Mountain regions are subject to a variety of hazardous processes. Earthquakes, landslides, snow avalanches, floods, debris flows, epidemics and fires, among other processes, have caused injury, death, damage and destruction. They also face challenges from increased populations, and expansion and intensification of activities, land uses and infrastructure. The combination of a dynamic biogeophysical environment and intensified human use has increased the vulnerability of mountain social-ecological systems to risk from hazards. The ability of socialecological systems to build resilience in the context of hazards is an important factor in their long-term sustainability. The role of resilience building in understanding the impact of hazards in mountain areas is examined and illustrated, in part, through examples from Canada and India. Resilient social-ecological systems have the ability to learn and adjust, use all forms of knowledge, to self-organize and to develop positive institutional linkages with other social-ecological systems in the face of hazards. The analysis suggests that traditional social-ecological systems built resilience through avoidance, which was effective for localized hazards. The more recent development and implementation of cross-scale institutional linkages is shown to be a particularly effective means of resilience building in mountain socialecological systems in the face of all hazards.

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BackgroundCommunity-based approaches to conservation of natural resources, in particular medicinal plants, have attracted attention of governments, non governmental organizations and international funding agencies. This paper highlights the community-based approaches used by an Indian NGO, the Rural Communes Medicinal Plant Conservation Centre (RCMPCC). The RCMPCC recognized and legitimized the role of local medicinal knowledge along with other knowledge systems to a wider audience, i.e. higher levels of government.MethodsBesides a review of relevant literature, the research used a variety of qualitative techniques, such as semi-structured, in-depth interviews and participant observations in one of the project sites of RCMPCC.ResultsThe review of local medicinal plant knowledge systems reveals that even though medicinal plants and associated knowledge systems (particularly local knowledge) are gaining wider recognition at the global level, the efforts to recognize and promote the un-codified folk systems of medicinal knowledge are still inadequate. In country like India, such neglect is evident through the lack of legal recognition and supporting policies. On the other hand, community-based approaches like local healers' workshops or village biologist programs implemented by RCMPCC are useful in combining both local (folk and codified) and formal systems of medicine.ConclusionDespite the high reliance on the local medicinal knowledge systems for health needs in India, the formal policies and national support structures are inadequate for traditional systems of medicine and almost absent for folk medicine. On the other hand, NGOs like the RCMPCC have demonstrated that community-based and local approaches such as local healer's workshops and village biologist program can synergistically forge linkages between local knowledge with the formal sciences (in this case botany and ecology) and generate positive impacts at various levels.

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