A broad interpretation of land policy could include any policy taken by the state or other institution that affects the use and management of land, directly or indirectly. This is a formidable range of policy areas. Clearly, choice had to be exercised. Its approach is formed around three related ideas. The first is policy as process, which examines how policy is made and takes the view that the rational policy model of policy making is inappropriate and simply does not explain how policy is, or should, be made.
Policy is often messy and diffuse, and outcomes often unintended.
Secondly, the idea of stakeholders in environmental policy was introduced to identify the unequal distribution of political power of stakeholders, and to draw attention to those who, while in a large majority, had little say in policy, and sometimes became victims of it, rather than beneficiaries. This is not to say that the majority of farmers and pastoralists in the regions have a monopoly of virtue, merely that their interests and knowledge are seldom represented in policy. Thirdly, the idea of access to resources and sustainable livelihoods treated as a material necessity and right were used to draw attention to them in the inevitable conflicts that will arise in adjudicating between conservation agendas, the 140 million resource users, and other interests. Ecological modernisation is the term used to imply a number of salient policy reforms. All these points pose serious challenges to any society, but especially in the HKH region.