Kembalung, Nepal Photograph by Chris Carpenter   Southern Asia: Stretching from Nepal into eastern India Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests   32,100 square miles (83,100 square kilometers) -- about the size of West Virginia and Massachusetts combined Relatively Stable/Intact

· Wet and Rich
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Wet and Rich

You’re likely to get dripping wet in this ecoregion, where 80 inches (200 cm) of rain fall each year. As a result, it contains one of the world’s richest varieties of plants, birds, and mammals.

Special Features

The Eastern Himalayan Broadleaf Forests ecoregion has several "floral hotspots" -- lush areas covered with endemic plant species. Being primarily temperate, rhododendron and oak species grow especially well here. This ecoregion also connects habitat types that make up the larger Himalayan ecosystem, from foothills to alpine meadows. Fifteen protected areas, including several large national parks in Bhutan, extend into this ecoregion, helping to preserve its richness.

	Many kinds of birds in this ecoregion migrate each year, but they never leave the area. They move from the lowlands up to the high valleys in what is called altitudinal migration.

Wild Side

Five hundred species of birds live here, more than the most dedicated bird lover is likely to see in a lifetime. Twelve of the species live almost nowhere else in the world. Eight species of them -- all barwings and babblers -- belong to the same bird family. Like Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches, the barwings and babblers of the Himalayas display adaptive radiation. After being isolated by different mountain chains, the original birds have evolved into different species with differently shaped beaks suited to eating different foods. The other species endemic to the ecoregion include the chestnut-breasted partridge and gray-headed parrotbill. Pheasants, tragopans, and hornbills all live here, too, and many of them are listed as threatened species. A number of mammals found here also are on the threatened list: tiger, red panda, takin, southern serow goats, and great Indian civet. The golden langur lives only here and in the adjacent Himalayan Subtropical Broadleaf Forests ecoregion. One type of squirrel, the Namdapha flying squirrel, lives nowhere else in the world.

Cause for Concern

More than two-thirds of this ecoregion’s habitat is still intact, mostly due to the inaccessibility of the steep terrain. Forests in the lower elevations are badly degraded from human activity such as clearing for agriculture, while even the higher-elevation forests are at risk from livestock grazing.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.