The expansion of renewable energies is regarded as a key way to mitigate global climate change and to ensure the provision of energy in the long term. However, conflicts between these goals and local nature conservation goals are likely to increase because of the additional space required for renewable energies. This is particularly true for mountainous areas with biodiversity-rich ecosystems. Little effort has been undertaken to systematically compare different renewable energy sources and to examine their environmental impacts using an interdisciplinary approach. This study adapted the concept of the “ecological footprint” to examine the impact on ecosystem services of land use changes involved in exploiting renewable energy sources. This innovative approach made it possible to assess and communicate the potentials of those energy sources in light of both space consumption and sustainability. The European Alps are an ideal test area because of their high energy potentials and biodiversity-rich ecosystems and the high demand for multiple ecosystem services. Our results demonstrate that energy consumption in the Alps could not be covered with the available renewable energy potentials, despite the utilization of large parts of the Alpine land area and the majority of larger rivers. Therefore, considerable effort must be invested in resolving conflicting priorities between expanding renewable energies and nature conservation, but also in realizing energy-saving measures. To this end, the approach presented here can support decision-making by revealing the energy potentials, space requirements, and environmental impacts of different renewable energy sources.

The Gojal region in northern Pakistan has a comparatively high level of development, virtually unparalleled in Pakistan’s other mountain areas and rural periphery and representing a significant advance over the extreme poverty, recurrent famine, pervasive illiteracy, and feudal oppression that existed until the 1940s. This article analyzes the factors and conditions that made this possible. Various external modernization interventions by state and nonstate agencies, particularly by the Aga Khan Development Network, have been crucial in this respect. The significance of the framing of such interventions for their acceptance and successful implementation is analyzed for the Ismaili community of Gojal. Findings from this case study underline the central importance of local actors’ agency and their proactive and creative response to the changing conditions and new opportunities created during modernizing interventions. Local households’ mobility and migration strategies, in the context of sectoral and spatial livelihood diversification, have played a pivotal role in translating external modernization interventions into mountain development. Informed by recent debates on translocality, this article argues for a reassessment of the role of migration and translocality in development, a role that has often been underestimated or reduced to the effects of remittances. From this perspective, the transferability of Gojal’s successful development to other mountain areas is discussed.

This study explored farmers’ perceptions of a biosphere reserve in the Austrian Alps with the goal of promoting better understanding among different stakeholders involved in the agricultural sector in a biosphere reserve. Biosphere reserves have a variety of functions and serve as models of sustainable regional development and involve stakeholders in decision-making on and development of protected areas. In the Alpine biosphere reserve selected for this study, the conservation of cultural landscapes plays a major role; therefore, farmers feature prominently, and this study focuses on their points of view. Farmers rely heavily on natural resources, but structural changes in agriculture determine their work to a large degree, and they often refuse to support protected area management. This situation calls for a closer integration of social-scientific knowledge in regional development programs. Qualitative research methods based on grounded theory can help identify sources of conflict and social strengths. The study found substantial support for the reserve but also a noticeable lessening of the original excitement about it, pointing to the need for further outreach and to the importance, when establishing future reserves, of handling the start-up phase with heightened sensitivity.

Agrotourism is widely advocated as a useful strategy to develop mountain agriculture and improve farmers’ income and quality of life. However, the relationship between agriculture and tourism is complex, and the extent to which tourism benefits farmers remains uncertain. This paper examines the relationship between agriculture and tourism and assesses to what extent agrotourism benefits farmers in Phu Ruea district, a popular tourist destination in the mountains of northeast Thailand. The Phu Ruea agrotourism system generated gross income for the district of almost US$ 16 million in 2014. About 80% of this income came from sales from specialty-crop farms and of tourism services operated by the households of local farms. The agrotourism system also created many employment opportunities for local people. There were 1500 people directly involved in the system, 90% of whom were farmers or members of farm households. Thus, there is no doubt that many local farmers derive significant benefits from their involvement in the agrotourism system. Although the Phu Ruea agrotourism system can be seen as a successful strategy for developing mountain agriculture, agrotourism is not a magic strategy to solve all the problems of rural development in the mountains. Only some localities are attractive to tourists, and only some farmers have the knowledge, skills, and resources to take advantage of the opportunities offered by tourism.

