2024 Volume 27 Issue 2 Pages 81-90
Looking back at decades of rising awareness of mountain challenges and constraints in the framework of a half-century-long Man and the Biosphere Programme by UNESCO, and anniversaries such as 30 years of the UNDP Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro and 20 years since the inauguration of the International Year of Mountains, it is high time for assessing the achievements and shortcomings over these years and for projecting a future vision for coping with climate and social changes and striving for sustainable mountain development. Coping strategies need to be adapted to local conditions; many challenges are similar, but solutions can differ over a wide spectrum of policy-making and development-package designing. Shrinking available spaces in conjunction with high demand for building plots, infrastructure expansion, tourist facilities and leisure and recreation areas have increased the existing tension with mountain agriculture’s paramount role in traditional land use. Its valuable contribution to ecosystem services, food security and cash crop production requires a cautious approach for safeguarding rural livelihoods. Enhanced out-migration and other forms of multi-directional mobility affect the maintenance of cultural and natural landscapes. Political conflicts in border regions indicate an urgent need for negotiations and reconciliation on the way to creating cross-boundary cooperation and professional exchange on the path to sustainable mountain development.
