The United Nations has declared 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP 2026). This presents an opportunity to draw global attention to these threatened and ignored ecosystems and showcase the incredible diversity, beauty, and challenges of life and livelihoods in the highlands of the HKH.

Covering nearly 60% of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH), rangelands sustain 25-30 million pastoralists and house 90% of the world’s approximately 20 million yaks and yak-hybrids. These critical landscapes provide essential ecosystem services including biodiversity, forage, medicinal plants, carbon sequestration (process of storing carbon in a carbon pool), and water.

 

Conserving, managing and sustainably using rangelands offers NbS to key challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and food security. It also addresses environmental degradation, water scarcity, and local unemployment. Under HI-REAP, we support Bhutan and Nepal  in piloting rangeland restoration technologies including prescribed burning, shrub and weed removal, water management, reseeding, and haymaking. We also support integrating grazing management into governance, developing participatory planning for ecosystem services, adopting evidence-based policies, and strengthening institutional capacity for sustainable rangeland management. 

Bhutan’s rangelands face growing threats from climate change, shift in pastoral uses and absence of management interventions due to policy restrictions. The revised Forest and Nature Conservation Act (2023) promotes NbS for restoration. The Government of Bhutan is redistributing pastures (tsamdro) to the herders, granting usage and management rights, conditional on households submitting a management plan. 

HI-REAP is supporting Bhutan’s Department of Forests and Park Services (DoFPS) to:

The lessons learned will refine these materials into a national Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

Burning has been an age-old traditional, fast and low-cost tool used by Indigenous communities to manage forests and rangelands. Low to mid intensity burning can promote plant growth, enhance nutrient availability, control unwanted species and enhance the vitality of ecosystems. According to a research article by Xiao Wu et al. (2023), “Frequent low-intensity fires can also reduce the risk of catastrophic fires, preventing large scale carbon emissions from the ecosystems.” 

In Bhutan as well as in other countries of the region, decades of policy restrictions on fire use have left pastures unattended. Physical removal of woody shrubs, weeds and invasive species from the area is nearly impossible as it will be labour-intensive. The resultant shrinking availability of fodder is impacting both wildlife and the herding communities.

Realising this, the Government of Bhutan in its Forest and Nature Conservation Act (2023) has allowed  the use of prescribed burning for habitat management. Responding to this policy, HI-REAP is supporting DoFPS to develop, customise and demonstrate a SOP and build the institutional capability for carrying out prescribed burns in the field.

This revival of controlled burning directly supports Bhutan's tsamdro management plans.

While fire restores pasture health, protecting these areas requires infrastructure, leading to our next solution – solar-powered corral fencing, an enclosure designed to contain and manage livestock. HI-REAP with its partners piloted these fencing in Bhutan’s Thimphu district to reduce the risk of rangeland degradation caused by localised animal trampling, and address livestock predation by wildlife. After eight months, a survey with 16 highland yak herding households confirmed its effectiveness. 

Herders mentioned that solar-powered corral fencing has reduced labour (especially for women), decreased wood/bamboo use for fencing, and enabled climate-smart herding by increasing mobility and reducing livestock losses to predators.

Earlier, some herders reported losses of up to 25 yaks in a year; this is now down to 0-2 yaks, and even these losses occurred during extreme events or when the battery energising the corral failed. 

To know more about solar-powered corral fencing and herders’ experience, watch this video.

Watch this video to learn more about our rangeland work in Bhutan, including tsamdro management and corral fencing.

While Bhutan focuses on policy-driven restoration (tsamdro plans) and ecological tools (burning, fencing), Nepal adopts a pastoralist-first approach – testing forage solutions and incentive models tailored to herders’ needs.

Winter fodder shortage is a major challenge in high-altitude rangelands. We are partnering with the Nepal Agricultural Research Council to pilot the cultivation of winter forage crops in Langtang and Gatlang, northern Nepal. 

Our team is conducting fenced trial pilots to evaluate five forage species, ranging from protein-rich white clover to resilient wild rye varieties, all selected for their suitability in high-altitude conditions. The aim is to assess their growth and biomass yield under high-altitude conditions. By evaluating their growth and biomass yield, this initiative aims to identify the most resilient species for sustainable yak and livestock feed, enhancing winter fodder security for local communities

Pastoralism has been playing an instrumental role in maintaining the landscape and ecosystem diversity in the HKH. Pastoralists are critical for rangeland stewardship. For these lands to thrive and continue to provide multiple services, their stewards need more than recognition. They need real incentives. 

In Nepal, HI-REAP is exploring ways to reward the herding communities through innovative incentive mechanisms. In April, a group of policymakers, finance experts, and scientists gathered in  Shailung, eastern Nepal  to hear first-hand experiences of pastoralists. During the two-day ‘landscape journey’, we listened to these herders who have been managing these rangelands, and to other stakeholders, such as community forestry user groups and local government, as part of our efforts to design an incentive mechanism for managing these rangelands. 

Read the full story about pastoralism and rangelands here.

In 2024, 150 community resource persons (54% women) mapped vital water sources in Kavrepalanchok, documenting over 5,000 springs/ponds, water use patterns, and adaptation measures across seven municipalities. Their work is now generating a comprehensive dataset that blends local knowledge with advanced digital tools, offering invaluable insights for sustainable water resource management and climate adaptation.

Hear women community resource persons (CRPs) share their mapping experiences.

This animation explores the vital role of springs as natural sources of freshwater and highlights the alarming depletion of these springs due to climate change, land degradation, and overextraction of groundwater. It explains spring revival through hydrogeological interventions, vegetation planting, and community-led recharge area management. It highlights springshed management as a nature-based solution, combining revival efforts with ecosystem care to ensure water security.

In November 2024, we launched the Hindu Kush Himalaya Innovation Challenge for Entrepreneurs with the Global Resilience Partnership. The challenge invited entrepreneurs and innovators from the HKH region, including Bhutan, Bangladesh (Chittagong Hill Tracts),  the Himalayan states of India, and Nepal to propose scalable solutions addressing ecological, market, and value chain challenges in sectors such as agriculture, water security, sustainable tourism, waste management, and forestry. After rigorous evaluations, mentorship sessions, and comprehensive assessments, 12 winners were announced.

Click here to know more about the winners and solutions. 

For more detailed information about our projects, achievements, and initiatives, please visit our website: www.icimod.org/hi-reap/ 

If you have any questions or would like to learn more, feel free to reach out to us at hireap@icimod.org