A Swirling Offering: Climate Change Impacts on Incense and Other Useful Alpine Plants of Bhutan

Climate change impacts on social-ecological systems —such as useful plant harvest— can be elucidated through local perceptions and ecological monitoring. To better understand how these two approaches may show convergent or divergent perspectives on a shared system, we conducted semi-structured interviews on climate change impacts on useful plants in the alpine region of Central Bhutan, contextualized with results from ecological monitoring at the same site. Participants reported 42 useful alpine plant species. Incense plants were the most frequently cited and prioritized in free-lists (three times more likely to be mentioned first), ahead of other common uses (food, medicine). Most participants reported climate change impacts: increases in temperature and precipitation, decreases in snow cover, and increasingly frequent landslides and floods that have reduced pasture. Many also mentioned a decrease in availability, quality, and potency of useful plants. Ecological monitoring, in contrast, showed no evidence of decrease in abundance of alpine plants in this area, and measurable increases in some prominent useful species including Rhododendron. Rather than climate-driven changes in plant ecological abundance per se, local accounts of resource insecurity are likely attributable to changes in variability, predictability, and quality of useful plants — climate-driven challenges felt not only by those in Bhutan but by communities throughout the world.