This research explored how transhumant pastoralism has been sustained and promoted in the context of socioeconomic and climate change in the mountain regions of Nepal. Based on case study research conducted in Nepal’s western mountains, the status, opportunities, and constraints of transhumant pastoralism in the changing context were analyzed. We found that indigenous and traditional knowledge, feelings of cultural identity, collective ownership, income, and mutual benefits have acted as motivating factors in sustaining transhumant pastoralism for generations. The continuation of this practice is threatened by the following challenges: the impacts of climate change on mountain ecosystems, socioeconomic changes, market influence on livelihood decisions, youth migration and labor shortage, low motivation of local people to engage in livestock rearing, and conflicts between herder and nonherder communities and institutions, as well as inadequate policy support and institutional arrangements. We conclude that unless there are positive policy and institutional arrangements to support transhumant pastoralism, the age-old practice will disappear.

Conversion of forested land for agriculture has obvious detrimental effects on its ecological functions, but these effects are not uniform. Mountain land use systems are diverse, encompassing managed forests and cultivated land. This study examined land use systems in 3 mountain villages in northern Thailand with different patterns of cultivation and evaluated the amount of carbon they have accumulated. Land use and management by individual farmers and communities were determined by interviews, field verification, and mapping. Biomass carbon in trees was determined nondestructively, and carbon in ground cover, litter, and soil organic matter was determined by chemical analysis of replicated samples. The 3 villages, with access to land ranging from 1.3 to 6.3 ha per capita, managed largely pristine headwater forests for security of water supply and made a living from crop production supplemented by harvests of timber, firewood, and other forest products from managed community forests. Cultivated land varied in composition and management among the villages, from shifting cultivation with fallow periods of different lengths to permanent cultivation of food and commercial crops. Per capita carbon storage in the villages well exceeded average per capita carbon dioxide emissions in Thailand, with most of the carbon stored in the forests. This has important implications for programs that offer incentives to mountain villages to maintain or enhance their carbon storage, such as the United Nations’ REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) program.

Guizhou Province is one of the most expansive and important forest regions in China. Traditional Miao people have inhabited the mountains and managed the forest resources of this region for more than 1000 years. In the 1980s, the Chinese government transferred many collectively owned forests to individual household control. Since then, there have been 3 forest tenure types in Miao areas: state forests, collective forests, and household forests. The Collective Forest Tenure Reform was implemented nationwide starting in 2005, and in Guizhou in 2007, to develop and stabilize the forest tenure institutions. To investigate the effect of tenure type on the floristic composition and size structure of local forests, we conducted inventories in replicate forests under each type of tenure in 3 traditional Miao villages in Leishan County. Results showed that tree species richness and diversity were significantly higher in state and collective forests than in household forests; no significant differences were detected among villages. Cunninghamia lanceolata, an important local timber species, was most abundant in household forests, while higher proportions of associated broadleaf and pine species were recorded in state and collective forests. The lack of significant differences between state and collective forests for most measurement variables suggests that the inherent similarities between these 2 tenure types created by long-term use and management by the Miao have largely overshadowed the effects of more recent management efforts by the state. Each tenure regime offers different benefits, and a portfolio including all 3 tenure types would best provide the ecosystem services and economic opportunities required by forest-dependent communities.

