Extending across South and Southeast Asia and encompassing mountain ranges in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan, the Hindu Kush Himalayan region is known as the ‘Third Pole’ due to its gigantic masses of ice and snow. The Hindu Kush Himalaya alone is the source of ten major river systems, and downstream 1.4 billion people – one fifth of the worlds’ population – depend on vital ecosystem goods and services from the mountain range, including water, food and energy. 

Climate change poses significant risks to people in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, where high altitudes have experienced serious warming, which in some areas is three to five times greater than the global average. In general, snow and glaciers are melting, and there has been an increase in the number of extreme events such as floods and droughts, which in turn exacerbate poverty and food insecurity. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is a regional intergovernmental learning and knowledge sharing centre serving the eight regional member countries of the Hindu Kush Himalayas – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan – and based in Kathmandu, Nepal

Central Asia’s mountains extend across Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan where the majority of mountain communities make a living by cultivating cereals and vegetables, collecting forest products and grazing livestock on a wide range of pastures. Almost 90 percent of the population of Central Asia relies on water that falls in the mountains.  However, global warming is melting mountain glaciers and affecting snow reserves. Tensions between highland and lowland countries often centre on the issues of energy accessibility and water usage.

Mountains elsewhere in Southeast Asia and the Pacific are particularly rich in biodiversity, but are often incorporated within national policies and programmes for forests and other natural resources. As a result, Indigenous Peoples in the region who have time-tested skills in conserving tropical mountain ecosystems have mostly remained marginalized and excluded from development processes, receiving limited benefits from the forest, water and mineral resources that the mountains hold.