European Tropical Forest Research Network

By Jelle Maas

2002 was the UN International year of mountains. Information is available at http://www.mountains2002.org/. It includes the UN general Assembly resolution on mountains, outcomes of the Bishkek Global Mountain Summit and several issue papers.

Mountain biological diversity was one of the items on the agenda of the 8th Meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA8) to the Conservation on Biological Diversity http://www.biodiv.org. Official documents, including ‘Status and trends of, and threats to, mountain biological diversity' and ‘Proposed elements for a programme of work on mountain biological diversity' are available in Word and PDF at http://www.biodiv.org/convention/sbstta.asp

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), was set up in 1981 to help promote the development of an economically and environmentally sound mountain ecosystem and to improve the living standards of mountain populations, especially in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan Region. ICIMOD works mainly at the interface between research and development and acts as a facilitator for generating new mountain-specific knowledge of relevance to mountain development http://www.icimod.org.

ICIMOD also serves as the Secretariat for the Swiss-funded Asia Pacific Mountain Network http://www.icimod.org/iym2002/apmn.htm and the Mountain Forum http://www.mtnforum.org.

The European Observatory of Mountain Forests http://www.eomf.org/ was established on the request of the European Federation of Local Forest Communities (FECOF) as a permanent independent forum for the development, monitoring and evaluation of the sustainable management of mountain forests.

The Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment http://www.unibas.ch/gmba/ is a global network on mountain biodiversity research under DIVERSITAS, an international global change research programme on biodiversity.

The International Mountain Society http://www.mrd-journal.org/about_mrd.htm publishes the quarterly journal Mountain Research and Development together with the United nations university www.unu.edu (http://www.mrd-journal.org/index.htm). This international peer reviewed journal specifically devoted to the world's mountains, has been published since 1981.

The Mountain Research Initiative (MRI, http://www.mri.unibe.ch/) strives to achieve an integrated approach for observing, modeling and investigating global change phenomena and processes in mountain regions, including their impacts on ecosystems and socio-economic systems. It is an initiative of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP), http://www.igbp.kva.se, International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP), http://www.ihdp.uni-bonn.de/ ,UNESCO MAB http://www.unesco.org/mab/ and Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), http://www.fao.org/GTOS/.

Several additional links may be found in the introductory article to this issue.

The Collaborative Partnership on Forests http://www.fao.org/forestry/foris/webview/cpf/index.jsp?siteId=1220&langId=1 was established in April 2001, following the recommendation of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC). It includes13 international organizations (CIFOR, FAO, ITTO, CBD, GEF, UNCCD, UNFCCC, DESA, UNDP, UNEP, ICRAF, WB, IUCN). It was set up to foster increased cooperation and coordination on forest issues and support the work of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) http://www.un.org/esa/forests/index.html and its member countries.