THE resilience and adaptation in mountain regions have acquired important priorities in the present times, especially when climate change has become an overriding issue and its impacts are recognized to be felt globally. The present study describes an example of how the pack animals play a vital role in transportation in remote and farflung areas of Uttarakhand Himalaya, and also contribute in reducing CO2 emission. Road services in Uttarakhand are not encouraging, with 40% of villages located at a distance of less than 1 km from the road, 35% at 1–5 km and 25% at distances longer than 5 km. According to an estimate, there are more than 500 villages in Uttarakhand which depend totally on pack animals for their supply and transportation. The nomadic and transhumant communities in the Indian Himalaya, even today are totally dependent upon pack animals for transportation and their own movements from one place to another. More than one million visitors come to the Himalaya each year for pilgrimage, nature tours and sports, and pack animals are commonly used for the movement of both people and goods. To the best of our knowledge, no prospective studies of pack animals and their total contribution towards the economy of the people have been done in the Himalayan region so far, to assess their contribution towards saving CO2 emission. This article attempts to estimate the changes in the rate of CO2 emission if the present transportation of goods by pack animals is carried out by automobiles, i.e. the contribution of equines to carbon saving in the Himalaya while rendering transportation services. It also suggests an option for reducing CO2 emission by utilizing pack animals in the transportation of non essential commodities in remote and rural areas. 

Study area 

The study was carried out in the six major valleys of Garhwal Himalaya, i.e. Kedarnath, Bhyundhar, Pinder, Urgam, Nandprayag and Nizmulla, with a total area of 30,000 km2 (29°31′–31°26′N and 77°35′–80°6′E) where pack animals still play a major role in supply systems, including carrying tourists to Kedarnath and Bhyundhar. For this study, 60 villages spread at a distance ranging from 8 to 16 km away from the road head and two pilgrimage sites were surveyed in the six valleys (Figure 1), where the road network is not yet well developed and transportation still is dependent on pack animals. Kedarnath and Bhyundhar valleys are important sites due to their location and movement flow of pilgrims on horses and ponies. Most of the pilgrims hire pack animals for travelling to the Kedarnath shrine, which is located at a distance of 14 km from the road head, and Hem Kund located at a distance of 17 km from the road head (Figure 2). Since these two shrines are open only for four to six months (May–October), the rush of pilgrims is high. Three types of forests are found in the study area, viz. Himalayan temperate broadleaf forests, Himalayan temperate fir forest and sub-alpine fir–birch forests2,3 .Meadows and grasslands are located above the subalpine forest.