Climate change may manifest significantly in Himachal Pradesh, with the impacts likely to adversely affect large percentage of the population depending on natural resources. A large scale shifting of forest biomes is being indicated. Himachal has to think of enough mitigation to avoid the unmanageable and enough adaptation to manage the unavoidable.

Climate change and forests are intrinsically linked. On the one hand, changes in global climate are already stressing forests through higher mean annual temperatures, altered precipitation patterns and more frequent and extreme weather events. At the same time, forests and the wood they produce, trap and store CO2, play a major role in mitigating climate change.

Understanding the forces that drove policy in the past can inform expectations of the effectiveness of policy implementation today. Forest policies of countries with forested frontiers transition through stages of forest management, reflecting the orientation of governments toward economic development.