| 
Since
the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit (UNCED, 1992), the awareness on the global
importance of mountain areas, the fragility of their resources and the often
difficult living conditions of many mountain people has grown significantly.
Accordingly, mountain regions experienced a constant increase of interest
and moved into the centre of concern and discussion among researchers, technical
experts, politicians, decision makers and other stakeholders. Along with
this increased attention, the need for a better understanding of the functioning
of mountain ecosystems and of the impact of global change on these ecosystems
has increased significantly. The International Year of Mountains 2002 (IYM),
for which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
served as the lead agency, was another milestone in raising global awareness
on the importance of promoting sustainable mountain development. The IYM
stimulated the establishment of national committees in 78 countries many
of which are now actively promoting sustainable mountain development through
concrete activities and projects on the ground. Also in the context of the
IYM, a number of global mountain research programmes were initiated. Finally,
the “Mountain Partnership”
was launched at the World Summit
on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 as a voluntary alliance
of partners dedicated to improving the lives of mountain people and protecting
mountain environments around the world. As of July 2004, 40 countries, 14
intergovernmental organizations and 47 major groups and NGOs had signed
up to the “Mountain Partnership”.
FAO hosts the Interim Secretariat of the Mountain Partnership. Under the
umbrella of the Mountain Partnership, a number of specific thematic and
regional partnership initiatives are currently being established.
Why focus on mountain regions?
Mountains are complex and fragile ecosystems that cover almost a quarter
of the earth’s land surface and host 12 percent of its people. They
are characterized by verticality, highly differentiated climatic conditions
and often by an abundance of water and rich biodiversity. Mountain regions
provide critical goods and services, not only for mountain inhabitants
but also for lowland communities that are now being threatened by the
effects of global change.
Mountains are high risk environments that occur in all climatic zones
of the earth. They are susceptible to natural hazards such as avalanches,
glacial lake outbursts, landslides and earthquakes that threaten life
in mountain areas. In addition, mountain regions are very sensitive to
anthropogenic changes, including land use and land cover changes, acidic
deposition, increasing CO2 concentrations and climatic change. Due to
their fragility and diversity, mountain ecosystems register global environmental
changes earlier and more clearly than lowland systems. Consequently, this
high sensitivity provides unique opportunities to detect, model and analyse
global change processes and their effects on the socio-economic condition
of mountain areas.
Mountain dwellers have developed a rich cultural diversity and have adapted
to life in steep and harsh conditions. Over the course of their history,
they developed sophisticated techniques for farming, water use, forestry
and communication. The crop diversity in mountains as a function of altitude
and exposition is enormous. As a result of remoteness and difficult access,
mountain peoples are often economically and politically marginalized and
have little access to modern communication, infrastructure, sanitation
or education. In addition, food security is often not assured in mountain
areas. In Peru, for example, malnutrition has been observed at higher
rates among children under the age of five in mountainous areas as compared
to the national average for the same age group.
For all these reasons, there is a need for deepening research in mountain
regions, for generating information, for establishing databases and for
facilitating access to mountain relevant data. These objectives are in
Programme Area A of Chapter 13 of the Agenda 21 and the
mountain module has been developed to support these objectives.
Acquiring
Mountain data
In order to improve the understanding of mountain ecosystems and their
diversity, as well as to monitor the effects of global change on these
ecosystems, a very high density of monitoring sites would be required.
The reality, however, is different: the density of measuring sites in
mountain regions is very low, mainly due to the constrained access. Regrettably,
a low density of sites can be found in Africa, Asia and South America.
On a global scale, there is a lack of observation of socio-economic variables
in mountain regions.
Due to an increasing demographic pressure on the earth’s ecosystems,
the demand on mountain resources (e.g. on water) will increase in future
and the potential for conflicts over their use will grow. To avoid severe
conflicts as well as to conserve and sustainably develop one of the most
precious environments on earth, it is crucial to improve the management
and protection of mountain ecosystems, to deepen observations as well
as to link networks. In addition, and as stated above, mountains are considered
early warning systems and accordingly mountain research is crucial for
the prediction of global change.
Mountain module
and TEMS
The TEMS Mountain Module can be considered as a follow-up initiative of
the International Year of Mountains 2002. The objective of the Module
is to facilitate access to mountain relevant data and information. The
Module includes networks and sites relevant to mountain issues and features
a list of primary indicators, data holders and maps with specific information
on mountains. Most important, the Module allows users to make queries
on sites which are specific to mountain issues and it links global environmental
and socio-economic data for mountain ecosystems.
|
|
