Sustainable Mountain Development - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 636

Appropriate Development Approaches and Institutional Mechanisms
Parvez and Rasmussen (2004), Pratt (2004), and Starr (2004) all emphasize that, while
endogenous development is desirable, it has to be undertaken in the broader context—a
key element of many of the principles of both Ives et al. (1997a) and Mountain Agenda
(2002). “Security,” environmental, social, and economic problems have to be addressed
together. Pratt (2004) identifies two interacting sets of factors:
• The environmental services (e.g., watershed protection, biodiversity, carbon se-
questration; a term generally synonymous with ecosystem services; see Grêt-
Regamey et al. 2012) and exportable natural resources (e.g., water, minerals) which
a region provides; and
• The extent of linkages between upland and lowland communities;
which can be used to characterize four types of mountain regions, as discussed below.
For each of these, different development approaches and institutional mechanisms
are likely to be appropriate to foster SMD, given that it should be regionally specific
(Price and Kim 1999).
Regions with a low value of environmental services and low linkages to downstream
populations and markets are relatively rare. They tend to be characterized by high
cultural richness yet high economic poverty; examples include parts of Tibet and the
Ethiopian highlands. Appropriate institutional arrangements may include the develop-
ment and/or strengthening of local institutions, and subsidies or other welfare payments
to ensure access to basic social services. Improvements in local production to avoid de-
pendence on external institutions and resources are also essential, and should be linked
to research and extension, leading to improved food security. All these mechanisms
should reduce rates of out-migration, a key hindrance to SMD. In contrast, in regions
characterized by low values of environmental services and high linkages of exportable
resources, such as the arid Andes, policies such as environmental and social impact as-
sessment, avoidance, and mitigation should be appropriate—but they often do not work.
They need to be complemented by effective measures that give exploiting companies in-
centives for compliance and ensure that regulations are enforced, accompanied by par-
ticipatory monitoring and evaluation, and local involvement in decision making.
In regions that provide important environmental services but are not strongly linked
to downstream populations and markets, sustainable livelihoods can be based on joint
approaches to conservation and development, including ecotourism, which recognize
the value of indigenous knowledge, as discussed above. Where institutions are suf-
ficiently developed, compensatory mechanisms that provide financial and other re-
sources to upland land owners and managers for biodiversity protection and watershed
management can be invested in private businesses and communities; such payments for
ecosystem services (PES) schemes have been developed in a number of countries in-
cluding Costa Rica, France, Mexico, and Nepal (Franco-Maass et al. 2008; Neuman et
al. 2010, Porras 2010).
Finally, the greatest actual and potential conflicts are found in regions that both
provide important environmental services and are strongly linked to downstream mar-
kets. These are the types of mountain regions whose resources have tended to be most