News

Inspiring social innovation in mountains

04.10.2018

Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas (SIMRA)’s fourth brochure, called “Collection of Examples of Social Innovation in Mountain areas” has just been published, in collaboration with Euromontana and SIMRA partners. These brochures aim at concretely illustrating social innovation through the presentation of local on-going initiatives throughout Europe and the Mediterranean basin, taking turns in addressing different marginalized rural areas. Social innovation aims to introduce new solutions to challenges faced in marginalized rural areas.  

Mountains cover 26.7 percent of SIMRA’s study area. The specificity of mountains is recognised both by EU policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy and the Regional Policy; and by global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals and UNESCO designations. Mountains provide important sources of energy, water, biological and cultural diversity. Half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots are concentrated in mountains and they support approximately one-quarter of terrestrial biological diversity. Mountains are characterized by their altitude, terrain, roughness and slopes. However, low population density and difficulties of access, often make them marginalized rural areas.

Additionally, mountain ecosystems are among the most sensitive ecosystems to climate change. Climate change is heavily impacting the services and resources mountain ecosystems provide, thus heavily impacting the livelihoods of vulnerable populations. 1 in 3 mountain peoples in developing countries is facing hunger and malnutrition and in rural areas this number changes to 1 in 2.

This new brochure of social innovation focuses on how communities capitalize on the natural and social assets in mountainous areas in terms of community life, living environment, and dynamic approaches to governance. This is essential as more than half of the human population depend on mountains for water, food and clean energy.

The examples presented in these brochures are extracted from the SIMRA database, available on the project’s website.

Read more

Photo by European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism

Home > mountain-partnership > News