The Eastern Himalayas are changing faster than almost anywhere on the planet.

As climate change accelerates, forests that hold the hillsides together are burning, glaciers are retreating, monsoons are shifting and the rivers that feed farms and cities are losing their annual rhythms — drying out in some places and flooding in others.

To protect the nature that communities rely on, Conservation International created “Mountains to Mangroves” — an initiative with an ambitious goal: protect and restore 1 million hectares of land from the Eastern Himalayas mountains to the Bay of Bengal.

Goals like that are easy to announce. Acting on them requires careful planning —especially in a place like the Eastern Himalayas.…