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Intro -- About the Author -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- CHAPTER 1 Global Mountain Awareness -- My Fascination with Mountains -- CHAPTER 2 An International Mountain Involvement: The Beginnings -- UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Mountain Project (MAB-6) -- Lillehammer and Formulation of an International Mountain Programme -- Vienna 1973 and MAB-6 Planning Conferences -- La Paz 1974 and an Issue of Citizenship -- Andean Mountain Issues -- CHAPTER 3 Mountain Strategy in Munich, 1974: On Track to the Himalaya -- Manoeuvres in a Munich Beer Garden -- Kathmandu 1975: An International Centre for Mountain Development -- Building Awareness of Mountain Cultures and Relationships -- CHAPTER 4 Darjeeling: Personal Awakening to High Mountains and Refugees -- First Views of the Himalaya -- Return to Darjeeling in 1975: The Tibetan Refugee Connection -- Tibetan Refugees and Loreto College -- CHAPTER 5 Moscow and the Caucasus: The IGU in the Cold War -- Journey to the Soviet Union -- Special Moscow Treatment for a Canadian Delegate -- Aftermath in the Swiss Alps -- CHAPTER 6 United Nations University: Agency with a Mountain Mission -- UNU's Highland-Lowland Interactive Systems Project -- A New Type of UN Institution -- My First UNU Mission: Chiang Mai and Opium Poppy Cultivation, 1978 -- Return to Chiang Mai: Next Steps towards a UNU Project -- A Surprise Royal Invitation to Dinner -- Evolving Issues and Critical Problems -- CHAPTER 7 Himalayan Reconnaissance 1978: Deforestation, Landslides, and Farmers -- Questioning the Causes of Deforestation in the Nepal Himalaya -- The Gateway to Everest -- Challenging Conventional Wisdom -- A Very Human Cross-Cultural Diversion -- From Kathmandu to Darjeeling, 1979 A Journey to Remember -- A Close Encounter and a Time for Quick Thinking -- Early Thoughts on a Predicted Himalayan Disaster.

This second edition of "Sustainable Mountain Development" is a history of the development of mountain environmental awareness from its origins during the Stockholm Conference on the Environment in 1973. This provided intellectual input into UNESCOs MAB Programme, especially MAB-6 (Impact of Human Activities on Mountain Environments), The International Geographical Unions commission on mountains, and The United Nations Universitys (UNU) mountain project, the latter initiated in 1978. All this research and intellectual activity saw its maturation during the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro. The major document universally agreed upon was AGENDA 21, with Chapter 13 concentrating on mountain environmental problems which led to 2002 being dedicated as The International Year of Mountains, and December 17th as International Mountain Day.

Chapter1. Global Mountain Awareness -- Chapter2. An International Mountain Involvement: The Beginnings -- Chapter3. Mountain Strategy in Munich, 1974: On Track to the Himalaya -- Chapter4. Darjeeling: Personal Awakening to High Mountains and Refugees -- Chapter5. Moscow and the Caucasus: The IGU in the Cold War -- Chapter6. United Nations University: Agency with a Mountain Mission -- Chapter7. Himalayan Reconnaissance 1978: Deforestation, Landslides, and Farmers -- Chapter8. The China Connection: Privileged Entry to a Closed Country -- Chapter9. Beyond Lhasa: Opening China to Collaborative Mountain Research -- Chapter10. Breakthrough: Environmental Degradation Theory Overturned -- Chapter11. China Revisited 1985: Yunnan and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountains -- Chapter12. The Mohonk Process: Mobilization of the Mountain Advocates -- Chapter13. Mountain Road to Rio: The UN Earth Summit 1992 -- Chapter14. Return to China 1991–1996: Mountain People of Yunnan and Mass Tourism -- Chapter15. Roof of the World: The Pamir, 1999: "A Catastrophe of Biblical Proportions" -- Chapter16. Threatened Disasters in the Pamir and Himalaya -- Chapter17. The Evolution of the Mountain Cause. .

