed in the form of forest products, agricultural outputs and associated recreational value. Curiously, however, economic valuation of mountains limits its ecological protection.
That some 20 percent of the world’s population directly depends on the mountain resources characterizes their economic significance. But vulnerability on account of inadequate appreciation of mountain specificity has amplified the impact of anthropogenic activities induced through rather unplanned implementation of infrastructural development activities. Barring few exceptions, promoting sustainability as a guiding principle of growth and development in the mountains haven’t yet been systematically introduced.
Sustained outmigration compensated through remittances has only added to the woes of mountain people. Developing mountain specific economic activities for sustaining livelihoods alongside ecosystem protection is a developmental challenge that policy planners have yet to come to terms with. In recent years, concepts like `value chain development’, `payment for ecosystem services’ (PES) and `reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation’ (REDD+) have been mooted as potential new approaches that may help resolve the conservation-development riddle.
Though it holds promise, promoting local economy through economic valuation of services is beset with several unresolved operational, managerial and policy issues. How and who will value ecosystem services? How can payment for services protect natural resources? How benefits will get equitable shared? What institutional mechanism would protect over-exploitation of natural resources in the guise of ecological services? Given the cultural connectivity of local population to the mountains, compensating ecology with economics may have serious social implications.
While role and contribution of mountains in providing goods and services to downstream users remains grossly under-valued, imposing `external’ political order through economic-engineering of services may aggravate the same through alteration of local perceptions and local attachments to their environment. The rapid transformation through which the mountains and its inhabitants are going through warrants re-moulding of social relations based on green accounting of mountain resources.
Week 2
What are the issues, challenges and opportunities in sustainable mountain development?
Rich in contents and perspectives, second week evoked discussions on challenges confronting sustainable mountain development, that if properly confronted could lead to an array of opportunities. Curiously, there were compelling questions around each of the issues under discussion: from education outreach to capacity building; from women empowerment to forced vulnerability; from unemployed youth to distressed migration; from green economy to mountain responsive business; from peoples' wisdom to effective governance.
The discussion generated a feeling that it-is-all-there in terms of addressing the challenges, showcased through demonstrated projects, but not-much-is-in-place in reality though. Either as autonomous community initiatives or specific project interventions, such initiatives does provide ample opportunities for their scaling up. In reality, however, majority of such cases exist in institutional vacuum awaiting their up scaling. The very fact such initiatives do exist provide an opportunity to rebuild practice-policy disconnect.
In the context of autonomous community initiatives, the crucial question relates to whether there has been increased focus on `projects' at the cost of developing `processes' that has led to a plethora of `products’ but limited `prescription' to scale the impact? The gaps that create undesirable hurdles in converting driving principles from the `projects' to create `processes' continue to exist at different levels within the social, economic and political systems. It has been agreed that `projects' don't last but `systems' do, howsoever inadequate or inappropriate these might be in the present context!
Since processes are rarely put into practice, prescriptions for sustainable mountain development do not emerge. `Prescription' is based on tested experience to cure maladies. It was also pointed out that care ought to be exercised in applying prescriptions as these do have side-effects. Many submissions subtly hinted at such possibilities. Only successful experiences with prescriptions should be scaled up. Ironically, several initiatives currently being implemented may have limited prescriptive experience and hence not worthy of bringing about desired change.
Empower communities and they exit the system; educate youth and they out migrate; enhance connectivity and the poor get marginalized. These and much more, each prescriptive action has an in-built array of side-effects often not perceived at the beginning. Yet, each of such actions need to be developed, applied across diverse locations in an adaptive manner such that next generation of initiatives handle the situation effectively. Advocacy through multi-stakeholder participation has been held crucial in scaling up the impact of autonomous initiatives.
The discussants agreed that there is no simple one-size-fit-all solution to the multiplicity of issues in the mountains. Devising several 10 per cent solutions may be desirable, with provision for 80 per cent add-on within the given degree of mountain specificity. The challenge is to convert `comparative advantage’ within a given situation into its `competitive advantage’.
Week 3
How mountain systems can provide strategic way forward for getting sustainable development on the Rio+20 Agenda?
