Annapurna Conservation Area, Chomrong, Nepal Photograph by Dirk-Jan de Haan/ World4view   Southern Asia: Central Nepal to northern India Montane Grasslands and Shrublands   27,100 square miles (70,200 square kilometers) -- about thrice the size of New Hampshire Relatively Stable/Intact

· Time Traveling
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Time Traveling

Trails in this part of the world connect scattered high-elevation communities with the great cities of the lowlands. If you walk these routes, you will be walking the trade routes that people have traveled for thousands of years. But keep your passport handy: Today, national borders follow some of these ancient routes.

Special Features

Bare rock and ice make up one-fourth of this ecoregion -- the site of the highest mountains in the world. During April and May, the cold winter finally begins passing into a mild summer. This climate supports a variety of rhododendrons, junipers, and other shrubs. The alpine meadows crowded with low-growing plants such as aster and potentilla, gentian and anemone. The rocky slopes and boulder fields harbor scattered communities of cushion-forming plants, which resemble cushions, and grasses. Medicinal plants grow throughout the region.

	Pikas may look like rodents, but they aren’t. They’re more closely related to rabbits and hares. These furry alpine plant eaters pile up grasses in their dens during the summer so they’ll have enough to eat beneath the winter snow.

Wild Side

If you want to see mammals in this ecoregion, train yourself to look for movement. That’s the best way to find animals that blend in with the rocks and ice. Small mammals such as weasels scurry about the undergrowth and among the boulders. Palm-sized pikas look like small, moving rocks as they dart around their rocky habitat. Even the large snow leopards blend in almost perfectly with the snow and rocks as they hunt blue sheep, Himalayan tahrs, musk deer, and southern serows. Almost 130 species of birds live in this beautiful cold land. Hunters from the sky include lammergeiers, golden eagles, and Himalayan griffons. Other bird species characteristic of this region include cheer pheasants, blood pheasants, western tragopans, and satyr tragopans.

Cause for Concern

More than one-fourth of this ecoregion lies in protected areas, and the rest of the region is relatively undisturbed. The future does not look bright, however. Increasing herds of livestock are beginning to trample the grasslands and meadows. People are collecting too many medicinal plants. And the troops who patrol the border routes also increase the pressure on the forests as they collect wood for fuel.

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