This volume presents the results of 15 years of collaborative agricultural research on plant biodiversity and agro-pastoral land-use management in the Karakoram Mountain deserts and the lowlands of Cholistan, Pakistan. The scientific findings are complemented by a collection of 169 folk tales from oasis communities of the same regions, reflecting local human-nature relationships and traditional ecological knowledge. The volume includes a revisiting of jointly published articles, highlighting the strength, continuity, and long-term impact of international collaborative research activities.

The editors and initiators of this book are members of the Kassel Institute for Sustainability (KIS), an inter-disciplinary center at the University of Kassel. The KIS conceptualizes sustainability holistically as social-ecological sustainability, implements the unity of research and teaching, and combines a critical-normative perspective oriented towards democracy and social justice with basic as well as solution-oriented applied research.