A geographer with extensive research experience in the Canadian North, Jack D. Ives has written a lively and informative account of several expeditions to Baffin Island during the _golden age_ of federal research. In the 1960s, scientists from the Geographical Branch of Canada's Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources travelled to Baffin to study glacial geomorphology and glaciology. Their fieldwork resulted in vastly increased knowledge of the Far North-from its ice caps and glaciers to its lichens and microfossils. Drawing from the recollections of his Baffin colleagues as well as from his own memories, Ives takes readers on a remarkable adventure, describing the day-to-day experiences of the field teams in the context of both contemporary Arctic research and bureaucratic decision making. Along the way, his narrative illustrates the role played by the Cold War-era Distant Early Warning Line and other northern infrastructure, the crucial importance of his pioneering aerial photography, the unpredictable nature of planes, helicopters, and radios in Arctic regions, and of course, the vast and breathtaking scenery of the North. Baffin Island encompasses both field research and High Arctic adventure. The research trips to Baffin between 1961 and 1967 also served as a vital training ground in polar studies for university students; further, they represented a breakthrough in gender equality in government-sponsored science, thanks to the author's persistence in having women permitted on the teams. The book contains a special section detailing the subsequent professional achievements of the many researchers involved (in addition to the later career moves of Ives himself) and a chapter that delves deeper into the science behind their fieldwork in the North. Readers need not be versed in glaciology, however. Ives has produced a highly readable book that seamlessly combines research and adventure.

A geographer with extensive research experience in the Canadian North, Jack D. Ives has written a lively and informative account of several expeditions to Baffin Island during the "golden age" of federal research. In the 1960s, scientists from the Geographical Branch of Canada's Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources travelled to Baffin to study glacial geomorphology and glaciology. Their fieldwork resulted in vastly increased knowledge of the Far North-from its ice caps and glaciers to its lichens and microfossils. Drawing from the recollections of his Baffin colleagues as well as from his own memories, Ives takes readers on a remarkable adventure, describing the day-to-day experiences of the field teams in the context of both contemporary Arctic research and bureaucratic decision making. Along the way, his narrative illustrates the role played by the Cold War-era Distant Early Warning Line and other northern infrastructure, the crucial importance of his pioneering aerial photography, the unpredictable nature of planes, helicopters, and radios in Arctic regions, and of course, the vast and breathtaking scenery of the North. Baffin Island encompasses both field research and High Arctic adventure. The research trips to Baffin between 1961 and 1967 also served as a vital training ground in polar studies for university students; further, they represented a breakthrough in gender equality in government-sponsored science, thanks to the author's persistence in having women permitted on the teams. The book contains a special section detailing the subsequent professional achievements of the many researchers involved (in addition to the later career moves of Ives himself) and a chapter that delves deeper into the science behind their fieldwork in the North. Readers need not be versed in glaciology, however. Ives has produced a highly readable book that seamlessly combines research and adventure.

A geographer with extensive research experience in the Canadian North, Jack D. Ives has written a lively and informative account of several expeditions to Baffin Island during the "golden age" of federal research. In the 1960s, scientists from the Geographical Branch of Canada's Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources travelled to Baffin to study glacial geomorphology and glaciology. Their fieldwork resulted in vastly increased knowledge of the Far North-from its ice caps and glaciers to its lichens and microfossils. Drawing from the recollections of his Baffin colleagues as well as from his own memories, Ives takes readers on a remarkable adventure, describing the day-to-day experiences of the field teams in the context of both contemporary Arctic research and bureaucratic decision making. Along the way, his narrative illustrates the role played by the Cold War-era Distant Early Warning Line and other northern infrastructure, the crucial importance of his pioneering aerial photography, the unpredictable nature of planes, helicopters, and radios in Arctic regions, and of course, the vast and breathtaking scenery of the North. Baffin Island encompasses both field research and High Arctic adventure. The research trips to Baffin between 1961 and 1967 also served as a vital training ground in polar studies for university students; further, they represented a breakthrough in gender equality in government-sponsored science, thanks to the author's persistence in having women permitted on the teams. The book contains a special section detailing the subsequent professional achievements of the many researchers involved (in addition to the later career moves of Ives himself) and a chapter that delves deeper into the science behind their fieldwork in the North. Readers need not be versed in glaciology, however. Ives has produced a highly readable book that seamlessly combines research and adventure. ; The University of Calgary Press acknowledges the support of the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund for ...

