HIMALAYAN HERDING IS ALIVE AND WELL: THE ECONOMICS OF PASTORALISM IN THE

Livestock herders have historically played a key role in developing and sustaining the rangeland regions of the Greater Himalayas. Rangelands, which cover approximately one-third of the Himalayan land area, are concentrated in the higher elevation regions above 3000 m where grasses and alpine shrubs are the dominant vegetation types1. Through the pursuit of various forms of nomadic and transhumant pastoralism, including agro-pastoralism, Himalayan herders have transformed these extensive but physically marginal environments into economically productive areas where human populations have lived and even prospered for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years (see Miller and Bedunah 1993) hough exact figures are unavailable, Miller (1995: 2) estimates that as many as ten million people currently reside in and depend on mountain rangelands in the Greater Himalayas. Yet the value of mountain pastoralism, including the ability of animal herders to sustain the natural environment, is under scrutiny by scientists, natural resource managers and policy makers who neither depend on nor engage in pastora