Environmental migration in the Himalaya: Willing to be resettled? Economic incentives, Policy, and Consequence for Land Use and Ecosystem Services

Environmental migration is an issue of increasing concern and is strongly linked to climate change and the overuse of common pool resources such as grazing land.

This project focuses on the Nepalese and Tibetan Himalaya, one of the key mountain areas vulnerable to climate change and environmental risks, where pastoralists have probably been raising livestock for 4,000-years.

The Community Forestry Program (CFP) set by Nepalese central government and the Ecological Migration Programme (EMP) set up by the Chinese central government aim to resettle these herders to safeguard ecological values and economically viable herding.

This project aims to start a new collaboration between four universities and research institute from Sweden, Denmark, Nepal and China and International Food Policy Research Institute based in Washinton DC for better understanding environmental migration in the Himalaya in terms of economic incentives, policy and consequences for land use and ecosystem services.

This will address challenges in achieving the SDGs (1, 3, 11, 13, and 15).

Network building will be about 1) communications on identifying how the CFP and EMP affect migration decisions concerning pastoral grazing choices and the herders’ attitudes towards and perceptions of the CFP and EMP, 2) discussions on analysing the possible trade-offs or synergies between ecosystem service value and environmental migrants’ income changes under different land use change scenarios.