IUCN Releases "Using the World Heritage Convention to Protect the Hindu Kush-Himalayas"

On 16 December 2021, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released its report Leveraging the World Heritage Convention for Conservation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, which focuses on an independent assessment of the potential of the World Natural Heritage. The report lists seven vast areas in the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains where new World Natural Heritage sites can be discovered. It also identifies possible extensions of existing World Heritage Sites, such as the area north of Mount Everest in China, which would allow southern Nepal to complete the already listed Sagarmatha National Park. Many areas identified as having World Heritage potential may cross national borders or supplement adjacent areas of neighbouring countries for inscription on the World Heritage List. For example, the names of the world's highest peaks – Mount Everest, Sagamatta, Chomolengma or Jumranma – were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979, but only on the Nepalese side. According to the new report, in order for the entire mountain to gain this status and benefit from intergovernmental protection, a process of placing the region on the Chinese side can be envisaged.

The Himalayas are often defined as a rugged arc between the Tibetan Plateau and the Ganges Plain, stretching from the Indus River in the northwest to the Great Bend of the Brahmaputra River in the east. The Himalayas themselves are the center of a vast continuous fold and ridge of bulges, sometimes referred to as High Asia. The assessment uses the definition of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region used by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). According to this definition, the region is far beyond the Himalayas and includes all or part of 12 distinguishable mountain ranges that stretch about 3,500 kilometers from Afghanistan to Myanmar. The region's natural and cultural wealth is as breathtaking as its beauty, as are its vast ecosystem services, which underpin the livelihoods, food security and energy supply of a large part of the world's population in the region itself and in the many major lower reaches of the region's many major rivers. Since time immemorial, the HKH region has been home to different ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious and belief systems, interdependent and interacting with mountain landscapes and their resources. Complex local and indigenous knowledge systems, practices and profound spirituality are the result of this long-term co-evolution. From an ecological point of view, the vast HKH region not only contains the highest vertical gradients on land, but also the diversity of ecosystems and habitats is unparalleled on huge east-west and north-south gradients. Filled with life in all its forms, it is the meeting point of four biodiversity hotspots unique in the world, and there are still many biological secrets to be revealed.

Clearly, such a special region is of great importance with intergovernmental agreements aimed at identifying and protecting the world's most precious cultural and natural heritage, the World Heritage Convention. While several World Heritage sites in the HKH area have been inscribed on the List over the decades and others have been identified as promising candidate sites, there is currently no comprehensive and up-to-date situation analysis. Nearly 50 years after the birth of the World Heritage Convention, it was felt that now was a good time to address this surprising information gap by assessing the Convention's past use and future potential in the region. A partnership-based project was formed that combined the unique mission and unparalleled technical expertise of ICIMOD with the role of World Heritage and the expertise of IUCN, a member of which ICIMOD is formed. This assessment, which was the main outcome of the project, was achieved by bringing together ICIMOD member States and applicable neighbouring countries from 8 regions in order to find common ground in regional nature conservation priorities and how best to use the Convention as a lever for their conservation, including beyond national borders. Simply put, the HKH region is biogeographically and ecologically unmatched due to its combination of size, diversity and extremes. The mosaics of landscapes, ecosystems and habitats are reflected in the equally stunning ethnic and cultural diversity and intricately linked to it. In recent comprehensive analyses, demographic change, economic growth, increasing demand at the local to global levels, climate change and weak governance systems have been the main drivers of change. In particular, the peripheral and remote areas of the HKH region are becoming more attractive for resource extraction, as the resources of the more accessible places have been depleted. The impact of demand from outside the region is becoming increasingly important, with a striking example being hydropower development, often to meet demand outside the HKH region. Culturally and naturally, the region's special conservation values coincide with special threats and challenges. The assessment clearly reaffirms that the HKH region stands out globally for its unique natural and cultural wealth and diversity, where the World Heritage Convention is clearly underutilized. The following general conclusions and recommendations set out entry points for a more systematic use of the Convention:

Recommendation 1: Systematically revisit existing World Heritage Sites to analyze options for consolidating and expanding them through continuous and/or serial extensions.

Recommendation 2: When revisiting existing World Heritage Sites, special consideration should be given to the option of continuous or serial expansion across national and local borders, where applicable and feasible.

Recommendation 3: Systematically analyse options for combining World Heritage and ICIMOD Cross-Border Landscape Initiative, using existing properties and sites on the tentative list as anchors and seeds for more comprehensive and ambitious conservation efforts, where applicable.

