With the collapse of the Soviet Union the geopolitics of the mountain areas of the former USSR changed fundamentally. While new borders appeared for some mountain regions, e.g. the Caucasus, thus making mountain-wide development more difficult, for other regions, e.g. the Altai, the new order finally allowed range-wide co-operation (Russia and Mongolia, Russia and China). The social and political situation in the Caucasus has aggravated destructive processes that took the form of bloody conflicts, wiping out traditional economic contacts and accumulating ecological and social problems, etc. The rise of new boundaries in the Russian Caucasus, including boundaries between regions of the Russian Federation, had several negative effects such as: intensification of seasonal peaks of tourism; overgrazing in middle mountains; uncontrolled fishing, frequent poaching, uncontrolled destruction of the cultural landscape, especially in high mountains due to abandonment of marginal high mountain pastures and in foothills due to sudden reduction of arable lands; soil pollution at illegal oil extraction sites; and aggravation of contamination along overburdened interregional roads.
The conflicts over the use of natural resources and dislocation in the natural environment and cultural landscapes related to theses conflicts, are not very apparent against the background of socio-economic processes and conflicts over sovereignty and ethnicity in the whole of the Caucasus.
The conflicts are accompanied by direct or indirect influence of the closure of boundaries on the lowering of life expectancy and living standards; an abrupt decrease in the total number of tourists and holiday-makers; destruction of tourist infrastructure; peripherization and depopulation, especially along boundaries; and separation of peoples and ethnic groups by new state boundaries
The data presented make it apparent that problem domains occurred mostly due to the division of a previously single area into new states and regions. This fact represents the main distinction between the Caucasus and the Alps. The development of the Alps during the last decades evidently reflects the processes of unification and integration. This universal trend forms the basis of the Alpine Convention (AC) as a protection-oriented common concept of development.
Democracy in Russia was conducive to development of a number of regional and local initiatives oriented towards addressing problems. Currently regional initiatives in the field of transboundary co-operation lack methodological tools. In the context of sustainable development, the topical question is a problem of knowledge transfer which would allow the use of positive experiences with the application of principles and models of sustainable development in different countries, and also avoid negative effects in regional development.
Within the framework of a joint project of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Alpine Study (Germany), an analysis of possibilities to apply the experience of the AC to mountain regions of CIS and Russia has been made. The project?s final report specially points to considerable progress in the development of proper regional mountain conventions (Caucasus, Altai), but the initial stage is characterized by pretentiousness, haste in proposing hypotheses (that are frequently formulated in other domains), manipulation of international conventions? clauses, and the absence in practice of follow-up studies that could reveal the limits of application of international experience. It is emphasized that the AC is important not only as a finished document but also as a method and an approach to achieve an aim (especially important for the Caucasus).
