INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAIN DAY 2014

I love adventure and one of the things I would love to do someday or many days in a row is to climb mountains! Yes, a Nigerian girl will someday climb many mountains. Y'all keep your fingers crossed!

This whole talk of mountain-climbing originated from the fact that Thursday, 11th December is INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAIN DAY! The Theme for 2014 is: MOUNTAIN FARMING

Covering around 27 percent of the earth’s land surface, mountains play a critical role in moving the world towards sustainable economic growth. They not only provide sustenance and well-being to 720 million mountain people around the world, but indirectly benefit billions more living downstream.

In particular, mountains provide freshwater, energy and food – resources that will be increasingly scarce in coming decades. However, mountains also have a high incidence of poverty and are extremely vulnerable to climate change, deforestation, land degradation and natural disasters.

The challenge is to identify new and sustainable opportunities that can bring benefits to both highland and lowland communities and help to eradicate poverty without contributing to the degradation of fragile mountain ecosystems.

International Mountain Day is an opportunity to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build partnerships that will bring positive change to the world’s mountains and highlands.

This year, we have an opportunity to raise awareness about how mountain agriculture, which is predominantly family farming, has been a model for sustainable development for centuries.

CREDITS:

http://www.un.org/en/events/mountainday/

http://www.fao.org/forestry/internationalmountainday/en/

Image 1: http://www.fao.org/forestry/internationalmountainday/en/

Image 2: www.exploreindochina.com

Image 3: spanishtableseattle.wordpress.com