Understanding why the Indian Himalayan Region needs SMDS-XIV — the global context, the climate science, and what this edition sets out to achieve.
Despite the landmark United Nations Report (2025) on Sustainable Mountain Development coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) alongside the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, UN agencies, and civil society global mountain regions remain under severe stress. Covering approximately one-quarter of the Earth's land surface, mountains act as the planet's "water towers," regulating the global water cycle and hosting rich biodiversity. However, they face compounding pressures from climate change, land degradation, socio-economic challenges (poverty and food insecurity), and natural disasters. While international projects aim to build resilience, a significant gap remains between policy frameworks and the real-time, daily challenges faced by mountain communities.
Building on the IPCC's Fifth and Sixth Assessment Reports (AR5 and AR6), climate change impacts in mountain regions are unequivocally attributed to human influence. These impacts have accelerated in recent decades, causing serious consequences for both people and ecosystems. Biologically, lower-elevation species are migrating upward, causing more homogeneous vegetation patterns and threatening mountain-top species. Cryospheric shifts have altered the water cycle, disrupting the timing of glacier melt and snowmelt stream discharge. This directly affects river flow regimes and increases landslide risks, putting billions of dollars of energy infrastructure particularly hydropower at risk. Furthermore, climate hazards like flash floods damage downstream infrastructure, worsen water insecurity, and exacerbate social injustices. Meanwhile, adaptation responses remain highly fragmented in scope, funding, and execution speed.
The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) states and Union Territories (including Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya) serves as the water tower of Asia, a global biodiversity hotspot, and the cultural anchor for over 50 million mountain dwellers. However, the region stands at a critical juncture. Accelerated climate change, fragile geological structures, erratic monsoon patterns, rapid urbanization, and increasing anthropogenic pressure threaten both the ecosystems and the livelihoods dependent upon them. The Mountain Sustainability Summit serves as a vital platform to unite policymakers, scientific researchers, grassroots innovators, community leaders, industry pioneers, and young changemakers. Framed specifically around the ecological and socio-economic realities of the Indian Himalayan Region, the summit aims to move from dialogue to action establishing actionable roadmaps, policy frameworks, and market linkages that harmonize environmental conservation with economic prosperity.
The current reality of the IHR is defined by frequent natural disasters, regular forest fires, water scarcity, shrinking agricultural land, and vulnerable border villages. Massive infrastructure investments and unregulated mass tourism are devastating the fragile landscape through heavy soil erosion, landslides, mining, and waste dumping. This directly threatens traditional, carbon-neutral, and nature-respecting agroecological ways of life. While a new paradigm centered on "resilient Himalayan green growth" is gaining traction via progressive state programs (organic farming, watershed conservation), the underlying "Landscape Approach" has yet to be executed at a horizontal or vertical scale that yields measurable impacts.
Therefore, SMDS 2026 is designed as an integrated platform to resolve the triple challenge of sustaining human populations, maintaining water flows, and preventing biodiversity loss amidst climate change. The summit aims to understand the multifunctionality of mountain ecosystems, analyze sectoral trade-offs, and design tailored, landscape-specific solutions. By emphasizing participatory planning, the summit seeks to empower marginalized groups and ensure that high-level policies finally align with local norms, practices, and indigenous knowledge.
A series of keynote addresses, plenary lectures, invited talks, and panel discussions by internationally acclaimed scientists and distinguished experts from premier institutions across India and abroad is planned as an integral part of the conference, highlighting recent breakthroughs and transformative innovations in sustainable Himalayan landscapes.
The Organizing Committee list will be published here once confirmed by SKUAST-K and IMI.
Keynote and invited speaker profiles will be published here as confirmations come in.
