ABSTRACT
ICIMOD’s People and Resource Dynamics Project (PARDYP), funded by SDC, IDRC, and ICIMOD, is described in terms of its background and the findings from the first three years of activity. Some of the main issues facing mountain communities and environments at the end of the second millennium in the five watersheds and four PARDYP countries (China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan) are highlighted, for example: water shortages during the dry season for both drinking and irrigation; water quality challenges; soil problems such as low phosphorus availability, soil acidity, low base cation levels, poor condition of forest soils, lack of organic matter inputs, and general fertility decline; and erosion and sediment issues—just a few major rainfall events each year cause some 75% of topsoil removal whatever the land cover. In addition the following are discussed: new forest management problems facing the new community resource managers in Nepal; the historical and emerging gender and inequity challenges across the Middle Mountains; stagnation of agricultural production and new problems facing the mountain farmer. Some initiatives already undertaken by the project, or to be taken up during Phase II, are briefly described, and future challenges facing such research for development activities conclude the paper.