This study aimed to determine whether debarking of Norway spruce stumps influences the intensity of their colonization by insects. The observed stumps of Picea abies (L.) H Karst were located in the eastern Sudety Mountains at elevations between 600 and 1000 meters above sea level (masl) on clear-cut areas where large-diameter timber and small logging slash had been harvested. In total, 720 fresh (up to 12 months old) P. abies stumps were investigated, of which half were debarked immediately after tree felling. Insects were collected from 0.5 m² bark samples taken from coarse roots around the stump base and then identified with regard to family, genus, and species. P. abies stumps were colonized by insects from 18 families from 2 orders: Coleoptera and Diptera. Coleopterans were most frequently represented by the families Cerambycidae (52% of all collected insects) and Curculionidae (41%), including the subfamily Scolytinae (15%). Approximately 1.5% of all insects collected were classified as Diptera. Overall, approximately 40% greater insect colonization was observed in the bark samples collected from debarked P. abies stumps. The debarking treatment increased the intensity of stump colonization by both Cerambycidae and Scolytinae but had no effect on colonization by Curculionidae (excluding Scolytinae). These results suggest that debarking Norway spruce stumps does not reduce insect colonization and could be avoided in forest management.

One of the highest treelines in the world is at 4810 m above sea level on the Sajama Volcano in the central Andes. The climatological cause of that exceptionally high treeline position is still unclear. Although it has been suggested that the mass elevation effect (MEE) explains the upward shift of treelines in the Altiplano region, the magnitude of MEE has not yet been quantified for that region. This paper defines MEE as the air temperature difference in summer at the same elevation between the inner mountains/plateaus (Altiplano) and the free atmosphere above the adjacent lowlands of the Andean Cordillera. The Altiplano air temperature was obtained from the Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly temperature database, and the air temperature above the adjacent lowlands was interpolated based on the National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research Reanalysis 1 data set. We analyzed the mean air temperature differences for January, July, and the warm months from October to April. The air temperature was mostly higher on the Altiplano than over the neighboring lowlands at the same altitude. The air temperature difference increased from the outer Andean east-facing slope to the interior of the Altiplano in summer, and it increased from high latitudes to low latitudes in winter. The mean air temperature in the Altiplano in summer is approximately 5 K higher than it is above the adjacent lowlands at the same mean elevation, averaging about 3700 m above sea level. This upward shift of isotherms in the inner part of the Cordillera enables the treeline to climb to 4810 m, with shrub-size trees reaching even higher. Therefore, the MEE explains the occurrence of one of the world’s highest treelines in the central Andes.

The European Alps are well positioned to contribute significantly to the energy transition. In addition to sites with above-average potential for wind and solar power, the “water towers” of Europe provide flexible, low-carbon power generation as well as energy storage. In the future, hydropower systems are expected to become more than mere electricity generators, serving a key role as flexible complements to intermittent power generators and as providers of large-scale seasonal and daily energy storage. Energy transition on national and European scales can be facilitated by expanding the capacity of pumped storage hydropower (PSHP) plants. Yet the extension of hydropower production, in particular PSHP, remains controversial, primarily due to environmental concerns. Focusing on 2 Alpine countries, Austria and Switzerland, this paper provides a system view of hydropower production and energy storage in the Alps. It discusses advantages and drawbacks of various assessment tools and identifies gaps and needs for the integrated assessment of PSHP plants. It concludes that instruments that evaluate the impacts and sustainability of PSHP projects need to be developed, elaborated, and applied in a participatory manner, in order to promote public dialogue, increase social acceptance, and, ideally, encourage energy consumers to become advocates of a sustainable energy future.

As a mountain country, Switzerland has an intrinsic interest and a proven track record in sustainable mountain development (SMD). Many Swiss stakeholders, including the federal and cantonal administrations, universities, and nongovernmental organizations, actively contribute to global SMD in many ways. Switzerland, with its extensive operational experience in mountainous countries around the world, has been one of the driving forces promoting policy dialogue and knowledge management among different actors to support SMD on various levels. This is reflected in its support for the United Nations’ Agenda 21 and the recent Agenda 2030. Still, after close to 25 years of global policy engagement, the voice of the mountains has not yet gained sufficient momentum and needs further strengthening.

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development is coordinating the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme, which will be carried out with partners and individual experts. The assessment addresses the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable mountain development and will serve as a basis for evidence-based decision-making to safeguard the environment and advance people’s wellbeing. It is not a one-off assessment but will be an ongoing process. A 2017 publication is planned as the first of a series of monitoring and assessment reports.