Analysis of Sustainable Development in
Mountain areas
by Daniel Buchbinder
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Introduction
This paper is intended to settle a basic background in the importance of mountain regions all
over the globe.
The intention is first, to understand the concept and importance of mountains, and
understanding the most important variables that affect them; then to overview the reality of
some regions, and finally to understand how it could be possible to make them sustainable.
The approach from this paper will try to be form different angles or focuses; and the analysis
will come when different mountain regions will be studied either from cultural, ethnic,
ecological or economic views for example.
One important fact to take in consideration that this year 2002 is the IYM (International Year
of Mountains), so that a lot of the material in the present will be completely updated and
fresh.
Mountains are a vast storehouse of hydropower, timber, fuel wood, medicinal plants,
minerals and water.
Mountain biodiversity can be characterised at the scale of entire mountain systems, their
component ranges, and individual peaks and valleys; each of these can be regarded as a
more or less isolated 'ecological island' aidst the surrounding lowlands or on the inland
margins of seascapes. Three types of biodiversity can be distinguished: genetic, species and
ecosystem diversity.
Biodiversity refers to the diversity of life on earth. It includes all species of plants, animals
and microorganisms, their genetic material and the ecosystems in which they live. The many
different forms of life have taken millennia to develop through a process of natural selection
and evolutionary change. It is estimted that the number of species on earth may be as high
as 15 million. Of this, only 1.7 million life forms are known to science, with thousands of
species still waiting to be discovered and classified.
To provide a global context for a discussion of mountain forests, it is first necessary to define
their locations and types, and this in turn requires a definition of mountains or mountain
areas. Altitude and slope and the environmental gradients they generate are key
components of such a definition, but their combination is problematic. Simple altitude
thresholds both exclude older and lower mountain systems and include areas of relatively
high elevation that have little topographic relief and few environmental gradients. Using slope
as a criterion on its own or in combination with altitude can resolve the latter problem but not
the former.
The statement of question for the present paper is as follows:
With all the material including theoretical tools, articles and diverse literature, which is the
perspective that should be used to approach to the sustainabilty in mountain areas, taking in
consideration that all of them have completely different backgrounds and realities.
The first stage of the analysis is to create a "theoretical" framework about mountains and
different aspects that involve them, such as: Biodiversity, Climate, Social and Military
conflicts, Forests, Gender and Water. This is with the intention of having a base for further
analysis.
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Mountain biodiversity
Mountains might seem like impenetrable monoliths of rock but, in reality, they are among the
world's greatest sources of biodiversity, providing refuge to untold varieties of plants and
animals. Many of these species have disappeared from lowland areas, crowded out by
human activities. Many others exist nowhere else but on mountains. All people, wherever
they live, share the responsibility of protecting mountain biodiversity. But it is mountain
people who are the primary guardians of these irreplaceable global assets. Over
generations, they have acquired a unique and detailed understanding of mountain
ecosystems. Until now, governments and nternational organizations have largely overlooked
the knowledge that mountain people possess and the important role that mountains play in
preserving much of the world's biodiversity.
Mountains have been described as islands of biodiversity surrounded by an ocean of
monocultures and human-altered landscapes. Indeed, many plants and animals found in
mountain habitat have disappeared from lowland regions, crowded out by human activities.
Isolation and relative inaccessibility have helped protect and preserve species in mountains from deer, eagles and llamas to wild varieties of mustard, cardamom, gooseberry and
pumpkin. In the Andes, for example, armers know of as many as 200 different varieties of
indigenous potatoes. In the mountains of Nepal, they farm approximately 2 000 varieties of
rice. On the top of a mountain in the Mexican Sierra de Manantlan, the only known stands of
the most primitive wild relative of corn continue to grow.
Mountain gorillas in central East Africa, spectacled bears in the Andes and resplendent
quetzals in Central America are all clinging to ever-shrinking patches of cloud forest. At the
same time, trade in rare mountain plants and animals, including species of orchids, birds and
amphibians, continues to deplete populations. Poverty in mountain communities is one
reason for habitat destruction. Commercial mining, logging, tourism and global climate
change also exact a heavy toll on mountain biodiversity.
Study case: The Andes, an array of biodiversity
Of all the world's mountain ranges, tropical mountain environments are the greatest source of
biodiversity. Of those, the eastern slopes of the Andes are believed to harbour the greatest
amount of biological diversity.