Are people the drivers of change in the mountains or are powers-that-be the real drivers? For some it is both and for some other colonial baggage of institutions has been the predominant driver. Change by definition is slow but inevitable, both spatial as well as temporal. The core question is whether the change has been for better or for worst. Historically speaking, argued a contributor, mountains in this part of the world have been the safest refuge for people who escaped the violence of wars unleashed in the plains. The prevailing peace and tranquility allowed them to develop unique socio-cultural `bonding’ with the mountains. However, due to neglect, marginality and poverty, the mountain communities are seemingly in conflict with the processes of decentralization, devolution and governance.
However, change enforced by respective regimes has been at the cost of prevailing peace and harmony of co-existence in the mountains. Peace has meant more than just the absence of war in the mountains. New kinds of conflicts over sharing and appropriating resources have been simmering all across, going beyond the capacity of the traditional social institutions in the mountains. Seemingly beyond repair, the changes ushered in the past can only be reversed by engaging and connecting with diverse mountain dwellers; by creating a neo-institutional mechanism of nurturing green economy; and by investing in developing technology conducive to the fragile geo-morphology of the Himalayas.
Translating good intentions into smart actions would warrant re-thinking on institutional development and governance: There is downstream demographic push to extract more resources and put pressure on the ecological balance. Multi-pronged strategy through education of people, development of good policies, and creation of institutions spaces could help in creative management of growing demand on mountain resources and services. Learning from local cultures and rebuilding on local knowledge could be crucial driver of change.
The trans-boundary nature of resources and cross-boundary relations in managing the mountain resources have yet to get attention that it deserves. Should not the countries of the region develop policies, programs, regulations and institutions for sustainable development of the Hindu Kush Himalayas? Only through cross-scale and cross-border linkages can the complexities of equitable sharing of natural resources across diverse social systems be fathomed. Clearly, there is a case for negotiating out-of-box management system for sustainable management of the mountains.
It is understood that a diverse group people are aiming to influence the Rio+20 agenda are positioning the `green economy’ as an upgrade to the concept of `sustainable development’ that was agreed on 20 years ago. The crucial question is: what form of the green economy can be a good instrument for addressing the problems faced by mountains? Like the concept of sustainable development, which has limitations in terms of its interpretation and actual application, green economy too can be applied at cross purposes.
It is clear that the proposed or evolving development and institutional frameworks for any low-carbon or green growth agenda should clearly and properly reflect the needs and aspirations of the mountain people so that they can transform the ever present vicious cycle of population growth, environment degradation, and poverty into virtuous cycle of a balanced population growth, sustainable management of ecosystem services and fulfillment of minimum basic needs of the people. These could be the real driver of change.
What next?
From the e-discussion it can be safely concluded that the Post Rio history from the perspective of sustainable mountain development has not been a success story! Partly because the multiple crises such as climate change, energy crises, food insecurity, market meltdown, increased disasters and growing conflicts have added new and serious challenges before us. Together, these global drivers of change have made the mountain communities more vulnerable and less resilient. The resultant impact on downstream could indeed be more severe.
It is evident, that the Mountain Agenda cannot be revived for the sake of the mountains alone. It would need to be argued from the upstream-downstream perspective, showing the importance of the mountain system in a wider comprehensive context. Trade regimes, cross border co-operation, knowledge management and common markets could be the new rallying points for developing a comprehensive agenda for the mountains. A shift from piecemeal watershed approach to higher level of cross-sector integration is vital for addressing the impending challenges. The mountains specific institutions would need to enhance their capacities and knowledge base, because 21st century problems cannot be solved by 20th century institutions.
The e-discussion has captured the essential contours of the emerging issues and impending challenges. In the lead up to the Rio+20 summit the task will be to get stronger, incremental and meaningful political and financial commitments from the summit leaders so that the mountain friendly programs and instruments get the desired impetus for converting the green opportunities into economic incentives for the vulnerable communities in the mountains. Least developed and developing mountain countries and regions will need easy development finance, simple technology transfer mechanisms, and equally important, concessional market access.
The role and importance of ecosystem goods and services in/from the mountains has increased with clear recognition that they have equal or higher role for the outside world. The global view of mountains has also shifted towards developing better understanding on the specificity of the mountain systems in developing countries. Enhanced appreciation of mountains as the drivers of change is perfectly timed for renewed attention to the issues and challenges for developing a mountain agenda that is not only out-of-box but imaginative and forward looking too, not only for the mountain dwellers but also for those who live downstream.
Without doubt, we all live downstream!
Dr Sudhirendar Sharma
May 2011
More about the e-discussion at http://www.icimod.org/?q=3193
