Mountains cover 25 percent of the world’s land surface, and directly support 12 percent of the world’s population living within mountain regions. Sustainable mountain development should be a global priority given the multitude of ecosystem goods and services that mountains provide; among the most important is water for half of humanity for drinking, irrigation and energy production.
As part of an overall initiative of the Mountain Partnership (www.mountainpartnership.org) to mainstream mountain-related issues into the SDG process, a series of three thematic policy briefs were produced in 2013 and 2014, on Why Mountains Matter for Energy, Climate change and Disaster Risk Reduction, Forests and Biodiversity, and Water. The briefs benefit from various results and information gained throughout mountain-related projects and initiatives, including the Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Programme.
