Mountains rise above us, yet they are invisible in educational programmes. Learning to better manage our mountain resources is essential to achieving the sustainable development goals and securing a future for the world's populations.
Around the world, more than one billion people live in mountain areas, yet all of us depend on mountains and the resources they provide, including water, food, energy, biodiversity and livelihoods. To achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it is essential to protect and conserve mountain ecosystems while improving the quality of life for the people who inhabit them.
Transforming interests that seem to pull in opposite directions into a shared vision is essential for the effective management of mountain resources. This is where education for sustainability comes into play.
Ghanshyam Pande works to promote the sustainable development of mountain communities, primarily in the Himalayan states of India. As programme coordinator of the Central Himalayan Institute for Nature and Resources (Chinar), he is one of 32 students from 25 countries who have enrolled in a course in the Italian Alps on sustainable mountain management.
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The International Programme for Research and Training on Sustainable Management of Mountain Areas (Ipromo) offers a course organised every summer by the secretariat of the Mountain Partnership — which forms part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) — together with the University of Turin and the University of Tuscia.
Since 2007, around 400 people from various countries have travelled to Italy to take part in this course, which has been designed to build the capacity of professionals and researchers from countries that belong to the Mountain Partnership. This partnership aims to protect mountain ecosystems while at the same time improving the social and economic wellbeing of the populations living there, many of whom are among the most vulnerable in the world.
While participants come from different countries, many share similar concerns and challenges, such as climate change, deforestation, mining, unsustainable agriculture and food insecurity that plague the mountains of developing countries.
This year's course provides tools and builds skills around the integrated landscape approach to mountain resource management. This approach recognises that mountains are vast transboundary landscapes and that developing sustainable policies and practices requires a systematic understanding of the different situations, needs and objectives of the people, institutions and sectors that rely most on mountains.
Ipromo's lessons address topics such as environmental conservation, water resource management, income generation and food security, with modules on specific subjects including biodiversity and soil for mountain resilience, water management technologies, risk management and improving communication skills. The course also examines case studies related to forestry conservation policy in Costa Rica and Mexico; a field visit to Italian mountain communities is also planned.
Like his Himalayan colleague, Gilbert Muvunankiko from Rwanda represents an NGO working with mountain communities and has also joined this year's Ipromo course. Back home, he will be involved with the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (Arcos), which is dedicated to promoting field projects at a regional level.
The course places particular emphasis on the importance of directly involving local communities in the management of mountain ecosystems and economies, in close collaboration with the authorities. It also promotes access to both innovation and traditional knowledge, including that of indigenous peoples.
The field visit to the Aosta Valley, organised in collaboration with the Institut agricole régional and the Municipality of Gressoney-La-Trinité, allows participants to see various examples of sustainable mountain resource management and learn directly from local farmers and entrepreneurs.
With the target date for achieving the SDGs now little more than a decade away, mountain-focused training is urgent. The pro-mountain ideas, information and technologies that can be acquired in the classroom and then applied in the mountains can and must help accelerate progress towards implementing the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, in particular Goal 15.4 (protection of mountain ecosystems).
These study and training opportunities do far more than impart knowledge. They bring people together, helping experts, organisations and communities to build networks for sharing knowledge and ideas, thereby increasing their opportunities to protect mountain ecosystems and improve the lives not only of those who live there but of all of us who depend on mountains for water and much more besides, even if we do not realise it.
