TECHNICAL WORKSHOP “Mountains under review: human alteration of landscapes”| Lea Correa Pinto

MOUNTAIN PAVILION presented by UNEP
TECHNICAL WORKSHOP
“Mountains under review: human alteration of landscapes”
Special feature: “The mountains of Brazil”
16 June 2012, 11.00 – 13.00 hours
Auditorium, Mountain Pavilion, Athletes’ Park, Rio de Janeiro
PROGRAMME
11.00 – 11.10 Introductory statement – Ms. Rita Cardoso C. Delboni, State of Rio de
Janeiro
11.10 – 11.25 “The Mountain comes to Rio+20” ‐ Ms. Léa Corrêa Pinto, coordinator of
Iguassu ITEREI
11.25 – 11.40 “Alps under review – land use change” Mr. Giacomo Luciani, European
Academy Bolzano (EURAC)
11.40 – 11.55 “Experiences from the Hindu Kush‐Himalayas”‐ Mr. Madhav Karki
Deputy Director General, ICIMOD
11.55 – 12.10 “Integrated Space Technologies Applications for Sustainable Development
in the Andean Regions” Mr. David Stevens, Programme Coordinator,
UN‐SPIDER, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)
12.10 – 12.25 “The need for comprehensive data collection – experiences from the UNEP
GRID network” ‐ Mr. Lawrence Hislop, Head of Polar Programme,
UNEP Grid Arendal
12.25 – 13.00 Conclusions and discussion among panelists and the audience–
Moderator: Mr. Peter Gilruth, Director, UNEP DEWA
Organizing and Supporting Partners:MOUNTAIN PAVILION presented by PERU and UNEP
Background and introduction
Mountains cover approximately one‐quarter of the world’s surface and are home to 12
percent of the human population. Mountain regions and their inhabitants are
disproportionally affected by climate change, increasing natural disasters, food and energy
crises, population growth, water scarcity and desertification, loss of biodiversity,
degradation of ecosystems, migration, and growth of cities. Mountains also offer significant
opportunities for solutions by providing key environmental services such as freshwater,
biodiversity conservation and energy to more than half of humanity. However, a lot of
changes and impacts that mountain ecosystems are witnessing are human‐driven, e.g.
increasing urbanisation, deforestation, mining or mega infrastructures. Changes that are
already visible but now well perceived by decision‐makers and the public society.
The fact is however, that to date, there is no appropriate mechanism for exchanging up‐todate
environmental information between different mountain regions, and providing
accurate briefings to decision‐makers covering the global mountain environment.
Enhanced information‐sharing and communication as a solid basis for decision‐making with
the view of gaining also a better understanding of the problems unique to mountains, in
particular, by demonstrating human alteration of landscapes (land‐use change, increasing
urbanisation, deforestation, mining activities, impacts of tourism etc.) visualization of the
challenges and opportunities. It is also important to improve the global knowledge about
spatial and socioeconomic interrelationships between mountain and non – mountain areas,
in particular low‐land areas.
The objective is to communicate information on mountain environments to policy‐makers
and create environmental knowledge to enable positive changes. This will be achieved by
collecting, organizing and transforming available data on mountain environments into
credible, science‐based informational products, delivered through innovative
communication tools and capacity‐building services targeting relevant stakeholders.
Future possible joint initiatives can build on and organize already existing global resources
and knowledge, covering all major mountain systems of the world ‐ from the Alps to the
Himalayas (including the Carpathians, Caucasus, Urals and multiple others in South Asia),
from the Andes to the Atlas, and the Denalis/Rocky Mountains of North America ‐
facilitating knowledge exchange, «best available techniques» and experiences for coping
with environmental change and problems unique to mountains. The results of such
environmental assessments and early warnings could be exchanged and publicized in
relevant fora such as global and regional events, meetings of the Mountain Partnership and
the World Mountain Forum.

MOUNTAIN PAVILION presented by Description The event will be structured in the way that short presentations by key experts followed by an interactive dialogue among the speakers with concrete recommendations guiding the discussions and outcomes of the Rio Earth Summit. It targets governmental representatives, representatives from IGOs and NGOs, the science community dealing with sustainable mountain development. Key experts from mountain regions, e.g. the Alps, Carpathians, Andes, Hindu‐Kush Himalayas and the representatives of the space sector will demonstrate the human aspect of alteration of landscapes by visualizing the changes. Applied remote sensing and other means will be used with the view of better demonstrating the scale of the impacts, in particular by highlighting the upstream and downstream linkages. A specific feature will be a presentation of the key study “The mountains of Rio de Janeiro and S. Paolo”. The side event will also present challenges and concrete opportunities (e.g. in the field of data collection, transfer of data into, and methodologies for measurement for concrete policy action) with the view of generating a better understanding of the changes of mountain ecosystems, and the anthropogenic factors in this respect. Objectives In response to the highlighted challenges and opportunities, the proposed event aims, in particular, at presenting the human dimension in changes of mountain ecosystems by demonstrating the concrete impacts of human alteration of landscapes exacerbating global change. Through this the event aims a highlighting the need for a comprehensive mountain information database in order to get a better understanding the impacts of human activities. It also aims at presenting concrete opportunities, e.g. by highlighting the planned joint initiative “mountain under review” and paving the way for a establishing possible strategic partnerships with other relevant actors, including the space sector. The foreseen event will form a substantive contribution to the discussions held at Rio Earth Summit 2012, in particular, with regards to sustainable mountain development and serve as additional guidance for possible outcomes, in particular to the subsection “mountains” as included in the current zero draft document. Contact information Mr. Matthias Jurek, Hub for Eastern Europe, MP Secretariat, UNEP Vienna – ISCC, EURAC expert, Email: matthias.jurek@unvienna.org , Official Mobile: 0043 699 1459 7120 Mr. Giacomo Luciani, E‐mail: giacomo.luciani@eurac.edu , Official Mobile: 0043 699 1459 7251