Ecoregional Approaches to Mountain Agriculture : Tools for Planning and Development
"The special characteristics of mountains are no longer seen simply as constraints, these ecoregions also offer very special and varied opportunities…
This summarises the approach of the participants from three mountain ecoregions (the Hindu Kush-Himalayas, Andes, and African Highlands) who met together with representatives of NGOs, INGOS, and donor agencies in Kathmandu in October 2002 to discuss their experiences in projects concerned with tools for planning and development in mountain regions using a specifically ecoregional approach. This short publication summarises the presentations and discussions at the workshop, and the recommendations that were made.
The workshop began by exploring the implications of working in an ecoregional context, moved on to present the focus and aims of the ISNAR-managed Ecoregional Fund, which supported the projects, then explored specifically mountain perspectives and understandings, and finally the successes and challenges and methodologies and tools of the three mountain projects. The different groups showed a great range and diversity in the approaches they chose in order to interact most effectively with their decision-makers. The Andean group chose to use state-of-the-art computer models that integrated the latest in high tech RS and GIS data. The African Highlands group (AHI) chose interactive work between researchers and farmers as the major activity leading to intensive ‘joint learning’ starting at the farm and watershed level, which would eventually serve as input to policy-makers at the regional level. The greater part of the meeting was devoted to the ICIMOD Ecoregional Project, which was concerned with developing and applying tools that can capture and integrate existing data in order to identify islands of success and niches of opportunity and provide a decision support system for planners and decision-makers. Using the central state-of-the-art relational database, MASIF, together with the interactive ‘land use analyst’ toolkit, it is possible, for example, to identify niche areas with similar characteristics to areas where farming successes have been demonstrated, and thus suggest potential opportunities. Equally the system can be used for agricultural systems and land-use planning at state and other levels.
The recommendations of the conference were intended to be used as a guide for organisations and governments that support sustainable development in mountain areas as well as for practitioners, donors, global partnerships, and global conferences. They were presented at the Bishkek Global Mountain Summit and were instrumental in having the concept of an ecoregional approach incorporated into the Bishkek Mountain Platform."
