“…The significance of HKH biodiversity as the source of a wide range of ecosystem goods and services has been well recognized by many scholars (Messerli and Ives, 1997;Viviroli et al, 2007). The HKH region plays an extremely important role as a provider of ecosystem goods and services to a downstream area with services such as provision of the vast water resources used for irrigation (Molden et al, 2014;Quyang, 2009), biodiversity based resources for food, shelter, and economic development (Pant et al, 2012;Sharma et al, 2015;Singh, 2002;2006) and climate regulation (Messerli and Ives, 1997). However, although the region is rich in resources, the levels of poverty are generally higher than in the downstream counterpart areas (Gerlitz et al, 2012).…”