Recommendation 4: Systematically consider the large gaps that have been identified when revising the provisional list or natural or mixed World Heritage initiatives in the region. The large gaps that merit further analysis include: (1) the cold winter deserts of the HKH region; (2) the eastern and western Himalayan broadleaf and coniferous forests; (3) the subtropical forest ecoregion of Meghalaya; (4) the alpine shrublands and meadows of the Eastern Himalayas (adjacent to the aforementioned Eastern Himalayan broadleaf and coniferous forests) ;(5) parts of the forests in northern Myanmar that overlap with the HKH region, sometimes referred to as the Northern Triangle subtropical forests and the Northern Triangle temperate forests, respectively; (6) one consisting of Afghanistan, China, A large conservation complex consisting of six large protected areas in Pakistan and Tajikistan, with a combined area of more than 3.3 million hectares. The complex is the center of the Hindu Kush karakoram pamir landscape of ICIMOD and is also a possible World Heritage gap in the northwestern part of the HKH region, which deserves further analysis; (7) the river is a culturally, religious and spiritually revered landscape element of the HKH region and is also a natural corridor. At a time when hydropower development in the HKH region is increasing dramatically, free-flowing rivers are becoming increasingly rare. Effective conservation measures, including the Convention, are essential if any meaningful representation of the untamed rivers of the world's tallest mountains and their biodiversity is to be preserved.

Recommendation 5: Recognizing the lack of structured information to assess the potential of the region in accordance with the World Heritage Criteria (viii), consider conducting thematic studies of the region with a view to initiating an overdue structured regional approach to geological heritage in accordance with the Convention.

Recommendation 6: Systematically consider all hints of candidate sites for new nominations and/or consecutive and/or existing properties serial extensions. All situations require further analysis, which will help to better understand the potential or inadequacy of World Heritage: (1) India's Kancheng Jangga National Park is often described as a protected gemstone, with intricate links to several other areas of global conservation importance. From a technical point of view, the most obvious "candidate area for expansion" is the adjacent Gancheng Jangga Peak Conservation Area in Nepal. In Bhutan, China, India and Nepal, there are many conservation areas of great conservation importance nearby; (2) Nepal's Sagamatta National Park includes part of the world's tallest mountain, and part of the coverage follows political boundaries rather than protection grounds. From a technical point of view, it is clearly possible to make more meaningful World Heritage coverage of the peak of the earth; (3) the boundaries of several components of the Yunnan Parallel Flow Conservation Area in China coincide with the national and local borders, and although it is already a large and complex series of properties, projects extending to the neighboring Sichuan, Tibet Autonomous Region and/or Myanmar are worthy of technical analysis; (4) various heritage sites in Sichuan Province, China (Jiuzhaigou Scenic Area, Huanglong Scenic Area, Sichuan Giant Panda Reserve - Wolong, Siguniang Mountain and Sandwich Mountain) are both embedded in larger landscapes with the highest conservation priorities and may benefit from continuous or serial expansion, with the area likely to even receive new independent nominations. From a technical point of view, all options deserve further review; (5) the Manas Wildlife Sanctuary in India is an existing heritage that continues to emerge as part of a larger landscape with the highest conservation significance. Although only on the fringes of the HKH region, the region depends on the HKH region, with which it is ecologically, hydrologically and culturally linked. Bhutan's adjacent Royal Manas National Park appears to be an apparent "sister park" that deserves further analysis; (6) Nepal's Chitwan National Park is part of the Nepalese and Indian Lowland Conservation Group located in the Telley Lowlands, sometimes referred to as the Telle Arc. Populations of flagship species such as rhinos, elephants and tigers require conservation measures outside of relatively small national parks. Therefore, if the heritage is to maintain its biodiversity value, a more ambitious World Heritage approach is recommended, and potential expansion must be further analysed with a focus on integrity; (7) Sao Wusand National Park and Upper Dopo in Nepal are rare cases of strong local interest in World Heritage nominations. Further analysis is recommended due to the large size, integrity and overlap of recognized conservation priorities in remote areas; (8) in a specific study, the Sanjiangyuan of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Brahmaputra Grand Canyon Nature Reserve in China were listed as World Heritage Sites; (9) the central Karakoram Mountains in Pakistan, which may include adjacent areas in India and China; and (10) from the perspective of desert conservation, the Band-Emir of Afghanistan and the Hunza Valley in Karakoram, Pakistan deserve further consideration.

Please indicate the source and author when reprinting this article: Resources and Environment Dynamic Monitoring Express, Lanzhou Documentation and Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 1, 2022, compiled by Wei Yanhong.