Impact of land cover change on a mountain ecosystem and its services: case study from the Phobjikha valley, Bhutan

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Mountains occupy 24% of the global land surface and are home to 12% of the world’s population; they host the world’s principal biomes and supply a diverse array of ecosystem services. But they are also highly sensitive to both natural and human induced changes, which can affect service provision meant for one third of humanity. Systematic research on impacts of land cover change from mountains at the local scale are limited, especially in developing countries, which poses a barrier to informed planning for sustainable management. Bhutan being in the forefront as contributor towards global conservation goals, a case study following a systematic research framework considering quantitative, qualitative and geospatial tools was experimented.

Outcome: Respondents identified and ranked 24 ecosystem services, among which the provisioning services were the most important, followed by cultural, regulating, and supporting services. Forest was the most important land cover type for services, followed by marsh, scrub, water bodies, and agriculture. The area of forest declined by 2% and marsh by 7% over the 32-year period, suggesting a potential decrease in ecosystem services, which was also observed by the local community.

Discussion: It was observed that 80% of the local people are still directly dependent on the diverse ecosystems for services. Though subtle, the decrease in land cover has implications for livelihoods of the people and the rich biodiversity of the area. Aspiring communities for local development needs guidance for identifying trade-offs in land cover types in sustainable management. An integrated and holistic approach focusing on both conservation and community development should be used to manage and develop the valley and the region sustainably.

Conclusion: We recommend diversifying the limited livelihood strategies (potato farming and livestock grazing) to reduce the potential vulnerability of the local community and reduce the pressure on forest and marsh. Proper land use planning in the valley would be beneficial to maintain and regulate land uses in an effective way and avoid possible conflicts between settlement, agriculture, forest, and marsh.

KEYWORDS:

• Bhutan
• ecosystem services
• land cover change
• local community
• Phobjikha valley

Acknowledgments

We express our gratitude to David Molden and Eklabya Sharma from ICIMOD for their overall guidance and support for our work in the Phobjikha Valley of Bhutan. We also thank the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Royal Government of Bhutan, and Lam Dorji from RSPN for their continuous cooperation in this study and the overall project. Our sincere thanks go to the local people for their valuable time and effort during the household survey. Special thanks go to Eric Lambin from Stanford University, United States, for reviewing the article and providing insightful suggestions. Financial support received from the MacArthur Foundation and German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through its German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) for conducting the analysis is highly appreciated. None of the authors have conflict of interest in this article. We express our special gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which help us to bring the article in its present form. Our special thanks go to Beatrice Murray for editing the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation [10-95470-000-GSS] with supplementary fund from GIZ.