WS 3.102: Lesser-known Mountains

Under global change, cumulative impacts are driving transformations in lesser-known mountains, pushing outmigrants towards lowland cityscapes. Under these impacts, limitations of sustainable policies increase the vulnerability of mountain communities. The responses of mountainous areas to environmental transformation are controlled by local conditions, with the heterogeneity of each mountainscape presenting many conservation opportunities and challenges. In this session we emphasize the importance of local geocritical knowledge in understanding global presses and pulses on mountains. We focus on lesser-known mountains to understand various dimensions of global change in areas that do not receive much attention from the media, but are key for the mountain communities therein. This session encourages interdisciplinary studies, as the complex, multilayered, political ecology of mountain landscapes needs to be addressed together with all the interconnections and implications. We ask: how different knowledges from lesser-known mountainous areas, derived from responses to global changes, can inform adaptive strategies that contribute to solving global problems on a larger scale? Through case studies, we explore the interplay between the forgotten slopes and hidden aspects of these out-of-mind mountains, whether marine, coastal, flanks, montane, hanging valleys, and other less-understood mountainscapes, and their contribution to addressing global challenges. We therefore emphasize the need to see shifts and trends in lesser-known mountains.