A mountain in agenda: the secret life of a U.N. document.

It's a common observation: most people know about United Nations resolutions, but few actually read them. Partly, that's because of excessive abstraction: documents that may have profound implications for the world are written with a dispassionate prose that tends to obscure the disturbing, often tragic events that led to their writing. And partly it's negligence: while the voluminous negotiation that generates such declarations gives them an impressive aura of official international policy, securing agreement also means writing this policy with a conceptual blandness that makes the issues seem almost academic. The on-the-ground reality is often shockingly different.

A prime illustration can be seen in the world's newly evolving official policies for mountains. People often assume that mountains - remote, rocky, windswept - are ecologically marginal or barren, and sparsely populated. On both counts, that assumption is wrong. In fact, mountains harbor extraordinarily high concentrations of the planet's biological and cultural diversity. And, as a recent World Watch column noted, the Himalaya range alone contains as many people as the 10 largest cities in the world combined. Yet, because mountain populations are poor, and because lowland industries have heavy investments in the exploitation of mountain resources, the threats to these environments are almost universally downplayed or ignored.

Last spring, I visited one of the world's great ranges - the Andes of South America. I traveled to two of Peru's national parks - Manu, on the eastern edge of the Andes about 700 kilometers due east of Lima, and Huascaran, about half that distance north of Lima in the Cordillera Blanca, the world's highest tropical range. The visit gave me a sharpened sense of the real lives - and daunting challenges - that lie behind the few U.N. statements that have been issued on these neglected regions.

I made this trip mainly to participate in the first global conference of mountain non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in Lima. One purpose of the conference was to produce NGO inputs to yet another U.N. document - a review, by the U. N. Commission on Sustainable Development, of the mountain chapter (chapter 13) of Agenda 21, the global blueprint for sustainable development approved at the Earth Summit three years ago. The resulting document condenses the essence of decades of research and observation - and thousands of stories about the struggles of embattled peoples and ecosystems - to two pages of text. An annotated version of this text follows, along with some of my observations about the on-the-ground or behind-the-scenes realities it represents.

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development April 1995, Third Annual Session's report on Agenda 21, Chapter 13 Sustainable mountain development (Advanced, unedited text)

1. The Commission recognizes that mountain ecosystems and environments are of crucial importance as rich and unique centres of biological and cultural diversity, water stores, and sources of minerals. Mountains cover at least one fifth of the Earth's landscape and are home to at least 10 percent of the world's population, predominantly economically poor people. Mountain ecosystems are complex, fragile, unique in geomorphology, and they react sensitively to climate change. There is a corresponding need for a comprehensive inter-disciplinary approach to sustainable mountain development as well as the effective participation and empowerment of mountain people in the use and conservation of mountain resources.

Contrary to popular impressions that mountains are largely barren, these variegated environments contain some of the planet's greatest biological riches. Seven of the world's 14 tropical "hotspots" of endemic plants threatened by imminent destruction have at least half their area in mountains. ("Endemic" means confined to a single, small native range.) And 131 of the world's 247 endemic bird habitats are in tropical mountains. Manu Park, at the foot of the Andes, is the most biologically diverse protected area in the world - deriving much of its environmental complexity from the mountains just above it. Within an area of less than 5 square kilometers, about two-thirds the size of Washington, D.C.'s Rock Creek Park, biologists have identified approximately 900 species of birds and 1,000 species of vascular plants.

On the western flanks of Manu, the Mapacho River Valley is being rapidly undermined by bulldozers gouging out new roads for the growing economy. Some of these roads are neither surveyed nor sited, so bulldozer operators often change their minds about where to cut, and start over again in a new direction - leaving the loose hill sides pocked with eroding gashes.

These roads not only leave deep wounds in the land; they open the way for incursions by outside industries interested in exploiting the area's resources and communities. In areas like this all over the developing world, mining, logging, hydro-power, and tourism are moving in. Near Huascaran, farmers recently abandoned their traditional crops of corn and potatoes to grow roses for a Dutch company that exports to Europe. This made them vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the international flower markets. A few years later, when prices plunged, many formerly self-sufficient farmers had to sell their arms just to buy food.

