FS 3.204: Transformative changes towards Living Well

This session invites to dialogue on the necessary transformative changes (TC) of mountain regions focusing on the notion of Living Well. Living Well in mountains can encompass multiple interconnected facets and enabling conditions, like: ensuring universal access to basic services for mountain populations; nourishing cohesive communities based on the notion of one health and our relationship to the non-human; safeguarding the traditions of mountain communities while accommodating innovation; developing shared visions of the future; acquiring a collective consciousness of the challenges affecting mountains; proactively adapting to climate and other global changes; preserving and restoring biodiversity; implementing participatory research and governance approaches; creating local economic opportunities; etc. TC includes both collective bottom-up action and government-led policies for system reorganization. We invite papers that describe experiences in combining diverse knowledge domains to inform transformative options, interventions, experiences and scenarios towards Living Well in mountains worldwide, at different scales. We are particularly interested in findings that elaborate on the personal, embodied and spiritual experiences of TC towards Living Well at both individual and collective levels and across diverse mountain cultures. Although this dimension of TC is considered to contain the most transformative leverage points for system change, more research is needed on how these leverage points work and how they can be mobilized in mountains. We thus invite oral contributions and posters reporting on empirical and theoretical research aimed at addressing these gaps.