TEHRAN – Mountains as the water towers provide fresh water for half of humanity. They are home to 1.1 billion mountain dwellers and billions more living downstream.

They cover almost 25 percent of the Earth’s land surface and host about half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. They are invaluable natural jewels we should protect.

International Mountain Day is annually observed on December 11 to celebrate the beauty of mountains and their values in our lives and to our planet.

It is a chance to increase awareness about the relevance of mountain ecosystems and call for nature-based solutions, best practices, and investments that build resilience, reduce vulnerability, and increase the ability of mountains to adapt to daily threats and extreme climatic events.

This year, it is celebrated under the title “Restoring mountain ecosystems”. It calls for nature-based solutions, best practices, and investments that can enhance resilience, reduce vulnerability, and enable mountains to adapt to daily threats and extreme climate events.

By absorbing, storing, and releasing water, mountains help preserve ecosystems, support agriculture, and provide clean energy. They are important sources of biological diversity and key resources such as minerals.

Mountains play an important role in the earth's environment and economic process. The use of mountains for forestry, horticulture, mineral extraction, animal husbandry, tourism, and recreation is of great economic importance.

Their conservation is crucial for achieving sustainable development goals, as well.

They are crucial for climate regulation, water supply, soil maintenance, and conservation. However, the impacts of climate change and unsustainable development pose significant risks to these ecosystems and the people who depend on them.

Unfortunately, mountains are under threat from climate change, overexploitation, and contamination, increasing the risks for the people and the planet.

As the global climate continues to warm, mountain glaciers melt affecting freshwater supplies downstream, and mountain people –some of the world’s poorest –face even greater struggles to survive.

In the mountains, the effects of drought, floods, and landslides are greater. Climate change due to the increase in temperature and change in rainfall patterns has affected the plants and animals in mountainous areas, forcing the inhabitants of these ecosystems to adapt or migrate.

Steep slopes mean the clearing of forest for farming, settlements or infrastructure can cause soil erosion as well as the loss of habitat.

Erosion and pollution harm the quality of water flowing downstream and the productivity of soil. In fact, over 311 million rural mountain people in developing countries live in areas exposed to progressive land degradation, 178 million of whom are considered vulnerable to food insecurity.

Mining is one of the other destructive factors that affect the mountain ecosystem, on a local, regional, and global scale. Among the negative environmental effects of mining, are climate change, deforestation, habitat destruction, loss of biodiversity, erosion, creation of sinkholes; pollution of soil, underground water, and surface water by chemicals from mining processes.

These processes also contribute to climate change through carbon emissions, affecting the atmosphere.

This problem affects us all. We must reduce our carbon footprint and take care of these natural treasures.

Moreover, mountain creatures are threatened by deforestation, forest fires, illegal hunting, and expansion of cities. Mountains are also exposed to dangers and natural disasters such as avalanches, landslides, and sudden floods caused by melting glaciers.

Mountain regions where people live and work require innovative and respectful approaches to conservation; local people should be encouraged towards stewardship of both their natural and cultural heritage. Participation of mountain communities at all stages is crucial in the sustainable management and use of biodiversity.

We all have to treat nature with respect. Pay attention to the impact of the tourism activities on the local community. Avoid harming the flora and fauna of the area and soil and water pollution. Leave no trash behind.

International Mountain Day

According to the United Nations official website, the UN headquarters in New York launched the International Year of Mountains on December 11, 2001.

 Later, in 2002, the International Year of Mountains was marked with the aim of raising awareness and triggering action on issues relating to sustainable mountain development.

On December 20, 2002, the UN designated December 11 as International Mountain Day. They urged the international community to take proper steps to ensure sustainable mountain development.

The first International Mountain Day was then observed on December 11, 2003. Each year, a theme has been assigned to this day which focuses on various issues, including freshwater, peace, biodiversity or climate change

It has been observed every year since 2003 to create awareness about the importance of mountains in our lives, highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development, and build alliances that will bring positive change globally to people and the environment in the mountains.

Iran mountains

Iran is a mountainous country harboring an extraordinary vascular flora including many rare and endemic plant species in the alpine zone. The importance of mountain biodiversity for the whole of humanity triggers the necessary changes both in attitude and behavior required to secure mountain biodiversity and its genetic resources for future generations.

Mountain biodiversity provides basic ecosystem services such as freshwater, timber, medicinal plants, and recreation for the surrounding lowlands and their increasingly urbanized areas, according to the ‘Mountain Biodiversity and Global Change’ report published by FAO in 2010.

Referring to the rich biodiversity and unique characteristics of mountains in the world, the report calls Iran a great place to see plants you have never seen before; according to which, more than 100 mountain peaks can be found in Iran, some in the Zagros and Alborz mountains which reach altitudes of more than 4000 m.

The Iranian mountains are situated between Anatolia/Caucasus and the Hindu Kush; their flora contains elements from both regions. However, more than 50 percent of these species are endemic to Iran (they occur nowhere else), and some are remarkable relic species, primarily local endemics with a narrow ecological range. These plants need strong conservation and protection management, not only because they are rare but because the ecosystems where they live are fragile, often very restricted, small, and isolated in high-elevation areas.

These plants adapted to the cold are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and intensive grazing over large parts of Iran’s mountains is expected to exert additional pressure on them. Many of these plants are potentially endangered and vulnerable species, and their threatened status should be assessed according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria.

MT/MG