2. The Commission recognizes that with increased accessibility into mountain areas, resource degradation as well as, in some cases, economic and political marginalization of mountain communities has taken place. In order to reverse this trend and to combat the poverty of mountain people, strategies for mountain development must empower mountain communities to exercise larger control over local resource management and conservation and generate income in sustainable and equitable ways. In this context, the Commission recognizes the central role of women in the sustainable use and management of resources; therefore, the specific needs and constraints of women must be acknowledged and addressed. Furthermore, support is needed to recover and foster the cultural expressions of mountain populations because mountain cultural diversity is a strong and valid basis for the sustainable use and conservation of mountain resources; in this context, the protection of indigenous people's interests, including the recognition of their knowledge, should be an integral part of sustainable development.

In China, which makes daily headlines for its booming industrial economy and growing affluence, there are 98 million people who rank among the world's "absolute poor" - most of them ethnic minorities living in the mountains. In the mountain countries of Guatemala, Ecuador, and Peru, 90 percent of the farms are minifundios - tiny plots like the eroding hillside patches I saw near Manu.

Because men are typically busy with the cash economy (many migrating downhill to find jobs), mountain women are often left to serve as the primary caretakers of the local forests, fields, and flora. In the Andes, women produce and process up to 80 percent of their countries' food, even though they have little access to land titles or financial credit. In India's Garhwal Himalaya, local women were able to identify 145 species of plants that had been decimated by commercial logging and mining in the area, whereas national foresters could list only 25. In Nepal, a survey of mountain communities found that women of poor households performed 98 percent of the labor in the forests and 60 percent of that involving animal husbandry, agriculture, and water supplies.

On my way to Manu, I crossed a suspension bridge over the Mapacho River. Five centuries ago, the Inca people had built a vine-rope suspension bridge over the same spot. The morterless Incan retaining walls still hold strong and have been incorporated into the present structure. Incan masons understood sustainability.

Rediscovery of lost knowledge could have great value. Evidence shows that the region between Cuzco, Peru and La Paz, Bolivia - heart of the Incan and Tiahuanco empires - once supported more people in a state of relative self-sufficiency than occupy the area now in poverty. Some agronomists estimate that abandoned Incan irrigated terraces and ridged fields could be restored to productive use at about one-tenth the cost of irrigating a comparable area in the arid coastal valleys where most agricultural investments have been made.

3. The Commission stresses that the fragility of mountain ecosystems and the adverse impact of the degradation of those systems on highland and lowland populations have not been fully appreciated. The Commission recognizes the importance of mountains as the predominant and most dependable source of fresh water presently used by humanity, and therefore, stressed the importance of providing adequate protection for both quality and quantity of water resources from mountainous regions. The Commission recognizes the vital protection function of a stable forest cover for the safeguarding of mountainous settlements and infrastructure. It also urges expanding the network of protected mountain areas to cover all types of eco-systems, strengthening existing management capabilities for conserving mountain ecosystems, species and genetic diversity, and promoting local and NGO's participation in the management of these areas.

4. In order to ensure an integrated approach to the complexity of mountain eco-systems and the socio-economic issues at stake, the Commission recognizes the need for strengthening the existing institutional mechanisms as well as the knowledge base about mountain ecosystems through research, database development, pilot projects and information exchange, along with training in-country of scientific and technical experts and local natural resource managers.

Many mountains are still growing, and are therefore less geologically stable than flatter landmasses. The combination of instability, steepness, and exposure to extreme weather produces continuous disruption - avalanches, mudslides, and floods. And human communities in mountains are as vulnerable as those of indigenous plants and animals. Near the Huascaran park I visited, for example, an earthquake in 1970 caused a mass of ice to tumble from the mountain, sending a massive mudflow hurtling toward the town of Yungay 12 kilometers away. Fifteen minutes later, 18,000 people were dead.

In Asia, about 1 billion people depend on fresh water originating in the Himalaya. According to the World Meteorological Organization, up to 80 percent of the world's fresh water originates in mountain watersheds.

Globally, approximately 8 percent of all mountains are in protected areas. But that fraction is misleading, because it includes large areas of Greenland and New Zealand. In Europe, less than 3 percent of the Alps - which are under heavy pressure from tourism, development, and pollution - are protected.

In Lima, the Sustainable Andean Development (CONDESAN) project is a consortium of 40 institutions - universities, research institutions, financial donors, government agencies, and NGOs - that share concerns about the fate of the South American mountains. The project is coordinated by the International Potato Center, an organization whose presence in Peru reflects the great cultural and biological diversity of the region: because of the high risks of agriculture in a mountain environment, a single Andean farmer may plant up to 47 varieties of potatoes to exploit the many differences found over a very short distance.

