Impacts and Risks of Global Change - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 67

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Figure 3.12. Man-environment system in mountain regions (modifi ed by the authors from:
GLP, www.globallandproject.org).
Color image of this figure appears in the color plate section at the end of the topic.
capture it. One such programme is the global GLORIA initiative with its
high-mountain ecology monitoring instruments (Grabherr et al. 2010,
Pauli et al. 2007). It is not enough to study individual system elements of
the natural- and the anthroposphere (single discipline approach) or the
interaction between subsystems or even the entire man-environment system
(interdisciplinary approach). When all is said and done, such analyses are
always restricted to the production of system knowledge.
The challenges of climate change and globalization increasingly call
for target knowledge to be provided to decision makers in politics and
the economy. Everybody uses key terms such as sustainability, preserving
biodiversity, safeguarding ecosystem services, disaster protection,
establishing protected areas, ensuring economic capability, competitiveness
and social coherence as things to strive for. These are the expressions of a
heightened awareness of social and political responsibility, but as a rule
they are not very specifi c and their implementation is not without confl ict.
Therefore it is vital to include stakeholders, not only in the creation of system
knowledge but even more importantly in the assessment and transformation
into target knowledge in truly a transdisciplinary style. The mountain.TRIP