Tumbling down from peaks that sear Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and
Venezuela, the eastern slopes of the Andes possess a mind-boggling array of ecosystems from tropical rainforest, sub alpine forest, alpine heath and cloud forest to alpine grassland,
tundra, snow and ice fields. Each of these zones, including the ice fields, has its own habitats
and assemblages of plants and animals.
Mountain people are the primary guardians of mountain bio-diversity. Over millennia, they
have grown to understand the importance of shifting cultivation, of terraced fields, of
recognizing plants with healing powers and of the sustainable harvesting of food, fodder and
fuel wood from forests. Yet this extraordinary knowledge is often unappreciated or ignored by
those outside of mountain communities.
Far from the centres of commerce and power, mountain people have little influence over the
policies that direct the courses of their lives and contribute to the degradation of their
mountain homes. Indeed, up until now, mountain ecosystems and mountain people have
received little attention at all from governments and organizations worldwide - a disparity that
threatens not only mountain life but also the richness of lives everywhere.
Not all mountain ecosystems are the same. Yet they all, whether in cloud forests, on alpine
grasslands or along glacier-fed streams, have two things in common: altitude and diversity.
Rapid changes in elevation, slope and orientation to the sun have a tremendous influence on
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temperature, wind, moisture availability and soil composition over very short distances.
These subtle changes create pockets of life found nowhere else but at a particular elevation
and on a specific mountain or range.
Extreme climatic conditions push the limits of biological and human adaptation ever further.
At high altitudes, native plants and animals develop special survival mechanisms. Some
alpine wildflowers, for example, are adapted to live in the microhabitat created by the shade
of a single rock.
For the people who struggle to survive in these harsh environments, understanding and
respecting this delicate balance is crucial. Farmers in the mountains of Burundi and Rwanda,
for example, plant between 6 and 30 different varieties of beans in order to exploit subtle
differences in elevation, climate and soil.
Unique conditions, while generating a wide variety of species, make mountain ecosystems
extremely fragile. Slight changes in temperature, rainfall or soil stability can result in the loss
of entire communities of plants and anmals.
Like island habitats, mountain ecosystems have no naturally evolved defences against
invading species. Often, these alien invaders are introduced by human visitors or as a
consequence of planting non-native crops or ornamental plants.
Because they generally arrive without the predators or pests with which they evolved, these
invasive species easily out compete native flora and fauna. Examples of some of the most
damaging alien species include feral pigs in Hawaii in the United States and Costa Rica,
goats in Venezuela, foreign grasses in Puerto Rico and alien trout in the United States'
Yellowstone National Park.
Methods to eradicate alien species are often experimental but always time-consuming and
expensive.
There has never been a "science" of mountains. Our understanding of mountains - as
opposed to oceans or lowland rain forests - is derived from a variety of scientific disciplines
that rarely exchange ideas or information. As a consequence, crucial relationships between
upper and lower watersheds, mountain forests and alpine grasslands, mountain people and
lowland urban dwellers have never been understood. Integrating the many ways in which we
examine mountain ecosystems - blurring the lines between geology, meteorology, hydrology,
biology, anthropology and economics - will not only raise awareness but aid the development
of sustainable practices that will help protect mountain ecosystems and the biodiversity they
shelter.
Economic approach to the Mountain topic
Mountain farmers cultivate thousands of plant varieties, many of which thrive only at specific
elevations and climates. Often, they encourage cross-fertilization between wild and cultivated
varieties. In the Himalaya, for example, domestic and wild varieties of lemon, orange and
mango trees are grown side by side. In Mexico, farmers allow teosinte, a distant ancestor of
maize, to grow near their cultivated maize.
Planting many varieties of a single crop, as well as allowing wild varieties to mix in,
encourages new characteristics to emerge while strengthening a species' genetic diversity
and resilience. Many mountain farmers also say it improves yields and minimizes the need
for pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers.
Recently, however, a growing number of mountain farmers have felt pressured to abandon
age-old practices for modern, high-yield farming techniques. These not only include planting
fewer seed strains, relying more heavly on irrigation and higher doses of pesticides,
herbicides and fertilizers, but choosing specific fruit and vegetable crops because they will
generate higher returns in the market economy. While some communities may benefit
financially, for others such changes spell enormous losses. A number of mountain
communities, for example, have moved from traditional sheep and goat farming to cattle
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ranching. As a consequence, entire forest ecosystems have been wiped out as land has
been cleared for crops and cattle.
