Mountains cover one quarter of the Earth's land surface. They present monumental paradoxes:
- They dominate the landscape and inspire scared devotion and awe; their people are isolated and ignored.
- They are the font of fantastic wealth; their people live in poverty.
- They provide water for half of the world's people; their water and soil resources are among the most mismanaged of all their assets.
- They are the home of incredible variety and biodiversity; their ecosystems are fragile and easily degraded.
- Their people have learned vital lessons about sustainability; will anyone listen?
Altogether, the environmental goods, protection, and services provided by mountainous regions are critical to the survival of the human species, both upstream and downstream.
Mountain people live in remote, rugged, and hard to reach environments. Their dispersed settlement patterns make it difficult for them to form a political constituency; so they frequently lack access and voice in political systems. They are all too often ignored by governments (almost always based in lowlands), by traditional development agencies, and by most of the non-profit community. If we do not solve the challenges of conservation, poverty reduction, and sustainable development in mountains, there is little hope of solving the challenges of sustainability anywhere.
In recognition of the special challenges of conservation and sustainable development in mountain regions, the UN General Assembly declared 2002 the International Year of Mountains to call attention to the importance of mountain ecosystems and the role of mountain communities as stewards of these natural systems on which all life depends. The United Nations declaration states that this program "fosters the conservation and the sustainable development of mountain regions, thus assuring the welfare of mountain communities and those in the lowlands."
This report has been prepared as a background paper for the 2003 World Development Report: Dynamic Development in a Sustainable World, which looks at sustainable development from a global perspective. Mountains play a critical role in many aspects of global and local sustainability, providing valuable resources and services to the environment and offering the knowledge and experience of mountain people in sustainable use of resources. Mountain communities have solved many of the most basic challenges of sustainability, and offer models for the rest of the world. Yet their remoteness and lack of political "voice", together with new threats of development are undermining their present, as well as their future, livelihoods. What can we learn, and how can these lessons be applied to ensure a sustainable future for all?
The analysis below will support the key themes of the WDR, including how to reduce poverty, how to institute better common property management, how to assure the conservation and management of critical environmental assets indefinitely into the future, and how to ensure the fundamental economic and political equity that are at the heart of sustainability . The report will first address the physical and biological characteristics of mountains, and then look at the social and human aspects of mountain communities. A framework will then be presented for identifying key issues in different mountains areas, and implications for appropriate and effective policy will be discussed. Finally, the core elements of a program of action will be presented.