This overview, or retrospective, has two objectives. The first is to demonstrate how the principles of 'mountain geoecology' were applied in an attempt to counteract the political and socio-economic impacts of a major and misguided environmental orthodoxy-the Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation (henceforth to be referred to as the 'Theory'). The second is to explore the difficulties of transferring the results of on-going scholarly mountain research into the public and political decision-making process. In this sense the paper should be regarded as a case study of the potentially serious effects of exaggerated and emotionally based responses to orthodoxies founded on assumptions and latter-day myths. A third objective, reserved for the companion paper in this issue, outlines the origins of mountain geoecology and explores how academic research influenced the inclusion of high level concern for mountain problems within AGENDA 21, one of the principal results of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (popularly known as the Rio Earth Summit) and declaration of 2002 as the International Year of Mountains. The original environmental orthodoxy (the Theory) has been eclipsed since the turn of the Millennium by a new populist alarm proposing that the current climate warming will cause all the Himalayan glaciers to disappear in the near future. From this it would follow that, as the glacier melt progresses, numerous large glacial lakes, forming as a consequence, would burst and the ensuing floods would annihilate many millions of people. Eventually, as the glaciers disappeared vital rivers, such as the Ganges and Brahmaputra, would wither to seasonal streams heralding further massive loss of life due to desertification and starvation. This current environmental alarm could be regarded as a present day parallel to the original Theory and will be examined in the final section of the paper. Between 1970 and about 1985 it was almost universal wisdom amongst scholars and development specialists, as well as conservationists, that the Himalaya were on the brink of environmental, and hence socio-economic and political collapse. This theme of gloom and doom was taken up avidly by journalists, politicians, and diplomats; it influenced the expenditure of large sums of aid and development money, and augmented periodic international confrontations. In concise terms, in the early 1970s an assumed approaching environmental disaster was perceived to be driven by relentless growth in the population of subsistence hill communities and their dependence on mountain forests for fuel, fodder, building materials, and conversion to agricultural land. The assumption of rapid and catastrophic deforestation of steep hillslopes under a monsoon climate (the World Bank predicted that there would be no accessible forest remaining in Nepal by the year 2000) led inexorably to a series of dependent assumptions: increasing soil erosion and worsening landslide incidence; accelerated flooding and siltation on the plains of Gangetic India and Bangladesh; social and political unrest, if not serious armed conflict – the notion of a world super-crisis, considering that the region in question contained about ten percent of the world's entire human population and about thirty percent of its poorest. As will be emphasized later, none of this all-embracing construct was based on reliable evidence, but it was accepted world-wide as a given. It represents a prime example of the dangers associated with convenient adoption of environmental myths, or environmental orthodoxies, especially where the myth is a Western 'scientific' construct. I characterized it as The Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation (Ives, 1985). ; Esta perspectiva global, o retrospectiva, tiene dos objetivos. El primero es demostrar cómo se aplicaron los principios de la "geoecología de montaña" en un intento por contrarrestar los impactos políticos y socioeconómicos de una errónea ortodoxia ambiental, la Teoría de la Degradación Ambiental del Himalaya (en adelante referida como la "Teoría"). El segundo es explorar las dificultades para transferir los resultados de la investigación científica en montaña a los procesos públicos de decisión. En este sentido, el artículo debería ser contemplado como un estudio de caso de los efectos potencialmente serios de las exageradas respuestas a las ortodoxias basadas en suposiciones y mitos de última hora. Un tercer objetivo, reservado a otro trabajo publicado en este volumen, subraya los orígenes de la geoecología de montaña y explora cómo la investigación académica influyó en la incorporación de la preocupación por los problemas de la montaña en la AGENDA 21, uno de los principales resultados de la Conferencia de Naciones Unidas de 1992 sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo (popularmente conocida como la Cumbre de Río), y la declaración de 2002 como el Año Internacional de las Montañas. La ortodoxia ambiental original (la Teoría) ha sido eclipsada desde el cambio de milenio por una nueva alarma populista que propone que el actual calentamiento climático hará que todos los glaciares del Himalaya desaparezcan en un futuro próximo. De ahí puede deducirse que, a medida que la fusión glaciar progrese, numerosos lagos glaciares reventarían y las consiguientes avenidas aniquilarían a millones de personas. Eventualmente, tras la desaparición de los glaciares, algunos ríos fundamentales, como el Ganges y el Brahmaputra podrían convertirse en ríos estacionales ocasionando la pérdida masiva de vidas humanas debido a la desertificación y el hambre. Esta alarma ambiental podría ser vista como paralela a la Teoría original, y será examinada en la parte final de este artículo. Entre 1970 y 1985 se mantuvo la opinión entre los científicos y especialistas en desarrollo, así como entre los conservacionistas, de que el Himalaya estaba al borde del colapso ambiental, socioeconómico y político. Este pesimismo y predestinación fue adoptado ávidamente por periodistas, políticos y diplomáticos, e influyó en la dedicación de grandes sumas de dinero y ayudas. En pocas palabras, a comienzos de los años setenta se asumió la ocurrencia de un desastre ambiental determinado por el crecimiento demográfico de comunidades que dependían de los bosques de montaña para la obtención de energía, forraje, materiales de construcción y expansión de los terrenos agrícolas. La asunción de una rápida y catastrófica deforestación de laderas pendientes bajo clima monzónico (el Banco Mundial predijo que no habría bosques accesibles en Nepal hacia el año 2000) condujo inexorablemente a aceptar otras suposiciones: aumento de la erosión del suelo y acentuación de la incidencia de los deslizamientos; incremento de la magnitud y frecuencia de las avenidas y del transporte de sedimento en las llanuras del Ganges en India y Bangladesh; conflictividad social y política, cuando no serios conflictos armados, es decir, la noción de una supercrisis mundial, teniendo en cuenta que la región en cuestión contiene alrededor del 10 por ciento de la población mundial y alrededor de la tercera parte de los más pobres. Como se pone de relieve a continuación, ninguna de esas ideas se basaba en evidencias fiables, pero fueron aceptadas mundialmente como un hecho. Representan un ejemplo claro de los peligros asociados a la adopción de mitos u ortodoxias ambientales, especialmente donde el mito es una construcción "científica" del mundo occidental. Yo la definí como la Teoría de la Degradación Ambiental del Himalaya (Ives, 1985).