Climate change
Human activities are profoundly affecting the world's climate, and mountains are a barometer
of that effect. Each day, fossil fuel-burning technologies produce greenhouse gases that
enhance the heat-trapping capability of the earth's atmosphere, gradually raising the planet's
temperature. Because of their altitude, slope and orientation to the sun, mountain
ecosystems are easily disrupted by variations in temperature. As the world heats up,
mountain glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates, while rare plants and Animals struggle
to survive over increasingly smaller ranges, and mountain people, already among the world's
poorest citizens, face greater hardships. Understanding how climate change affects
mountains is vital as governments and international organizations develop strategies to
reverse current global warming trends.
The roots of climate change
Many things we do contribute to world climate change. Industrial processes and farming
activities as well as unfettered enthusiasm for cars all generate gases that trap the sun's rays
in the atmosphere. These gases, which include methane, nitrous oxide and especially carbon
dioxide, enhance the "greenhouse" effect that naturally takes place in the environment.
As the sun heats the earth's surface, the earth radiates energy back into space. Some of this
outgoing energy is naturally trapped and absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases such
as water vapour and carbon dioxide. Without this natural greenhouse effect, temperatures
would be much lower and life, as we know it would not exist. Problems arise when
atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases increase and more energy is trapped,
keeping the earth's surface hotter than it would otherwise be.
Some climate models predict that global temperatures will rise between 1 and 3.5°C by the
year 2100. Although a few degrees might appear insignificant, an increase of this kind is far
greater than any climate change experienced since the last ice age, 10 000 years ago.
Among the consequences imagined, sea levels are expected to rise by 15 to 95 cm, causing
flooding and untold damage to island nations and low-lying coastal communities. Already, the
11 000 residents of Tuvalu are being forced to abandon their island nation because of the
rising sea level.
Mountain Glaciers
Mountain glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates. Over the last century, glaciers in the
European Alps and the Caucasus Mountains have shrunk to half their size, while in Africa
only 8 percent of Mount Kenya's largest glacier remains. If current trends continue, by the
end of this century many of the world's mountain glaciers, including all those in Glacier
National Park in the United States, will have vanished entirely.
Changes in the depth of mountain glaciers and in their seasonal melting patterns will have an
enormous impact on water resources in many parts of the world.
In Peru, approximately 10 million residents of Lima depend on freshwater from the Quelcaya
Glacier. In other parts of the world, rapid glacial melting is expected to disrupt agriculture and
cause flooding. In Nepal, a glacial lake burst its banks in 1985, sending a 15 m wall of water
rushing downhill, drowning people and destroying homes. Many climatologists believe that
the decline in mountain glaciers is one of the first observable signs of human-induced global
warming.
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The rarest species at risk
Because of their shape and size, mountains support a wide range of climatic conditions.
Climbing just 100 m up a mountain slope can offer as much climatic variety as travelling 100
km across flat terrain.
Mountain climates are like narrow bands, each stacked on top of the other. Every rise in
altitude generates different conditions, supporting unique and often isolated ecosystems with
some of the world's greatest variety of plant and animal life.
As the world heats up, however, conditions within each of these narrow bands is changing.
Already scientists have witnessed examples of species moving uphill in search of more
suitable habitat.
Climatologists believe that a predicted rise in global temperatures of 3¼C would be
equivalent to an ecological shift upwards of about 500 m in altitude. Not all species will be
able to move. Those confined to the tops of mountains or below impassable barriers may
face extinction as their habitat grows smaller.
The rarest species are most at risk of extinction. Among these are mountain pygmy possum
in Australia, ptarmigan and snow bunting in the United Kingdom, Gelada baboons in Ethiopia
and monarch butterflies in Mexico.
Climate change and mountain people
For mountain people, each day atop the world's most extreme landscapes is a test of
survival. Now, however, as global cliate change threatens to disrupt mountain environments,
life for most mountain people will only get harder. For example, just as warming trends are
forcing many species to migrate uphill in search of habitat, mountain people too will have to
adapt to changes - or leave their homes as traditional sources of food and fuel grow scarce.
At the same time, mountains will become more dangerous as melted permafrost and glacial
runoff accelerate soil erosion as well as the likelihood of falling rocks, landslides, floods and
avalanches. Irrigation will be affected, first by floods and then by drought, making survival
harder for subsistence farmers as well as those who grow cash crops. Nearly all economic
activities, such as logging and tourism, are likely to decline as mountain ecosystems are
changed irrevocably.
One of the indirect consequences of global warming in mountain regions is increasing risk of
infectious diseases, where vulnerable people in these areas suffer the most.
