What type of energy use pattern or mix is environmentally safe, economically sound, and culturally inoffensive in the mountains is a major policy issue being faced by the planners as well as beneficiaries of forests in the HKH region. In this context, a number of issues need to be considered and dealt with when promoting a fuelwood program to achieve sustainability. These issues are (Rijal, 1996, 1999):

• Prevailing unsustainable trends of energy supply and demand;

• Nonharmonious energy transitions towards noncommercial, low quality energy forms and/or towards nonrenewable fossil fuels;

• Wrong choice of energy resources and technologies as a result of lack of perspective related to both quality and quantity of energy in program design;

• Ignorance of biophysical aspects of mountain areas;

• Weak gender participation in decision making;

• Lack of understanding of sociocultural issues;

• Lack of suitable institutional framework to promote decentralized renewable energy technologies; and

• Methodological dilemma to internalize environmental concerns.

Ignoring these issues have led and will continue to lead to environmental conse­quences. The impacts are not limited to the decrease in forest cover and quality in the hills and mountains but involves also decrease in soil fertility, agricultural productivity, and water availability in springs, and increase in soil erosion and landslides (Myint and Hofer, 1998). Some research studies have also indicated that the decrease in forest cover may have led to a series of environmental damage downstream (Durning, 1993; Shen and Contreras-Harmosilla, 1995; RWEDP, 1993; Rijal, 1996).

Improved accessibility in some mountain areas through the construction of physical infrastructure has led to better living conditions with improved social infrastructure. However, this has come at the cost of encroachment around pro­ductive forests and their utilization to meet the timber and fuelwood requirements of the plains. Initially, mountain people were not aware of this situation and the cash flow was welcome. Many mountain settlers moved out to exploit better opportunities in the plains, and this hampered the diversification of mountain economies. Inappropriate forest policies applied in the mountains led to further dismantling of traditional and indigenous practices of managing forest resources (FAO, 1993).