Mountain geoecology, as a sub-discipline of Geography, stems from the life and work of Carl Troll who, in turn, was inspired by the philosophy and mountain travels of Alexander von Humboldt. As founding chair of the IGU Commission on High-Altitude Geoecology (1968), Troll laid the foundations for inter-disciplinary and international mountain research. The paper traces the evolution of the Commission and its close links with the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme (1972-) and the United Nations University's mountain Project (1978-). This facilitated the formation of a major force for inclusion of a mountain chapter in AGENDA 21 during the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Herat Summit (UNCED) and the related designation by the United Nations of 2002 as the International Year of Mountains. In this way, mountain geoecology not only contributed to worldwide mountain research but also entered the political arena in the struggle for sustainable mountain development and the well-being of mountain people. ; La geoecología de montaña, como sub-disciplina de la Geografía, entronca con la vida y trabajo de Carl Troll, quien, a su vez, fue inspirado por la filosofía y viajes de Alexander von Humboldt. Como presidente fundador de la comisión de la UGI sobre High Altitude Geoecology (1968), Troll colocó las bases para la investigación interdisciplinar e internacional de las montañas. Este trabajo presenta la evolución de la Comisión y sus estrechas relaciones con el Programa Hombre y Biosfera de UNESCO (1972-) y con el Proyecto de montaña de la Universidad de Naciones Unidas (1978-). Esto facilitó la inclusión de un capítulo sobre la montaña en AGENDA 21 durante la Cumbre de la Tierra de Río de Janeiro (UNCED), y la consiguiente designación de 2002 como el Año Internacional de las Montañas por parte de Naciones Unidas. En este sentido, la geoecología de montaña no sólo contribuyó a la investigación de las montañas del mundo sino que también empujó a la política en el esfuerzo por un desarrollo sostenible de la montaña y el bienestar de los habitantes de la montaña.