News

IMD celebrated in over 40 countries in 2016

16.01.2017

More than 200 events marked International Mountain Day (IMD) around the world on 11 December 2016, when mountaineers, mountain lovers, governments and civil society groups gathered to celebrate mountain environments and peoples. Celebrations took place in more than 40 countries, including Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Sri Lanka, Togo, Turkey, the United States and many others. Festivities took the form of conferences, exhibitions, hikes, workshops, contests and readings.

As the lead coordinating UN agency for the preparation of this annual celebration, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) worked with decentralized offices, governments and civil society organizations to support awareness-raising events showing the importance of mountains to sustainable development.

This year’s theme, “Mountain Cultures: celebrating diversity and strengthening identity,” was the focus of many Mountain Partnership members’ seminars and conferences. Mountains host communities with ancient cultures and traditions, and are places of religious worship, pilgrimage and rituals all over the world. The concept of traditional heritage, culture and spirituality is intrinsically linked with peoples’ livelihoods in the mountains, where it is often traditional lifestyles that determine the way people make a living and subsist. IMD 2016 was an occasion to highlight the variety and richness of mountain cultures, promote the vast array of mountain identities and ensure that indigenous rights are recognized and traditional ways endure.

At global level, the day was also an opportunity to make strong calls for action. In Cancun, Mexico, during the UN conference on biological diversity, the Executive Secretary of the Convention released a statement about the importance of protecting and celebrating mountain cultures, identities and traditions for the preservation of biodiversity. FAO and the Mountain Partnership Secretariat also launched a global photo contest about mountain cultures in the lead up to IMD that received over 340 entries from photographers in 57 countries.

IMD was also a great success on the web and social media. Over 2 400 tweets with the #MountainsMatter hashtag were sent between 8-14 December and reached over 60.7 million accounts. Among influential accounts who tweeted about the campaign were the main @UN account, @UN_News_Centre, @UNGeneva, @GlobalGoalsUN and various FAO corporate and regional accounts. Visitors to the IMD website reached nearly 2 000 on 11 December. Global media coverage of the day was also very extensive, with the press in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain among others, featuring news articles.

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More pictures of IMD celebrations are available on the Mountain Partnership’s Flickr gallery

Photo: MP Flickr/Association Assirem Gouraya