Key messages

• Covering around 27 percent of the earth's land surface, mountains play a critical role in moving the world towards sustainable economic growth.
• Mountains are home to almost 15 percent of the world’s population.
• Forests cover more than 40 percent of the global mountain area.
• Mountains not only provide sustenance and well-being to 1.1 billion mountain people around the world but also indirectly benefit billions more living downstream.
• One in two rural mountain people in developing countries is vulnerable to food insecurity.
• Indigenous and local populations in mountains have unique and valuable local knowledge, traditions and cultural practices that can contribute to effective land management strategies.
• Mountains provide freshwater, energy and food - resources that will be increasingly scarce in coming decades.
• More than half of humanity relies on mountain freshwater for everyday life.
• Some of the world's largest cities, including New York, Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi, Tokyo and Melbourne, are dependent on freshwater from mountains.
• Mountains contribute to food and nutrition security by providing land for crops, grazing for livestock, watercourses for inland fisheries, and non-wood forest products such as berries, mushrooms and honey.
• Of the 20 plant species that supply 80 percent of the world's food, six originated and have been diversified in mountains: maize, potatoes, barley, sorghum, tomatoes and apples.
• Mountains are places of tourism and cultural trails. Mountain tourism accounts for about 15–20 percent the global tourism industry.
• Mountains have a key role to play in providing renewable energy, especially through hydropower, solar power, wind power and biogas.

Videos

The Mountain Partnership is the United Nations voluntary alliance of partners dedicated to mountain peoples and environments. The Secretariat of the Mountain Partnership is hosted by FAO. This Annual Report outlines the Mountain Partnership Secretariat’s key achievements in promoting sustainable mountain development in 2022. International Mountain Day 2023: Restoring mountain ecosystems Restoring mountain ecosystems is the theme of International Mountain Day in 2023. This theme was selected to fully include mountains in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030, co-led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and the UN Environment Programme. [more]

Kyrgyz mountain women collaborate with fashion designer Stella Jean Mountain women in Kyrgyzstan are working together with fashion designer Stella Jean to bring their traditional felt designs to the international market, thanks to a collaboration between the Mountain Partnership Products initiative, Topchu artisan group, FAO Women's Committee and Stella Jean. [more]

International Mountain Day 2020: Message from FAO Director General What the world can learn from mountains A new report by FAO, the World Tourism Organization and the Mountain Partnership highlights how mountain tourism, if managed sustainably, can boost the incomes of local communities and help preserve their natural resources and culture. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 11 December the International Day of Mountains. From 2003, the day is observed each year to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of mountains. [more]

International Mountain Day 2018: #MountainsMatter Thomas Gass, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs talks about the vital goods and services that mountains provide to communities and the role of partnerships in promoting sustainable mountain development. Mountains cover 22 percent of the world’s land surface and are home to roughly 13 percent of the world’s population. We all depend on mountains, for freshwater, agrobiodiversity, clean energy, timber and medicinal plants. Yet mountains are under threat from climate change in unprecedented way. [more]

Mountain Partnership Products Initiative Mountains are not just magnificent landscapes. They are lifelines for millions. We need mountains to drink: each day, one in two people on the planet quenches their thirst with water that originates in mountains. We need mountains to eat: across the world, two-thirds of irrigated agriculture depends on runoff from mountains. The Mountain Partnership Product label highlights the added values of mountain products, enabling consumers to make more informed purchases and producers to sell at a premium price. It is a voluntary global branding scheme supported by a value chain and marketing strategy, created to support small mountain producers from developing countries to obtain fair compensation for their products. [more]

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Press releases and editorials

Opinion editorial: On a quest to restore mountains 11 December 2023 Mountains are not just magnificent landscapes. They are lifelines for millions. We need mountains to drink: each day, one in two people on the planet quenches their thirst with water that originates in mountains. We need mountains to eat: across the world, two-thirds of irrigated agriculture depends on runoff from mountains. [more]

Proof that restoring mountain ecosystems works - returning wildlife and flourishing forests in mountains guard against climate change and create jobs 11 December 2023 In the snowy peaks of Kyrgyzstan’s Tien-Shan mountains, a group of people hike to a remote area, checking and relocating camera traps that monitor wildlife, like the elusive snow leopard – the “ghost of the mountains”. Formerly hunters and fishers, these locals now work as community rangers, patrolling the Baiboosun Nature Reserve. [more]

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