Mountains are critical ecosystems that have a strong influence far beyond their topographic boundaries. More than 50 million people inhabit the Himalayas, and more than one billion people depend on the ecosystem services they provide. Anthropogenic activities have driven concurrent deforestation and regeneration in the Himalayas, and interventions to reduce forest loss and promote forest recovery require a synthetic understanding of the complex and interacting drivers of forest change. We conducted a systematic review of case studies from 1984 to 2020 (n = 137) and combined a system dynamics approach with a causal network analysis to identify, map and articulate the relationships between the drivers, actors and mechanisms of forest change across the entirety of the Himalayan mountain range. In total, the analysis revealed five proximate drivers, 12 underlying drivers, two institutional factors and five ‘other’ factors connected by a total of 221 linkages. Forest change dynamics have been dominated by widespread smallholder agriculture, extensive non-timber forest product extraction, widespread commercial and non-commercial timber extraction, and high rates of agricultural abandonment. Underlying drivers include population growth, poor agricultural productivity, international support for development projects, and successful community forest management systems. Contradictory linkages emerge from a combination of contextual factors, which can have negative impacts on conservation goals. Global processes such as shifts in governance, transnational infrastructure-development programs, economic slowdowns, labor migrations and climate change threaten to destabilize established dynamics and change forest trajectories. The underlying and proximate drivers interact through multiple pathways that can be utilized to achieve conservation goals. Based on this analysis, we highlight five thematic focus areas to curtail forest loss and promote recovery: (1) decreasing the population pressure, (2) sustainable increase of agricultural productivity, (3) strengthening of forest management institutions, (4) leveraging tourism growth and sustainable infrastructure expansion, and (5) fuel transition and establishing firewood plantations on degraded land. The broader adoption of systems thinking, and specifically a system dynamics approach and causal network analysis, will greatly enhance the rigour of policy development, help design site-specific interventions at multiple spatial scales which can respond to local and global changes, and guide deeper inquiry to enhance our understanding of driver-forest dynamics.

山区是至关重要的生态系统，其影响力远远超出其地形边界。喜马拉雅山有超过5千万人居住，超过10亿人依靠其提供的生态系统服务。人为活动推动了喜马拉雅山地区同时的森林砍伐和更新，而为减少森林流失和促进森林恢复而采取的干预措施，需要对森林变化的复杂且相互作用的驱动因素有一个综合的了解。我们对1984年至2020年（n = 137）的案例研究进行了系统的回顾，并将系统动力学方法与因果网络分析相结合，以识别，映射和阐明整个森林变化的驱动力，参与者和森林变化机制之间的关系。喜马拉雅山脉。总体而言，该分析表明有五个最接近的驾驶员，12个潜在驱动因素，两个制度因素和五个“其他”因素通过总共221个联系联系在一起。森林变化的动力以广泛的小农农业，广泛的非木材林产品开采，广泛的商业和非商业木材采伐以及农业废弃率高居主导地位。潜在的驱动因素包括人口增长，农业生产力低下，对发展项目的国际支持以及成功的社区森林管理系统。相互矛盾的联系是由多种环境因素引起的，这可能对保护目标产生负面影响。全球流程，例如治理变化，跨国基础设施开发计划，经济放缓，劳动力迁移和气候变化可能破坏稳定的动态并改变森林发展轨迹。潜在的和邻近的驱动因素通过多种途径相互作用，可用于实现保护目标。在此分析的基础上，我们重点介绍了减少森林损失和促进恢复的五个主题重点领域：（1）减轻人口压力；（2）农业生产力的可持续增长；（3）加强森林管理机构；（4）利用旅游业增长和可持续的基础设施扩展，以及（5）燃料转移和在退化土地上建立柴火种植园。系统思维的广泛采用，特别是系统动力学方法和因果网络分析，将大大提高政策制定的严格性，