Science Networks for Global Change in Mountain Regions: The Mountain Research Initiative - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 282

IGBP joined forces with the International Human Dimensions Programme
(IHDP) on Global Environmental Change and the Global Terrestrial Observing
System (GTOS) during the following years to collaboratively define the objectives,
approach and activities of this new research programme - the Mountain Research
Initiative. The final product of this joint effort outlines the four dimensions of
research activities, which were determinant for the formal establishment of the MRI
(Becker and Bugmann, 2001 ):
1. Long-term monitoring of environmental change in mountain regions (e.g. mete-
orological and cryospheric indicators, plant communities, soils and freshwater
ecosystems);
2. Integrated model-based studies of environmental change in different mountain
regions;
3. Process studies along altitudinal gradients;
4. Advice to sustainable land use and natural resource management.
In brief, the MRI strives for a better understanding of the mountain system's
processes and functions under Global Change, which is then translated into spe-
cific recommendations for furthering sustainable development in mountain regions
around the globe. The notion was never that MRI as institution would direct such
a programme but rather that MRI - both as institution and as a community of
researchers - would facilitate the emergence of such research through the promo-
tion and coordination of research funded and conducted by myriad agencies and
individuals around the world.
23.1.1 Actions at Global Level: Design of an International
Research Agenda
Only in 2001, an MRI Coordination Office was established in Berne, Switzerland,
at the Swiss Academy of Sciences using funding from several Swiss agencies and
the ETH. The first Executive Director, Dr. Mel Reasoner, set off to foster and coor-
dinate research of the four types listed above. He set the scene by producing the
first comprehensive compendium of past and current research on “Global Change in
Mountain Regions” (Huber et al., 2005 ). This 700-page book provides an overview
of what is known and what directions research should take in the future.
A further milestone in the MRI history was the successful launch of the Global
Change in Mountain Regions (GLOCHAMORE) project. This FP6 Specific Support
Action (2003-2005) translated the global goals of IGBP Report 49 into much
more specific disciplinary objectives coupled to a recommendation for inter- and
transdisciplinary research approaches. Targeting at UNESCO Mountain Biosphere
Reserves around the world, the project included more than 250 scientists and man-
agers of Biosphere Reserves and was coordinated by MRI and by the University
of Vienna. The GLOCHAMORE Research Strategy (Björnsen, 2005 ), the project's
final product, is an integrated and implementable research strategy to better under-
stand the causes and consequences of global change in mountain regions around the