5. The Commission urges interested Governments, with the support of the international community, to prepare and implement comprehensive national and/or local mountain development programmes in relevant countries as outlined in Chapter 13 of Agenda 21: the "Mountain Agenda." These include strengthening national capacity for sustainable mountain development and preparation of long-term mountain action plans. Action oriented projects and programmes should emphasize the long term monitoring of their environmental, economic and social impacts. Initiatives to implement the Mountain Agenda should incorporate development strategies that address the impacts on mountain communities and eco-systems of, inter alia, production and land use systems, tourism, transportation policies, and energy production and use. These initiatives must incorporate a participatory approach involving all stakeholders, including farmers, women, local and indigenous communities, as well as non-governmental organizations.

6. The Commission also recognizes that there is a need to take a new look at the overall flow and full-cost pricing of resources and services to and from mountain areas, including water, wood and non-wood as well as range products, energy, mineral resources, tourism and human and government services. The Commission further recognizes the need for a fair share of the benefits derived from the use of mountain resources remains with the local people and their communities.

Three years after the Mountain Agenda was written, no country has developed such plans. And 10 weeks after this document was written, the United Nations still had not finished proofing and editing it for publication (note the lingering grammatical mistake in the last sentence of paragraph 6). But while public institutions move with excruciating slowness, the damage done by unregulated development continues to mount. Over the past three years, assuming the last decade's rate of loss has continued, more than 7.5 million hectares of tropical mountain forests have been decimated, and hundreds of species extinguished.

The global economy mines mountains heavily - by unsustainable extraction of water, timber, hydroelectric power, and agricultural products, as well as minerals. But the "profits" from these industries are made possible by a kind of accounting that reflects only the direct costs of extraction, processing, and distribution. Unaccounted for are the huge long-term ecological costs of denuded forests, eroded hillsides, or dammed and rivers. Some of those costs are passed on to future generations, and some are simply incalculable. Even tourism, a likely "growth" industry for areas like Manu and Huascaran parks, brings such activity as road-building, which destroys habitat, severs migratory corridors and accelerates erosion of unstable slopes.

7. The Commission notes that there is need to examine the relationship of Chapter 13 with other chapters of Agenda 21 and with the global Conventions and to analyze the extent to which the con-corns of mountain areas can be better integrated in their follow up.

8. The Commission welcomes and supports ongoing efforts in preparing and negotiating sub-regional and inter-regional agreements on mountains, and in this context it notes the entry into force of the Alpine Convention, as one example in line with paragraph 13.8 (c) of Agenda 21, of cooperation beaten counties for the protection of mountain eco-systems.

9. The Commission calls upon Governments and the international community to take action at all levels with the objective of eradicating poverty in mountain areas, diversifying mountain economies, protecting the environment and food security of local communities, strengthening global information networks and data bases, addressing environmental problems, and creating new livelihood opportunities, in the context of appropriate institutional frameworks.

10. The Commission urges interested Governments and organizations, including the private sector, to promote initiatives aimed at raising awareness, including the convening of regional intergovernmental consultations. A wider international meeting involving appropriate United Nations bodies, could facilitate the exchange of objectives, results and experiences of sustainable development in different mountain regions.

Studies of mountain phenomena confirm the urgency of the Climate and Biodiversity Conventions. As concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased in the atmosphere, the melting of small mountain glaciers has provided evidence not only that the climate is indeed changing but that the change will likely be too fast for many ecosystems to adapt. Austrian researchers recently found that nine plant species typical of the nival zone (above closed alpine grasslands) were migrating to higher altitudes at 1 meter per decade, but would have to move at 8 to 10 meters per decade to keep up with the current rate of warming. With a warming of around 3 degrees Celsius projected by 2050, vast portions of the Earth's present plant communities - from forests to agriculture to landscaping would become non-viable.

Movements of water, soil, and animals defy political borders. The Andes and Alps are each spread over seven countries; the Hindu Kush-Himalaya over eight.

Not one major international institution has a distinct program for mountains: no department, projects, or staff are assigned specifically to solving development problems for mountain peoples.

Analysis of 1,588 World Bank projects over the last six years shows that only 13 dealt directly with improving the lives of mountain peoples or protecting mountain environments. Of $151 billion spent, less than one-third of 1 percent was on mountains.

The compromise language of this sentence reflects the firm opposition of the U.S. and some European delegations to a perceived proliferation of U.N. summits. Mountains give us the quintessential metaphor for an urgently needed focus of international attention, but ironically mountains apparently don't warrant a summit of their own.