**5. Services of IHR biodiversity**

Biodiversity provides several facilities and services such as food, fodder, fuel, medicine, timber, resins, oil, climate regulation, pollution control, soil and water


#### **Table 1.**

*Biodiversity of medicinal and aromatic plants in IHR.*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Taxonomic groups, families, genera, and species representation of wild edible plants in the IHR.*

conservation, nutrient cycling, pollination, and recreation [24]. Humans depend upon a variety of ecosystem services (ES) provided by forest ecosystems which are generated as a consequence of interaction and exchange between biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem [24]. Brown et al. [25] described that "ecosystem services are derived from the functioning of an ecosystem and are of direct value to humans". Direct benefits obtained from the forests such as fuel, fodder, and food are known as ecosystem goods while indirect benefits such as detoxification and decomposition of waste, purification of air and water, etc. are known as ecosystem services. Costanza et al. [26] identified 14 types of services derived from forest ecosystems and estimated the economic value of the services provided by the Earth's ecosystems to be at least US\$33 trillion*/*year. Classification of ecosystem services in the Western Himalayan region specified in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (2003) has been categorized into the followings:
