Introduction
 The Policy and Law Initiative was created within the Mountain Partnership (www.partenariatmontagne.org )with the aim to promote the development of an enabling regulatory environment to support sustainable mountain development. This would be achieved by creating an inventory of what already exists, of what is being done, and of what could be accomplished in partnership by members to promote policy and law for mountain development.
At the same time, this Initiative was also launched to stimulate debate and to promote amongst all Partnership members specific attention to mountain policy, by including mountain districts in a wider development process, starting from the assumption that mountains are not problems but real social, cultural and economic resources.
Human societies are also considered as external factors, sometimes even directly responsible for the threats on biodiversity and nature conservation. Mountains are seen as the reserves of biodiversity and unspoiled nature which need to be preserved, and emptied of their populations that can harm the biodiversity of the fragile mountain environment. They also hold major natural resources such as water, minerals and energy, that should be better exploited both economically and ecologically.
Mountains preserve millenary a multitude of social, religious and cultural traditions, many of which have been lost in other parts of the world. These factors cannot be neglected by legislation, but rather should be safeguarded and promoted.
An effective, modern and efficient mountain legislation has therefore to include and to promote all these aspects, providing for measures and mechanisms that are able to reconcile modernity and tradition, economy and sustainability, global and local concerns.
The activities of the Policy and Law Initiative would contribute to lobby legislative powers in order to obtain more attention and more resources for mountains, and not only economic resources, but also resources to promote tax relief, investments and development activities in general.
Actions proposed
In order to build a strong capacity within the Policy and Law Initiative that could become an effective network for promoting the development of mountain specific policies and laws, the following activities have been identified and agreed upon by the members of this Initiative:
- collecting existing international agreements on mountain ecosystems ;
- gathering information on policies and legislation in favour of mountain areas at global, national and local levels, monitoring existing situations in the countries of Partnership members ;
- promoting and publishing researches and data analysis ;
- organizing workshops and training courses in which successful mountain development models would be illustrated ;
- identifying concerns and specific priorities of the populations of the various mountain areas ;
- constructing alliances with organizations or associations that have similar objectives and the same values.
We think it is necessary to create a dedicated virtual area, hosted by the Mountain Partnership Web site, in which we can post documents and share ideas.
Maria Teresa Pellicori (UNCEM), Denis Blamont (WMPA) and Pier Carlo Sandei (EURAC) have volunteered to take the lead to coordinate the joint implementation of the activities listed above.
First steps
In this first phase (points 1 and 2), it is really important to have contributions from all members of the Mountain Partnership, and particularly from the leading members and normal members of the Policy and Law Initiative. This would help to build the data base that we could then use to achieve the objectives mentioned above.
In particular, we need to collect information on :
- existing national legislation that includes mountain protection ;
- existing measures like contributions or tax relief for providing incentives to mountain economy and ;
- existing action to promote and protect cultural / social traditions in mountain areas.
Please send references and documents that we can put in the Policy and Law section of the Mountain Partnership Website to the following e-mail address :
Your collaboration is really appreciated. |
