Dear Readers,
It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Jack D. Ives on 15 September 2024, 1 month before his 93rd birthday. Jack cofounded the International Mountain Society in 1980 and established Mountain Research and Development in 1981, with strong support from his beloved wife, Pauline Ives (see Sicroff and Byers 2023). Jack served as MRD's Editor-in-Chief for its first 2 decades, through 1999.
Jack's dedication and legacy cannot be understated. Throughout his career, he passionately studied and advocated for mountains and mountain communities. His most influential publications include The Himalayan Dilemma (Ives and Messerli 1989) and Mountains of the World: A Global Priority (Messerli and Ives 1997), both coauthored/coedited with his close friend and colleague Bruno Messerli (Ives 2019). Jack was not only an exceptional scholar but also a gifted networker. Galvanizing like-minded colleagues, he was a driving force in getting mountains onto the global sustainable development agenda. The group's collective efforts led to the inclusion of Chapter 13 in Agenda 21 at the 1992 World Summit in Rio and, later, the designation of the International Year of Mountains 2002 and International Mountain Day. Jack's outstanding contributions to sustainable development in mountain regions across the world were recognized with various awards, among them the King Albert Mountain Award (2002, together with Bruno Messerli; MRD Editorial Team 2002) and the Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal (2015; Messerli 2015).
Three obituaries in this issue honor Jack's exceptional personality as a friend, inspiring colleague, mountain scholar, and advocate for the worlds' mountains and mountain communities. Seth Sicroff and Alton Byers, both former graduate students and long-time friends of Jack, recount Jack's career and pay tribute to his enduring contributions. Fausto Sarmiento, Alexey Gunya, Neslihan Dal, and Christoph Stadel recall Jack's instrumental role and comprehensive accomplishments as a mountain geographer from the perspective of the Commission of Mountain Studies of the International Geographical Union. Hans Hurni, who took over the role as editor-in-chief of MRD from Jack, expresses his profound gratitude to Jack and his wife Pauline for their visionary and immense work for the journal.
Jack's statement in his last editorial for MRD underlines his attitude to work and his esteem for his fellow human beings and campaigners for the cause of mountains: “Hundreds of friends—scholars, development officers, NGO staff, mountain farmers, women and men—have made these two decades of mountain editorial effort a privilege and one of the most uplifting experiences of my life.”
Jack's legacy continues to live on in the types of articles published in MRD. In the MountainAgenda section of this open issue, Julieta Carilla and colleagues, most of them from the Andes, present the Andean Social-Ecological Observatory Network (ROSA, for Red de Observatorios Socioecológicos Andinos). ROSA is a continent-wide monitoring effort that consists of 8 nodal observatories, comprising more than 50 monitoring initiatives focused on key dimensions of the social-ecological systems in the Andes. The aim is to contribute to knowledge coproduction for sustainable land management. In the MountainResearch section, Giacomo Butte and his coauthors emphasize the key role of natural springs as a water source for the people living in the Hindu Kush Himalaya and the urgent need to revive these sources. Based on a literature review and 2 case studies in Nepal, they conduct a benefit–cost analysis for spring revival in rural areas. The results indicate that spring revival activities can yield a positive benefit–cost ratio, even though it is not easy to monetize some benefits, such as acquired skills, increased social capital, and conflict reduction. In their article, Hazhir Soltani and colleagues analyze the factors that shape herders' livelihood strategies in southwestern Iran and how these strategies contribute to poverty reduction. Their study reveals that focusing on improving the herders' human capital is key to reducing poverty and pressure on pastures, as it increases the likelihood that herders adopt diversified livelihood strategies. Finally, Anđelina Marić Stanković and her coauthors investigate visitors' satisfaction with tourism offers and infrastructure in a protected area in southern Serbia and how their satisfaction differs, for example, across the different age groups. With their insights, the authors aim to inform decision- and policymakers on how to promote sustainable tourism in the region.
What all the authors of these peer-reviewed articles have in common is their intent to contribute not only to the scientific debate, but also to sustainable development in mountain regions. A commitment that resonates with Jack D. Ives' lifelong dedication to mountains and mountain communities.
We are very grateful to Jack and are sure that his story will continue to inspire researchers around the world and us in our work for sustainable futures in and beyond mountains.
