Community perception about ecosystem services assessment from forests managed under different regimes in Hindu Kush Himalaya

Abstract

The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) faces various challenges detrimental to critical balance for socio-ecological systems resulting in adversely affecting the flow of ecosystem service (ES). With the context, present evaluation attempted to account a comprehensive understanding about flow of forest ES in community forests and other forests across the HKH for sustainable management of forests. We conducted a systematic literature review to critically analyse and understand the community perception about flow of forest ES and suggest a comprehensive framework for ES assessment through community. The ResearchGate, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases were used, employing the PRISMA, followed by the Rayyan for screening the article between 2010 to July 2023. The exclusion and inclusion criteria resulted in 47 articles. About 61.7% of ES assessment articles focussed to forest ecosystem, while 38.3% focused on community forests. The article accounts bias towards provisioning services (∼42.6%) with skewed geographical distribution to Nepal (∼45%) having favours to social values than economic value of forest ES. Various threats to the HKH forests were also identified jeopardizing the community's well-being. Based on evaluation, a comprehensive indicator-based assessment framework was proposed for comprehensive assessment of ES for sustainable management of community and forests. Precisely, identification of threats and integration of trade-offs and synergies in policies along with participatory approach of management i.e. community and government hand holding may contribute to conserve the forests in the HKH along with ensuring sustainable supply of ES to communities.