Monitoring mountains
Mountains are a barometer of global climate change. These fragile ecosystems are highly
sensitive to changes in temperature, and they are found on every continent. Indeed, many
climatologists believe mountains provide an early glimpse of what may come to pass in
lowland environments. For this reason, it is vital that the biological and physical components
of mountains are strictly monitored and studied. Information on the health of mountain
environments will undoubtedly assist governments and international organizations as they
develop management strategies and mount strong campaigns to reverse current global
warming trends.
Political, social and military conflicts in mountain areas
Peace is essential to sustainable development. Most wars and armed conflicts take place in
the world's highlands. They represent perhaps the most significant barriers to sustainable
development in mountains. In 1999, 23 of the 27 major armed conflicts in the world were
being fought in mountain regions.
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Mountains: today's war zones
Mountainous areas - ranging from Afghanistan to the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Andes,
parts of the Near East and Africa - are the flash points of conflicts afflicting the world today.
The reasons for this are complex and varied, but the effects on mountain people are
universally devastating. Fighting prevents them from fundamental life-sustaining tasks
ranging from collecting water to planting and harvesting crops. Where landmines are laid,
agricultural lands must be left barren until expensive mine clearance can be undertaken,
typically many years later. Infrastructure such as roads and schools are destroyed, halting
economic development. The death, injuries and emotional trauma of war devastate individual
lives and national advancement. Mountain regions suffer disproportionately from all these
effects of conflict because they are often the poorest and least developed places in the world
as well as the omelands of indigenous cultures.
The remoteness of mountain regions can make it difficult to create a universally accepted set
of rules and regulations regarding resource management - and their enforcement next to
impossible. This creates oportunities for disputes over resources, territory and political
jurisdiction. In the absence of a clearly defined and authoritative system for settling disputes,
local conflicts can degenerate into long-standing conflicts between neighbouring
communities and countries.
Local clan affiliations may be the only systems isolated mountain communities feel they can
trust to legitimately represent their interests. In these conditions, attempts to introduce new
resource management practices that involve entire watersheds may be seen as a threat.
Furthermore, in power vacuums, it is men who usually take control, often by force of arms.
Women, even though they may have the deepest knowledge about how best to use local
resources, are rarely consulted when conflicts arise over resource management.
In 1995, the inability to manage mountain waters was the source of 14 international conflicts.
A look at the global situation suggests that there are many opportunities for similar conflicts.
Rivers rarely follow national borders - two or more countries share 214 river basins, covering
more than half of the earth's surface and home to 40 percent of the world's population. As
populations increase and the demand for water intensifies, the potential for international wars
over water resources escalates.
History offers some reasons for hope. There are many examples of international treaties
regulating the use of mountain water that have stood the test of time, even though the
countries involved have had intensely strained relations - such as India's and Pakistan's
mutual respect for the treaty governing their shared use of the Indus River.
For many communities in both highland and lowland areas, internal conflicts over the control
of mountain waters are a far more real threat than international ones, and they can be just as
catastrophic.
National governments may be able to find comon interests in building a large dam but their
shared interests may be at odds with those of the mountain communities that live near a
proposed dam or in the lands that may be flooded. When local interests are not taken into
account in planning large-scale water management projects, such as dams, there is bound to
be protest. Legitimate protest is sometimes met with violent repression, triggering a
downward spiral of conflict.
Drugs: Conflict in Mountain areas
Mountains are the primary battleground in international efforts to control the illegal drug
trade. Both the coca bush, the leaves of which are used to produce cocaine, and the opium
poppy, which is used to produce heroin, are native to mountain areas.
For international criminal organizations, cocaine and heroin mean big money. For many
mountain farmers in developing countries, with no other sources of income, the drug trade
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simply means survival. Often it is poor farmers who pay the heaviest price when
governments and intenational organizations attempt to eliminate drug trafficking by curtailing
the cultivation of illegal crops.
When drug money is available to buy large amounts of sophisticated weaponry, conflicts
over political, social or economic issues can explode into full-scale military and paramilitary
operations. In these situations, it is the least affluent mountain families who suffer the most.
Conflict in mountain areas often arises when mountain communities are denied a voice in
how local resources are used. In some areas of the world, lack of effective political
representation has been the fodder for violent revolution. Local rebel movements gain
momentum when central governments based in lowland capitals impose their rule over
mountain communities and decide how to eploit mountain resources and who will profit from
them. When mountain communities are of indigenous heritage or belong to an ethnic, racial
or religious minority, their marginalization can be politically expedient for governing parties.
The exclusion of mountain people from national politics can also be the result of deeply
engrained and unquestioned racist attitudes.
