Sustainable Mountain Development - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 638

world's mountains. Building on the IAGM, the Mountain Partnership is conceived as a
mechanism to improve, strengthen, and promote cooperation among all mountain stake-
holders. By May 2013, 50 countries, 16 intergovernmental organizations, and 145 major
groups (e.g., civil society, NGOs, and the private sector) had joined. At its core is action
on the ground through specific thematic or regional initiatives, all of which recognize
that projects, policies, laws, and other activities in support of SMD have to be based on
sound information and knowledge (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2002), and that
this is typically achieved by working cooperatively. Many of the proposed activities build
on scientific initiatives which have been initiated or accelerated by the IYM (Borsdorf
and Braun 2008), including the Mountain Research Initiative, which brings together
three global research programs (Becker and Bugmann 2001; http://mri.scnatweb.ch/ ).
This existed before the IYM, but has been accelerated by it; a key activity was a major
conference in 2010 which identified key needs for research to support SMD (Björnsen
Gurung et al. 2012).
While the targeted generation of knowledge is critical for SMD, this needs to be com-
plemented by increasing financial investments in mountain areas, recognizing not only
their relative disadvantages, but also their potential, and that mountain people, and the
ecosystems they manage, provide vital services both at national levels—as reflected in
the various laws, policies, institutions, and funds described above—and for a significant
proportion of humankind. Thus, Debarbieux and Price (2008, 2012) have suggested that
mountains may be regarded as a global common good, like the atmosphere, tropical
forests, and Antarctica. This global importance is reflected, for instance, in the GEF and
World Bank funding for projects in mountain areas, focusing on integrated ecosystem
management, partnerships, and innovative funding mechanisms such as payment for
environmental services, debt-for-nature swaps, and environmental trust funds (MacKin-
non 2004; Walsh 2002). The World Bank, UNEP, UNDP, FAO, and the Asian Development
Bank are both GEF Agencies, which manage GEF projects, and members of the Moun-
tain Partnership, as is PlaNet Finance, which supports the development of sustainable
microfinance institutions worldwide.
From Rio 1992 to Rio 2012 and Beyond
Twenty years after UNCED, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Develop-
ment took place, again in Rio de Janeiro. In preparation for this “Rio + 20” conference,
members of the Mountain Partnership prepared assessments of progress with regard
to SMD, both for regions where there has been considerable attention to the concept
and its implementation—such as the Alps, Andes, and Hindu Kush-Himalaya—and oth-
ers where there has been less progress in this regard to date, such as Central America,
Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (Maselli 2012). A synthesis of these reports
concludes that water supply, food security, and clean energy are likely to become the
major challenges for humanity in the near future, and that SMD is key to addressing
these global challenges (Maselli et al. 2011). A second global synthesis report (Kohler
et al. 2012) focuses on the two themes that dominated the Rio + 20 agenda: green eco-
nomy (and green energy), and institutions for sustainable development.
In preparation for Rio + 20, the members of the Mountain Partnership focused par-
ticularly on the conference's outcome document. In the zero draft, released for com-