Mountains, because of their three-imensional nature as major landforms, present special problems and opportunities. Lowland-based approaches to mountain use and to mountain protected areas (MtPAs) design and management, have not worked. The special features from which key issues arise include:

• Given the worldwide shortage of water of sufficient quality to meet present and future needs, and the fact that the bulk of the world's precipitation falls on mountains, high quality water is a paramount and economically valuable product of MtPAs. 

• Due to the altitudinal vegetation (and corresponding fauna) zones that characterize mountains, their different compass orientations and the micro-relief characteristics, their biological diversity is extremely high. Moreover, the level of endemism is outstanding, due to the "island" effect of single mountains separated by lowlands. Half of the worlds 24 biodiversity hot spots are mountainous. 

• The cultural diversity of mountain peoples is a precious but eroding heritage, needing conservation as part of MtPA management. The involvement of mountain peoples in protected area planning and management is especially imperative since they know how to live sustainably with mountains. 

• Long-distance transport of pollutants in the atmosphere is affecting MtPAs more than other kinds of protected areas due to cold condensation and the orographic effect. 

• Because of the relatively narrow altitudinal vegetational zones and diminishing space with increasing elevation, any global warming will have major impact on mountain flora and fauna and this presents real challenges to MtPA management and policies. Where there are MtPAs embedded in mountain ranges, there are opportunities for gene and species migration along ranges (e.g. poleward in N-S ranges for warming, and E-W for precipitation changes) but MtPA managers need to be attempting linkages along the ranges in conservation corridors. 

• MtPAs need re-design and enlargement down the mountain, since most include only the summits and higher elevations of scenic, spiritual or recreational value and are inadequate to protect biodiversity, cultural diversity, and water, or to accommodate major disturbance and continuing evolutionary processes;

• Since these protected areas tend to be in the most remote and inaccessible areas of a country, the reality of isolation of field staff needs to be addressed by appropriate networking.

back to top