Mountain forests
Healthy mountain forests are crucial to the ecological health of the world. They protect
watersheds that supply freshwater to more than half the world's people. They also harbour
untold wildlife, provide food and fodder for mountain people and are important sources of
timber and non-wood products. Yet in many parts of the world mountain forests are under
threat as never before. Protecting these forests and making sure they are carefully managed
is an important step towards sustainable mountain development.
Deforestation, population growth and poverty
In the last decade, tropical mountain forests have been disappearing at an astounding rate.
Deforestation, while a complex phenomenon, is generally driven by population growth,
uncertain land tenure, inequitable land distribution and the absence of strong and stable
institutions. For example, in Southeast Asia and China, settlers escaping crowded lowland
cities typically move "uphill", pushing upland farmers, whose land occupancy is already
uncertain, higher into mountain forests. These new settlers, in turn, clear forests and threaten
the livelihoods of mountain people. In the Andes and African highlands, the story is
somewhat different but the root causes are much the same. After centuries of population
growth and intensive land use, mountain forests have been reduced to small patches of
green. In this case, the movement is reversed: mountain people flee "downhill", where they
face even greater hardships as they struggle to survive on less productive lowlands.
Some forestry and agricultural practices that are unsustainable contribute to deforestation by
increasing hillside erosion, threatening mountain biodiversity and impairing the natural
processes of forest ecosystems. Indeed, the destabilization of mountain forests creates an
ever-escalating spiral of destruction. For example, when too many trees are cut, runoff and
soil erosion increase at rates 20 to 40 times faster than soil can be stabilized, impairing water
quality in streams and rivers and harming fish and other aquatic species. As more land is
degraded, it increases the likelihood of natural hazards, such as avalanches, landslides and
floods.
Empowering mountain people
Too often, policies and decisions concerning the management of mountain forests are made
from afar, leaving those who live in mountain communities with the least amount of power
and influence. This is one of the reasons that large numbers of mountain people live in
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poverty. According to the World Bank, one-quarter of the world's poor depend directly or
indirectly on forests for their livelihood.
Putting power back into the hands of mountain people is one important step towards
alleviating their poverty and, in turn, protecting mountain forests. Measures that could
accomplish these aims include reinvesting forest revenues in mountain communities and
their resources, supporting community-based property rights, decentralizing power and
accountability, building alliances and fostering a complementary middle ground between
local knowledge and scientific understanding.
Cloud forests - keeping their "heads" in the clouds
Cloud foests are among the world's unique ecosystems. Bathed in fog and mist, they provide
food and shelter to thousands of people as well as untold numbers of plants and animals.
Yet, in as little as ten years time, the great majority of cloud forests may be gone Ð cleared
for cattle grazing, logged and mined for resources and dried out by the effects of global
warming and deforestation in lowland areas. As much as 90 percent of cloud forests in the
northern Andes have already disappeared.
Cloud forests are the result of persistent, seasonal or frequent wind-driven clouds that blow
over mountain regions and provide forests with moisture well above normal rainfall. In some
cases, this additional moisture can amount to nearly 20 percent of ordinary rainfall, or
hundreds of millimetres of water. When cloud forests are cleared, the extra water extracted
from the atmosphere is lost Ð along with the important functions that all forested headwaters
play in maintaining water quality, stabilizing water flow and preventing hillside erosion.
As recently as 30 years ago, cloud forests ranged over more than 50 million ha in narrow
mountain belts. Found in tropical and subtropical parts of the world, they exist at heights of
as low as 500 m and as high as 3 000 m above sea level. In 1999, a number of conservation
organizations, including the United Nations Environment Programme, the World
Conservation Union and the World Wide Fund for Nature, launched a programme to raise
awareness and promote conservation of cloud forests.
The last of the great coastal rain forests
No other ecosystem on earth produces as much living matter as the world's coastal
temperae rain forests. Found in wet, cool climates where marine air collides with coastal
mountains and generates large amounts of rainfall, these giant forests create as much as
500 to 2000 tonnes of wood, foliage, leaf litter, moss, plant life and soil per hectare. But far
from wasteful, this immense organic output prouces food and shelter for countless species of
insects, reptiles, birds and mammals and also contributes directly to the health of ocean life
nearby.
These distinct forest ecosystems have been depleted and, in many cases, completely
destroyed by farming, urban development and unsustainable harvesting practices.
Once found on five continents, coastal rain forests survive only on two. Today only about 30
to 40 million ha of coastal temperate rain forest remain, mostly along 8 000 km of coastline in
Chile and the Pacific Northwest of North America.
