Sustainability is increasingly going beyond political and lowland definitions as the ultimate dependence on water and the importance of the upper watershed is resulting in a growing recognition of indigenous peoples' needs cultural-economic needs. These communities cannot survive by providing ecological services as there are no returns. At the same time they are increasingly in contact with the marginal and highly exploitative end of market forces and pick up the most destructive practices.

Sustainability goes beyond scientific definition as it enters the realm of the social context and survival of many indigenous cultures and migrants from the agricultural lowlands. Sustainability is not just containing forest conversion by small scale community expansion, traditional or migrant. The drivers of change need to be dealt with and their impact on these communities so as to manage and thereby develop closed access to forestlands with supportive markets and compensation returned to the uplands for sustaining ecological services.