Participate and Share Connect and Support Advocate and Promote

The most fundamental expectation of membership is that Forum members both give to and take from the Mountain Forum, as its success is highly dependent on the mutual support and relationships formed through this collaborative partnership.

Participate and Share

The Mountain Forum is a connecting point for the exchange of information, skills, knowledge, experiences, materials, and media. It's aim is to demarginalise and empower mountain peoples. Driven by the belief that one of the most pressing needs in advancing the Mountain Agenda is sharing information locally and regionally, a combination of modern and traditional communications' methods and tools are being used to foster and facilitate this sharing and exchange.

Email Discussion Lists and E-conferences: mtn-forum, mf-intro, and mf-summary

mtn-forum is the common speakeasy and discussion area where thematic and focussed conferences on mountain issues take place. Announcements, queries, and news items are also posted to this list. Post your message to mtn-forum@igc.org

mf-intro is the let's-get-to-know-each-other area where subscribers and members introduce themselves and their interest in the Forum.

mf-summary is the area where latecomers can get filled in on what happened and was discussed over the past week. It consists of the subject line of each posting made in the last week and a repeat posting of important announcements.

Subscribe NOW (if you haven't already), by simply sending an email to:

majordomo@mtnforum.org

The commands are given below but leave the subject line in your message blank.

subscribe mtn-forum (to subscribe to the mtn-forum list)

subscribe mf-intro (to subscribe to the mf-intro list)

subscribe mf-summary (to subscribe to the mf-summary list)

The Mountain Forum's First Electronic Conference: Paying for Mountains (PFM) Paying for Mountains: Innovative Mechanisms and Promising Examples For Financing Conservation and Sustainable Development

The Mountain Forum Information Server Node at the Mountain Institute recently hosted a focussed and participatory electronic conference on the crosscutting theme of innovative financial mechanisms for conservation and sustainable development initiatives in the world's mountains. This E-conference was hosted at the request of the Food and Agriculture Organisation as an initial effort towards developing guidelines for implementing the Mountain Agenda.

During the conference, mountain policy-makers, activists, and professionals around the world shared ideas and experiences on financial mechanisms that have been effective in balancing the downward flow of resources from upland areas. These mechanisms include strategies to capture revenue from resource outflows as well as to direct it to the appropriate stewards. Some of the mechanisms discussed include property rights, transferable development rights, conservation easements, regional trademarks, trust funds, green-marketing tools, and debt-for-nature swaps.

Click here for a detailed report on PFM.

The Mountain Forum's Second Electronic Conference: Mountain Policy and Laws (MPL)
Promising Examples and Innovative Legal Mechanisms for Conservation and Sustainable Development

Throughout history, mountain communities have been characterized by political and economic marginality with respect to surrounding lowland areas and regional centers of power. Mountain peoples often have little or no voice in national or regional affairs, even regarding issues which directly affect the very resource base on which their livelihood depends. The actual needs and concerns of mountain peoples and the environmental constraints of fragile mountain environments are insufficiently represented in the policies and laws which govern them.
The Mountain Policy and Laws electronic conference was held in March and April of 1997 to identify informal and formal legal mechanisms and examples which have been used to conserve mountain ecosystems and ensure equitable and sustainable development of mountain peoples. There were 276 participants in the conference. Nearly half of the participants, 123 people from 38 different countries, made direct contributions to the conference. In addition, an on-line library of 70 key reference documents, including the texts of many hard-to-find mountain laws, was created to provide a background for the discussion.

The full Mountain Policy and Law discussion is archived at http://www2.mtnforum.org/mtnforum/vfp_search.cfm

Clickhere for a detailed discussion report on MPL

The Active Mountain Archive - Online Information Resources and Database

The Forum's World Wide Web Site at http://www.mtnforum.org is an "active mountain archive" of mountain information resources. This Home Page presently contains information about the Mountain Forum along with online subscription and registration facilities as well as a resources' page with a compendium of the MF Discussion threads, a calendar of 'mountain' events, a WWW Links page, mountain-related publications and reports, and much more. This archive comes with an easy-to-use search engine that allows you to search the entire database as well as perform full-text searches.

 
Bulletin

Much of the Mountain Forum constituency is in remote and infrastructure-poor areas. A global bulletin as a pilot issues was published in August 1997 and distributed in hard copy as well as electronically. The hard copy global bulletin has proved to be a powerful instrument for information exchange between online and offline members. This bulletin, consisting of summaries of online discussions, regional updates, contributions from members as well as focussed articlr, is archived on the Mountain Forum Page.

  Connect and Support

Networks can link people of different disciplines, organisations, and backgrounds who would not otherwise have an opportunity to interact. Networks also provide members with sources of peer support, encouragement, motivation, and professional recognition. To guarantee that mountain people and organisations are not increasingly marginalised by the lack of information, the Mountain Forum believes all members should be aware of, and committed to fostering and maintaining, communication linkages. Isolation among mountain professionals, policy-makers, and development workers is a widely-acknowledged phenomenon. It is precisely this that Mountain Forum members can help remedy by:

• suggesting and directing relevant sources of information to other members;

• supporting and responding to inquiries and requests made by other Mountain Forum participants;

• assuming personal responsibility for the dissemination of relevant and important information to Participants without access to modern communications' facilities;

• identifying potential participants and members and involving them in the Forum's activities; and

• working and connecting with other members to form partnerships and joint research activities at local, regional, and global levels.

Advocate and Promote

Networks can create an awareness that many others have similar problems and concerns and provide the critical mass needed for national and international advocacy and policy change. The empowerment of mountain advocates is one of the driving forces behind the Mountain Forum. Successful advocacy should result in raising mountain issues on the agendas of national decision-makers, donor agencies, and international organisations. Forum members and participants can be instrumental in this process by:

• facilitating dialogue and improved communications between mountain communities and decision-makers;
• convening local, national, and regional workshops and taskforces around relevant mountain issues;
• informing national decision-makers via these workshops, briefings and media coverage;
• encouraging the formation of a mountain lobby which involves stakeholders and decision-makers; and
• planning and implementing activities that relate directly to the Earth's Summit and Agenda 21, Chapter 14 "Managing Fragile Ecosystems: Sustainable Mountain Development."