Of the world's remaining coastal temperate rain forests, only 16 percent are protected. Over
two-thirds of the protected area is in Alaska.
Mountain forests for the future
As mountain forests and all the life they harbour continue to vanish in many parts of the
world, it is more important than ever for governments to find a balance between productive
uses of forests and their protection.
To this end, one important step would be to recognize and support mountain people in their
role as the primary guardian of mountain forests. Too often in the global market economy,
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the most widely accepted thing of value in a forest is timber. In mountain communities, timber
is often less important than the ecosystem that produces water for drinking and irrigation,
and plants and animals for food, fodder and medicines.
Mountain people see the forest and not just the trees. Like everyone, they depend on the
entire forest ecosystem for their survival. Mountain forest policies should acknowledge the
needs of local communities first, before taking into consideration the interests of other
parties, such as the commercial forestry and tourism sectors.
Mountain forests stretch over 9 million square kilometres, representing 28 percent of the
world's closed forest area. Almost 4 million square kilometres of mountain forests are found
above 1 000 metres
Gender issues in mountain areas
Inaccessibility is perhaps the greatest influence shaping the lives of mountain inhabitants.
And while mountain women face many of the same challenges as women throughout the
developing world, the work of women in mountain regions is intensified by altitude, steep
terrain and isolation.
Women are vital to the sustainability of mountain communities and play a prominent role in
agricultural production, resource management and the household. Yet little information exists
about the status of women and gender relations in mountain regions. Studies about women
typically focus on those in lowland and urban environments, and are absent from most
economic and social histories of mountain regions, which are largely written by men.
It is impossible to describe gender relations in all mountain areas. Every region has its own
distinct cultural and environmental characteristics. This text relies on extensive research in
the Hindu Kush-Himalaya.
The status of mountain women
Many women in mountain regions have more freedom of movement, independence in
decision-making and higher status than women in lowland areas. This may be due to less
rigid religious beliefs, such as those found in indigenous systems, and because of their vital
contribution in eking out a living in a harsh mountain environment.
But this higher status is at risk. Whereas inaccessibility has helped to preserve many
languages and cultural traditions in mountain regions, mainstream pressures to adopt
national cultures now threaten to undermine the central role of women by relegating them to
the home and to domestic chores.
Division of labour
Women carry a heavier workload than men in mountain regions. While women share
agricultural and livestock tasks fairly evenly with men, they also collect water, fuel wood and
fodder as well as process food, cook, and care for children.
But the workload of mountain women is intensified by a number of factors in mountainous
regions, including a limited access to resources, an out migration of men who seek work in
lowland areas and environmental degradation. In most cases, mountain women also lack
economic independence and have only limited access to health care and education.
The survival of mountain communities requires the absence of men for trading and herding
purposes. During these periods, women maintain the farm and household and participate in
small trade and income-earning activities. Increasingly, however, the outmigration of men to
lowland and urban centres for cash wages leaves women as heads of the household for long
periods with only limited access to credit, agricultural extension, and other services.
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Women seldom hold ownership and tenure rights to land, trees, water and other natural
resources. While women contribute most of the labour for agriculture, they rarely have formal
control of land or ownership of animals. Mountain women's lack of control over productive
resources means they cannot raise collateral for bank loans, and hampers efforts to improve
or expand their farm activities and earn cash incomes.
Traditionally, most extension services have been devoted to farmers who own land and who
are able to obtain credit and invest it in inputs and technological innovations. Since women
often lack access to land or other collateral, extension services bypass women. This
marginalizes the role of women in agricultural production systems by emphasizing highyielding crop varieties to which women have little access. This also undermines the
traditional knowledge women possess about agriculture and resource management.
Women are forced to travel greater distances to collect fuel and fodder as a result of
diminishing forestry resources and a declining agricultural base. Environmental degradation
in mountain regions also increases the erosion of topsoil, leading to crop failure. The result is
growing outmigration, food deficits and incidences of trafficking of mountain women into
lowland and urban centres.
Gender, public services and politics
While the numer of girls attending school in mountain areas is increasing, their enrolment is
considerably lower than of boys. But the enrolment of girls in school does not guarantee their
attendance. Frequently, the girls’ mothers, who reqire their help for childcare and domestic
chores, are forced to take them out of school.
Health remains a neglected issue in mountain development. While hospitals are accessible
in some areas, mountain women generally have less access to medical care, family planning
or female doctors.
