News

Mountain peoples from around the world meet in Peru

02.06.2014

The World Mountain Forum held last week gathered around two hundred mountain stakeholders from across the globe to promote concrete action for Sustainable Mountain Development.

The global event provided a unique platform for participants from diverse backgrounds including governments, INGOs and civil society to stimulate action and foster dialogue to address the challenges facing mountain communities and ecosystems.

Many of the Mountain Partnership (MP) members were present as speakers and panellists, including the Government of Peru, the Government of Kyrgyzstan, the Government of Uganda, the Government of Bhutan, the Government of Switzerland, FAO and representatives of major groups organizations such as the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS) and CAMP Alatoo.

“The Forum was a great opportunity for sharing knowledge and experiences and meeting Mountain Partnership members from all over the world,” says Rosalaura Romeo, MP programme officer. “From the discussions, it emerged that the Mountain Partnership has an important role in facilitating dialogue and action. “

The Forum was a collaborative effort of eight partners: the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC); Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion (CONDESAN); ARCOS; International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD); University of Central Asia; Foundation for the Sustainable Development of Mountain Regions (FDDM); Centre for Development and Environment, University of Berne; and the University of Zurich.

The Forum was hosted by the Government of Peru and co-organized by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO). Most of these partners are members of the Mountain Partnership (MP).

The two day event started on Friday 22 May with public inauguration and welcome addresses from the representatives of the eight partners who organized the forum.

José Félix Pinto-Bazurco from the Peruvian Government, Swiss Ambassador Hans-Ruedi Bortis and Miguel Saravia of CONDESAN reiterated the importance of fostering dialogue, promoting collaborative action and encouraging knowledge exchange in order to effectively address mountain issues particularly in the context of climate change.

In the session on family farming, organised by the MP, ARCOS and CDE, participants discussed challenges posed by climate change for mountain farming and presented lessons and experiences learned from several field projects identifying PES, indigenous knowledge, and farmers associations as strategies for coping with climate change.

Linking the session to the of International Year of Family Farming 2014, Rosalaura Romeo emphasized that “Mountain farming is largely family farming, and has for centuries contributed to sustainable development. To tap the potential of mountain agriculture, mountain communities could benefit from policy support and tailored investments.”

The two day forum concluded summarizing the outcomes of the several discussions  and recognizing the need to further strengthen efforts aiming at including mountains in the mountains in the post-2015 development agenda.


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