In few places on Earth does nature sustain so many people as in the Eastern Himalayas. This is one of the most ecologically significant and climate-vulnerable regions on Earth, home to ~12% of global biodiversity and water source for nearly 1 billion people downstream, yet increasingly exposed to glacier melt, drying springs, forest fires, cyclones, and sea-level rise. 

This is one connected ecosystem — from the world’s highest mountains to the to the largest mangrove ecosystem spanning Bhutan, Nepal, east and northeast India, and Bangladesh — yet investment has historically been fragmented. Mountains to Mangroves, Conservation International’s regional initiative in the Eastern Himalayas, exists to solve that fragmentation problem.  

Mountains to Mangroves is aligning science, government priorities, local implementation partners, and innovative finance to enable restoration and protection at a landscape scale. By 2030, this initiative aims to mobilize transformative capital from public, private, and philanthropic sources to enable protection and restoration of 1 million hectares of land.  

Mountains to Mangroves is a collective effort to protect and restore the region. Conservation International works alongside regionally rooted organizations (six founding implementing partners across four countries) with a proven track record of delivering impact across the Eastern Himalayas. These partners bring decades of experience in evidence-based environmental conservation, climate action, and inclusive development across the region. By catalysing conservation and restoration activities at scale, Mountains to Mangroves aims to generate long-term impact on climate resilience, water for all, ecosystem biodiversity, and thriving communities.

Mountains to Mangroves founding implementing partners are:

• Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) (India) 
• The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) (India) 
• Bhutan Ecological Society (BES) (Bhutan) 
• Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation (BTF) (Bhutan) 
• Friendship NGO (Bangladesh) 
• Red Panda Network (RPN) (Nepal)

Conservation

• Area-based & biodiversity conservation

Restoration

• Natural regeneration
• Agroforestry & productive restoration
• Landscape-level restoration
• Terrestrial forest restoration
• Coastal & blue forest restoration
• Urban restoration

Stewardship

• Sustainable forest livelihoods
• IPLC governance & rights
• Youth engagement
• Resilience, wildfires & risk reduction
• Forest economy

Technology & innovation

• Monitoring, reporting & verification
• Remote-sensing & detection technologies
• AI & advanced analytics

Broader goals aimed to deliver:

• Climate mitigation
• Biodiversity enhancement
• Climate resilience and/or risk reduction
• Human health and/or wellbeing
• Gender equality, safety and/or culture
• Job creation, equality and/or livelihoods