In the cold climate of high altitude regions, the body metabolises food faster, so people need
higher-calorie diets. Since females often have less access to household resources, women
and girls are at greater risk of hunger and poor nutrition.
Most mountain communities lack acess to adequate water supplies and proper sanitation
facilities, raising the risk of sanitation-related illness. Women, as the primary water carriers
and users are in constant contact with polluted water, increasing their vulnerability.
Throughout the developing world, women are prevented from full participation in politics
because of their lack of education in addition to their heavy workload. However, the number
of women voting and taking up community leadership roles in mountain regions is increasing.
Many women in mountain regions lack self-confidence and feel less important than men.
Factors that influence the self-esteem of mountain women include culture, education,
interaction with others outside the community and the ability to earn an income, among
others. n Tibet, where women are commonly described as free spirited and strong willed,
women have a lower self-image of themselves than do men.
While government interventions to help rural women are found in many mountain areas,
there are significant gaps between the policy goals and local realities. Policies designed
outside the community are inappropriate for the local context and many ignore the daily
activities of men and women. Sometimes women are too busy to take advantage of health
and education services. Frequently, policy directives come without funds, so they become
little more than expressions of intent noted on official documents.
Mountain waters
Mountains are often called nature's water towers. Because of their size and shape, they
intercept air circulating around the globe and force it upwards where it condenses into
clouds, which provide rain and snow. All the major rivers in the world - from the Rio Grande
to the Nile - have their headwaters in mountains. As a consequence, more than half the
world's people rely on mountain water to grow food, to produce electricity, to sustain
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industries and, most importantly, to drink. As populations increase and demand for clean
water grows, the potential for conflict also rises. Careful management of mountain
ecosystems and the water resoures they support has never been more important to our longterm security and survival.
Each day, one of every two people on the planet quenches his or her thirst with water that
originates in mountains. One billion Chinese, Indians and Bangladeshis, 250 million people in
Africa, and the entire population of California, United States, are among the 3 billion people
who rely on the continuous flow of fresh, clean mountain water. Yet the future of this vital,
life-giving resource has never been more uncertain.
Deforestation of mountain mining, agriculture, urban sprawl and global warming are all taking
their toll on mountain watersheds. At the same time, the worldwide demand for freshwater
continues to soar unabated. For example, while the number of people on the planet has
doubled over the last cenury, the demand for freshwater has jumped six fold. If current trends
continue, by 2050 as many as 4.2 billion people will be living in countries that cannot meet
the daily minimum requirement of 50 litres of water per person, according to a recent report
by the United Nations Population Fund.
Already, 2.3 billion people worldwide endure chronic water shortages. A disproportionate
number live in developing countries where water scarcities are so great that the ability to
grow food and to build a stable economy have been severely hindered.
The fragility of mountain terrain
Words such as "stability," "strength" and "endurance" are often used as metaphors for
mountains but, in reality, mountains can be fragile.
The vertical nature of a mountain - its contours, projections, peaks and plateaus - makes its
surface highly unstable. In fact, mountain soils, which form more slowly because of the
higher altitudes and colder temperatures, are often young, shallow and poorly anchored. Add
the threat of earthquakes as well as the pull of gravity, and it is not surprising that mountains
are susceptible to soil erosion.
Yet human activities also contribute to the fragility of mountain terrain. Unsustainable forestry
and inappropriate farming practices, for example, can lead to deforestation and a severe loss
of vegetative grondcover. Without trees and plant life to absorb water, runoff increases and
soil erosion escalates. A doubling of water speed, for example, produces an eight- to sixteen
fold increase in the size of particles that can be transported. Eventually, as more and more
soil and sediment travels downwards, the likelihood of avalanches, landslides and floods
increases.
Moving mountains to supply mega cities
Between 1950 and 1990, the number of cities with populations greater than 1 million
increased from 78 to 290. Some of these places, particularly in the developing world, have
exploded into "megacities" with millions of people and unprecedented demands for
freshwater and electricity.
To help meet the needs of growing cities, many countries are developing schemes to divert
mountain rivers or dam them entirely. The Tucurui Dam in Brazil, for example, generates
electricity for cities and industries in the country's north by diverting the Tocantins River, an
Amazon tributary. At the same time, one of the Tehri Dam's functions in the Indian Himalaya
will be to supply freshwater to the Indian city of Delhi, 250 km away.
As with all large-scale initiatives like these, the potential is great but the threat to mountain
watersheds, people and biodiversity is even greater. Protecting mountain ecosystems and
the freshwater they generate should be the first priority as nations consider such
development plans.
