The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has produced the first global “snapshot” of mountain regions, which highlights the most threatened areas and helps policy makers identify conservation priorities. The Mountain Watch report, compiled by the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the UNEP Mountain Programme, considers seven pressures or causes of environmental change in mountains: natural hazards, fire, climate change, infrastructure growth, violent human conflict, changes in land cover, and agricultural intensification. The authors then overlaid maps of ecosystem and indicator species groups with information about the various pressures to produce this overview map.

The report recommends, for example, that regions in the Caucasus, California, and the northwest Andes should be made conservation priorities to preserve their biodiversity. It warns that climate change will severely affect 98% of Greenland’s mountains by 2055, while Africa’s mountain regions are the worst hit by agricultural intensification, fire, and violent human conflict.

The survey was undertaken for the Global Mountain Summit, the culmination of the 2002 U.N. International Year of Mountains, which took place in November in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Meeting participants from 60 countries adopted the “Bishkek Mountain Platform”, a document designed to promote environmentally sound management in mountain regions, particularly in developing countries. Its declared goal is “to improve the livelihoods of mountain people, to protect mountain ecosystems, and to use mountain resources more wisely.” It will be forwarded to the U.N. General Assembly for discussion. More information is available at www.unep-wcmc.org. —MARIA BURKE