Mountains are hazardous places. Many mountain communities live under the threat of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions caused by shifting tectonic plates. Gravity pushing down on sloping land compounds the destructive power of storms and heavy rains, producing avalanches, landslides and floods. Population growth, climate change and unsustainable natural resource management practices are putting dangerous pressure on the mountain ecosystems and making mountain communities increasingly vulnerable to disasters.
Women, children and the elderly are especially vulnerable to disasters. And in many mountain areas, it is these members of the community that are looking after mountain homesteads, as the men move to lowland cities or abroad to earn a better income and support their family through remittances.
Forces from outside mountain communities, such as commercial logging interests and market-driven agricultural production, also put pressure on mountain ecosystems. All of this can lead to deforestation and environmental degradation. The loss of forest cover deprives mountain communities of a protective barrier against landslides and avalanches and further contributes to increased soil erosion and water run off.
To reduce the risks of disasters in mountain areas it is urgent to increase awareness and to develop integrated strategies and policies on disaster risk management at the national level. Policy-makers involved with disaster risk management cannot afford to neglect mountains, considering the high number of natural hazards in mountain areas and the high vulnerability of mountain communities.
Local government action in Panama mountainsnewsIn order to implement the pilot test of local urban indicators of the global campaign ‘Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready’, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) - the regional office for the Americas, and the Municipality of Bugaba, Panama, held a workshop on 9-10... Read more » |
![]() New issue of MRD Journal is onlinenewsThe devastating earthquakes in Nepal have shown once again how vulnerable mountain people are to natural hazards. Science can provide evidence that helps to better focus policy and development efforts to strengthen the resilience of mountain people and ecosystems to natural disasters. Read more » |
![]() Himalayan Glaciers Will Shrink Despite Steady ClimatenewsSome glaciers of the Himalayas will continue shrinking for many years to come, even if temperatures hold steady, a Brigham Young University geology professor, Summer Rupert, has predicted. Rupper’s most conservative findings indicate that even if climate remained steady, almost 10 percent of Bhutan’s glaciers will vanish within the next... Read more » |
![]() Locusts, a threat to crops in AfricanewsCroplands in Niger and Mali are at “imminent risk” from desert locust swarms that are moving southward from Algeria and Libya, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned on Tuesday. Locust infestations were first reported in southwest Libya near Ghat in January 2012 and in southeast... Read more » |
![]() Study Finds There’s Still Hope For Himalayan GlaciersnewsPrevious fears regarding the Himalayan glacier may have been unduly warranted, according to the results of the HIGHNOON (Adaption to changing water resources availability in northern India with Himalayan glacier retreat and changing monsoon pattern) project. Researchers led by the University of Zurich in Switzerland claim that previous... Read more » |
![]() Mountain Voice for change that mattersnewsOver 200 delegates from Indian eleven mountain States at Gangtok in Sikkim deliberated on mountain issues related to water, livelihoods and Communities & forests of the Indian Himalayan region at the Indian Mountain Initiative summit II, held from 25 to 26 May 2012 at Gangtok, Sikkim in India. In his... Read more » |
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