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Case in point
The Aral Sea Basin: overuse of mountain water resources
The degradation of the Aral Sea, which flows into both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan,
represents one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in human history. In 1985, water
from the Tien Shan and the Pamir mountains was rerouted to fields in a failed irrigation
experiment. As a result, the Aral Sea shrunk to half its size, leaving 266 invertebrates, 24 fish
species and 94 plant species extinct.
Analysis and Discussion
After this overview of the most important variables that affect sustainability of mountain
regions and understanding the great importance they hake for millions of people directly and
indirectly there are core ideas to be discussed and analysed:
Government, private institutions and civil society roles
These are the players who can change the destiny of mountains around the world. Based on
some readings from the World Development Report 2001, we can understand that without a
effort and integration of these parties, a prosperous future for mountains will be in the fragile
line.
In this globalized world private institutions such as multinationals will have to take in
consideration several factors to develop their businesses abroad, obviously limited by local
governments, but with the special and crucial participation and observation of civil society. A
very sensitive topic is the NGO's participation in this issue; which or where is the restriction
for their activities and plans?
The core issue here is where to draw the border for each of these players and how to create
a balance or equilibrium, in order to establish the best policies and regulations for mountain
welfare.
International research and aid
As we have seen, problems and issues are not independent and they can either start vicious
or virtuous circles; so they should be seen as a whole and not as spared topics. A good way
to solve some of the problems would be to create interdisciplinary groups to review all sort of
issues regarding mountain development. Why groups already existing are not using extreme
measures to combat some of the problems, do they have natural, social or government.
constraints.
Which would be the institutions to support this programs and how would they apply them,
the UN for example?, or maybe smaller but more commited institutions. As mentioned before
the present year 2002, is the International Year of Mountains, that is a great idea, there is a
summit in October; Is that enough???
Problems to solve, challenges and opportunities to capture
Virtually all issues regarding mountains have been reviewed in previous sections; is for
understanding that there are a lot of increasing problems, but there is this great option, that
most of this problems can turn around and become enormous opportunities for everyone, for
mountain inhabitans, for all the people who is affected directly or indirectly by mountains (that
would be everyone in this planet) and specially for the conservation and welfare of nature,
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meaning all species that are in danger of extintion, and in general all biodiversity that has
been poluted and dramatically changed by the hand of men.
How as this paper linked to class topics?
Starting with the idea that the paper is about sustainability in the mountains, almost every
aspect of the paper could be related to lectures we have had. Some data form the page of
the World bank was very usefull for the elaboration of this project and it was also important
for the guidance of different lectures.
The main topics form the paper are some of the important topics of the lectures such as
poverty, sustainability in indigenous areas, developing countries, sustainable tourism, climate
change on earth and some more.
As it was mentioned before, this paper was thought because of the reading Sustainability in
the Himalaya region.
Conclusions
In a certain way the previous section could be seen as a conclusion, because a conclusion
for a paper like this can not be any concrete proposal or even less a critique of the situation.
It was intended to be a specific (maybee not very deep) research paper on the basic
variants in the topic.
So many issues can come to our minds when we notice how essential mountains are for us
in our present but specially for our own future and next generations (following the sustainable
development definition). It is not necessary to dramatize the situation but the urgent need for
changing the dynamics of our behavior is obvious.
During the creation of this paper, a lot of lectures, articles and concpets reviwed in lectures
were applied in order to create links between different topics and to bring some theoretical
issues into a pragmatic approach.
Therefore the main intention of this study is not to create or develop a sense of romantic idea
that would not be useful at all, but to transmit the huge value of mountin areas and even
more, the greater importance to think further in the topic and options that could make
mountains viable regions, which are less and less by the way.
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Bilbiography
Himawanti - Women of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas Anupam Bhatia (ed) December 2001
Mountains forever Kathmandu: ICIMOD, Helvetas, Spiny Babbler December 2001
*Perez, Baltazar- Montanas: Opcion Viable para el Futuro (Mountains: viable option for the
future), , 1999 Univesidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
*Jimenez, Guindilla, Pena – Rios, Mares y Montanas, Sustentables?? (Rivers, Seas and
Mountains, Sustainable??) Ed. Planeta 2000 (pp 120-158, 173-205)
Articles
State of mountain agriculture in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas: A Regioanl Comparative
Analysis
Gorwth, poverty alleviation and sustainable resource management in the mountain areas of
south Asia.
* These books were used from sources of latin american researchers and form the UNAM
the national university in Mexico
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