In the 21<sup>st</sup> century humankind will increasingly depend on mountain resources such as water bio-diversity and recreation.' -Arnold Koller The Central Himalayan Environment Association CHEA in short was founded on October 2 1981 on a day which has special significance for India being the birth-day of the Father of the Nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The society was registered soon afterwards in May 1982. Arguably CHEA is one of the earliest societies founded in Northern India which had ' the environment and the livelihood of the people in the Himalayas ' as its core concern. Much water has flown in the great Himalayan rivers and the Indian Himalayas have since been witness to much distress conflict degradation demographic dynamics political restructuring and impacts of various global revolutions and their regional and local impacts. CHEA has since espoused many mountain causes engaged itself actively in scores of action-researches on human and environmental aspects and livelihood-related projects and continues to be so involved to this day.
