V. Conclusions and Recommendations

Mountain regions provide unique and valuable settings in which to study the specific facets and links of environmental change, regional consequences and resource management strategies. This conclusion is not newsworthy in and of itself, as the value of mountain regions as sites of scientific inquiry has long been recognized (see, for instance, reviews in Ives & Messerli 1997). However, the vast majority of work to date has not been structured to facilitate a synthetic understanding of the interactions between climate, land surface processes, and human activities, taking into account the specific conditions in mountain environments. At present, the relevant tools and observations suffer from mismatches in scale and gaps in coverage. The rationale for an initiative on "Global Change and Mountain Regions" thus rests on the potentially large payoff of a strategy that links mountain regions of the world as sites for monitoring and understanding the processes of change as well as places where a predictive understanding of the consequences of change is critical for sustaining land and water resources.

In developing this Initiative on "Global Change and Mountains" over the past years, two facts became increasingly evident: first, that mountain regions provide unique opportunities and challenges for global change research, many of which are not given in other environments; and second, that an integrated approach is required that takes into account climate and hydrology (BAHC), ecology (GCTE), land use and associated socio-economic (LUCC) as well as paleo-aspects (PAGES). This understanding forms the backbone of the present document.

Further, the scope of the initiative and the suggested integrated approach call for involvement of IGBP partner programmes and other organizations, in particular WCRP/GEWEX, IHDP, UNESCO/MAB and IHP, DIVERSITAS, FAO, IGU, IAHS (see Box 4). To organize this cooperation most efficiently, we propose to use the existing programme structures, rather than to establish a new, separate programme for mountain research. This scheme builds on the existing IGBP core projects and partner programmes and avoids a splitting and possible weakening of the limited resources available for mountain research.

Efficient coordination of such diverse resources requires, however, a focused, well structured organization of work across the contributing IGBP core projects and partner programmes. Accordingly, we suggest that the initiative be framed as a cross-cutting activity within the IGBP with the four core projects BAHC, GCTE, LUCC and PAGES as its main collaborators. The first steps towards the implementation of the initiative will immediately be taken after this document has been officially endorsed. They will start with inventories of existing research sites, stations, river basins, regional studies etc., followed by science reviews, the selection of study areas suited for collaborative research, and initiation of related projects.

In time, other partners may become involved, depending on the relevance of this initiative to their overall goals. There are clear indications that the initiative is highly relevant to the goals of some of the partner institutions listed in Box 4. As an example, UNESCO was the first to officially express interest in the cooperation, and this will considerably strengthen the planned research.

Finally, the timeliness of this initiative is reflected in the recent decision of the United Nations General Assembly to declare the year 2002 the "International Year of Mountains". This proclamation underscores the critical role of mountain ecosystems in providing such goods and services as water, forest products, refugia for biodiversity, the storage of carbon and soil nutrients, and attractivity for tourists. The proposed initiative on Global Change and Mountain Regions will contribute not only to the scientific understanding of the ongoing processes of change, but in the end to suggestions for action to preserve the ability of mountain regions to sustainably provide the goods and services on which humanity has come to depend. As such, the initiative is well suited to serve as the basis for the preparation of IGBP’s and its partner programmes’ contribution to the "International Year of Mountains".