Assessing the effectiveness of policies in sustaining and promoting ecosystem services in the Indian Himalayas

<p>We examined existing policy instruments of the Indian forest, wildlife, and environment sectors for the period 1927–2008 to (a) assess their strengths and weaknesses in addressing information, market and policy failures in ecosystem service provision in the Indian Himalayan region and (b) determine if they were informatory or regulatory in nature and whether they encouraged the use of market-based instruments. Our analysis revealed that Indian policy measures can be categorized into four eras: Production (1927–1972), Protection (1972–1988), Community Participation (1988–2006), and Climate Change and Globalization (2006 onwards). The policies of the earlier two eras were largely regulatory in nature. From 1988 onwards, community participation in biodiversity conservation has made the policies more informatory and market-based. The recognition that Himalayas are a distinct ecosystem, crucial for their services but vulnerable to climate change impacts, has come about only with the National Mission on Sustaining Himalayan Ecosystem. Given the multiple stakeholders in Indian Himalayas and the off-site nature of ecosystem services, a complementarity of instruments and their ability to address the consequences of local decisions on downstream ecosystem services are essential. A participatory and sectorally coordinated mixed governance approach is needed to sustain ecosystem services in the region.</p

Analysis of mtDNA control region of an isolated population of Eld’s deer (<i>Rucervus eldii</i>) reveals its vulnerability to inbreeding

<p>The Eld’s deer or brow-antlered deer (<i>Rucervus eldii</i>) is one of the most endangered cervids of Southeast Asia. Geographically, it has three distinct subspecies; Sangai or Manipur's brow-antlered deer (<i>R. e. eldii</i>), Siamese brow-antlered deer (<i>R. e. siamensis</i>) and Thamin or Myanmar’s brow antlered deer (<i>R. e. thamin</i>). We examined the genetic diversity of wild and captive populations of <i>R. e. eldii</i> and compared its relationship with other subspecies using mtDNA control region gene. During the analysis, only one haplotype was detected in 30 samples of <i>R. e. eldii.</i> No genetic variation was observed among the <i>R. e. eldii</i> populations. The reduced genetic diversity indicates that the population has passed through the bottleneck effect that might have resulted in the inbreeding depression.</p