Acknowledgement

We are grateful to  NRDMS Division, The Ministry of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India  for funding this project. We thank Dr. J.C.Rana at NBPGR who was instrumental in getting our accommodations at CPRI rest house, coordinating the meeting and fieldwork and for his support in procuring data from various other organisations. Dr.Pradeep, Dr.Verma.V.L are acknowledged for the useful discussions during the meeting and for letting us know more about NBPGR. We thank Dr. Archana Singh and Prashanth Bhasim, who accompanied us for the field identification of flora.

We thank the Director, Himachal Pradesh remote sensing agency and Mr.Thapa and other staff involved in this project for explaining the remote sensing part of this project and providing us with valuable data. We also thank Dr. J.C.Sharma for providing us with a report on Mandhala soil types. We thank Mr.Rajesh Sharma, Block development officer at panchayat office, who took the trouble for us in procuring information related to people living below poverty line for various districts. Mr. R.S. Rathore and Mr.S.S.Thakur are acknowledged for their help in data collection at the Directorate of Agriculture, Shimla.

The D.F.O., Shimla Mr.Naresh Kumar IFS is duly acknowledged for permission to visit the forest areas and also for providing us with working plans and compartment history data. We are thankful to the R.F.O., Dhami range and other field staff of the forest department. The D.F.O., Solan and D.F.O., Keylong are also acknowledged for their kindness in granting us permission to visit the forest areas and collect data. We are grateful to the people of Himachal for the warm welcome and the help we received during the entire fieldwork days.