BUILD UP TO INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAIN DAY

2020 Theme: Mountain biodiversity

Mountain biodiversity is the theme of this year’s IMD. Mountains loom large in some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes. Their unique topography, compressed climatic zones and isolation have created the conditions for a wide spectrum of life forms.

Biodiversity encompasses the variety of ecosystems, species and genetic resources, and mountains have many endemic varieties. The differentiated topography in terms of altitude, slope and exposure in mountains offers opportunities to grow a variety of high-value crops, horticulture, livestock and forest species.

For example, mountain pastoralists in Pakistan have a highly treasured livestock genetic resource pool with special traits bred into animals, such as disease resilience, which can help adaption to changing climate. Nearly 70% of mountain land is used for grazing and provides manure that enhances soil fertility. Livestock not only produces food items such as milk, butter and meat, but also valuable by-products, such as some of the most precious yarns, like cashmere wool.

However, climate change, unsustainable farming practices, commercial mining, logging, and poaching all exact a heavy toll on mountain biodiversity. In addition, land use and land cover change, and natural disasters, accelerate biodiversity loss and contribute to creating a fragile environment for mountain communities. Ecosystem degradation, loss of livelihoods and migration in mountains can lead to the abandonment of cultural practices and ancient traditions that have sustained biodiversity for generations.

The sustainable management of mountain biodiversity has been increasingly recognized as a global priority. Sustainable Development Goal 15, target four, is dedicated to the conservation of mountains’ biodiversity in consideration of its global relevance. Biodiversity in all ecosystems is in focus, as the United Nations has declared 2021 to 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and governments prepare to negotiate the post-2020 global biodiversity framework for adoption this year at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

UIAA on 11 December

The UIAA’s flagship sustainability programme is its annual Mountain Protection Award (MPA). Following the decision of the UIAA Mountain Protection Commission (MPC), owing to Covid-19, to postpone the 2020 Award to 2021, the UIAA has focused on profiling the progress made by past recipients of the Award. What impact has the Award had on a project fulfilling its goals? How have projects which require on the ground field work managed to evolve during Covid-19? What makes a successful project? How have projects worked with governments and other authorities to further their ambitions?

Recent profiles include the Swiss Alpine Club’s Alpine Learning Project Weeks, the Mount Everest Biogas Project and Mountain Wilderness France‘s scheme to remove obsolete facilities from the Alps. For IMD, the UIAA will focus not only on past winners but a number of nominated projects, with a dedicated focus on mountain biodiversity. A significant focus of the Award, partnered by Bally since 2020, is to support all nominated projects through their lifecycle.

The UIAA is also working with its partners UNEP and Mountain Partnership in the promotion of global biodiversity stories and assets.

United Nations Environment Programme – Online IMD Event