Volume 19, Issue 2, May 2009, Pages 147–155
Traditional Peoples and Climate Change
Abstract
Tibetan
culture and livelihoods depend on native plants for medicine, food,
grazing, wood, as well as cash from market sales. The Medicine Mountains
(part of the Hengduan Mountains) of the eastern Himalayas, with
tremendous plant diversity derived from steep gradients of both
elevation and precipitation, have traditionally been an important source
of Tibetan medicinal plants. We examine climate change in this area and
vegetation patterns influenced by biogeography, precipitation and
elevation (NMS and CCA ordinations of GLORIA plots). The Alpine
environment has the highest plant diversity and most useful plants and
is the most susceptible to climate change with impacts on traditional
Tibetan culture and livelihoods—particularly Tibetan medicine and
herding.
Keywords
- Climate change;
- Himalayas;
- Arctic–Alpine;
- Plant diversity;
- Sky islands;
- Tibetan medicine
Copyright © 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
