Title: High Conservation Value Areas (HCVAs) in North and West districts of Sikkim
KeyWords: High Conservation Value Area, SECURE Himalaya project, landscapes in North and West districts of Sikkim, HCVAs
Year of Publication: 2021
ISSN No: NA
Author Name: Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)
Details:
Executive summary
This project on ‘Identifying, assessing, delineating and mapping areas with High Conservation Values (HCV) and developing management recommendations/ plans for them in SECURE Himalaya project landscapes in North and West districts of Sikkim’ is a part of the GoI-UNDP SECURE Himalaya Project and was executed by ATREE Eastern Himalaya Office, which is a global non-profit organisation generating interdisciplinary knowledge to inform policy and practice towards conservation and sustainability. This project was undertaken from the month of January 2019 to January 2021.
HCVAs are defined as those natural habitats, which are of outstanding significance or critical importance due to their high biological, ecological, social or cultural values. Since its formulation, HCV has proven beneficial for identifying and managing environmental and social values in production landscapes. This concept would be important for a Himalayan State like Sikkim which is rich in biodiversity, with unique ecosystems, traditional agriculture systems, and cultural diversity besides being vulnerable to climate change as well as the repercussions of anthropogenic development. Therefore, it is important for Sikkim to have a landscape level analysis of its HCVs and identification of HCVAs so that it is useful as a planning and advocacy tool for the Government of Sikkim as well as all other stakeholders with interest in conserving the biodiversity and cultural diversity of this tiny Himalayan State.
The globally recognized six HCV categories formed the basis of the research design framework. The implementation of HCV approach encompassed identification as the first step which incorporated interpreting those six HCV categories in Sikkim’s local context and further subdivided those categories through an HCV assessment which consisted of an analysis of existing information, stakeholder consultations and, primary and secondary data collection.
In accordance with the finalized HCV categories the secondary data was collected from field work, journal articles, books, records in the herbarium of BSI Gangtok, government reports, documents in public domain, open databases, and various websites. Personal communication with ATREE UNDP SECURE Himalaya 8 High Conservation Value Areas (HCVAs) in North and West districts of Sikkim - Final Report experts from the concerned fields also yielded considerable information that contributed to the secondary data.
Primary data was collected from various organisations, research scholars and FEWMD. The culturally valued sites were identified through engagement with local communities.The survey was undertaken in 26 villages where 102 key informants’ semi-structured interviews were conducted and the sacred spaces were physically mapped using a GPS unit. After data was collected in the form of points, lines and polygons, they were imported and arranged in a developed database so that they could easily be used in the identification and analysis of data spatially and thematically.
The key analysis included analyzing data at the sub-category level for each HCV and creating maps with these data. Area of high conservation value was identified by superimposing different thematic layers i.e. the six different HCV categories - species diversity, landscape level ecosystems and mosaics, ecosystems and habitats, ecosystem services, community needs and cultural values, and a threat layer. Each thematic layer was an output of the integrated layers generated out of the subcategories of HCV categories, and the threat category. After generating the above seven layers-six HCV layers and one threat layer, they were combined and the sum of each pixel was taken.
Thresholding of 2.1 was performed for these combined layers to obtain the High Conservation Value Areas. The twenty two proposed HCVAs for Sikkim were obtained through a process of modifying the boundaries on the basis of the existing GPU boundaries, and by following the contours of rivers and ridges to align the polygons according to the natural geographical barriers. 12 of these are located in the North district while 10 are located in the West district. Given that the PA system in Sikkim has their own established system for management, for this assignment we worked out the details of HCVAs located outside the PA system as these need more effort for biodiversity conservation. The identified HCVAs represent all the ecosystems present in Sikkim from the low elevation subtropical forests to the extremely high altitude areas representing alpine and the cold desert areas. Most importantly these also represent areas that are of importance to the people in terms of the religious and cultural values. Many of the HCVAs directly provide goods and services to the people living close to these areas and are of high value for supporting human wellbeing.
The consultation process is an integral part of the HCV assessment. The consultation process encompassed informing, consulting, and involving all the relevant stakeholders at every level of the ATREE UNDP SECURE Himalaya 9 High Conservation Value Areas (HCVAs) in North and West districts of Sikkim - Final Report study from the first step of the identification of Sikkim specific HCVs to the final sharing of the HCVAs delineated. In this study consultation meetings have been one of the key methods for validating secondary and primary data collected which was conducted via meetings, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. The involvement of the stakeholders was imperative to identify the information gaps and the ways to address them. In total 14 stakeholder consultations were organised during the course of the study.
The management recommendations for each of the 22 identified, assessed, delineated and mapped HCVAs namely- Lhonak Valley, Thangu Valley Complex, Yumthang Valley, Dambung, Katao, Kyongnosla, Chungthang, Upper Dzongu, Middle Dzongu, Mangan Naga, Lower Dzongu, and Kabi from North district and Lachim Pokhri, Dhupidara-Karchi-Kongri, Gerethang-Yuksom, Arithang-Tashiding, Khecheopalri-Rimbi, Pelling-Gyalshing, Dentam, Kaluk-Hee-Bermiok, Soreng and Daramdin from West district, have been provided in a detailed format along with their location, demography, physical characteristics, habitat , key HCV categories, and the prevalent threats and issues. These management recommendations are based on the primary data collected from the stakeholder consultations and have broadly been categorized into the following nine categories-administrative/ governance, biodiversity conservation, culture and tradition preservation, agriculture improvement, human wildlife conflict mitigation, waste management, livelihoods enhancement, research/ documentation, and tourism management.