Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment: 25th anniversary

The Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment Network was initiated by the Swiss Academy of Sciences in the year 2000 and inaugurated by DIVERSITAS in fulfillment of United Nations’ Agenda 21. The network’s activities were officially taken up by convening the First International Conference on Mountain Biodiversity in Rigi-Kaltbad LU, Switzerland in September 2000. After almost 15 years under the auspices of DIVERSITAS, GMBA became a project of the international research programme Future Earth. Since 2000, policy frameworks have been put in place at global to local scales to safeguard mountain ecosystems, new mountain species have been discovered and other have gone extinct, thousands of papers on mountain biodiversity have been published worldwide, and the GMBA network has grown and evolved into a vibrant community of experts contributing to research, conservation, and the sustainable management of mountain biodiversity. GMBA´s 25th anniversary celebration at the International Mountain Conference will be an occasion to look back at what has happened over the last quarter of a century in our world’s mountain ecosystems and at GMBA, look forward to future initiatives, collaborations, and achievements, and to raise a toast to the GMBA founders, past and present chairs, and to all the GMBA members worldwide.