APMN is a regional node of the Mountain Forum. It is also an information network under the Information and Knowledge Management Programme of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). It was created with the purpose of generating, packaging, disseminating or sharing information on sustainable mountain development in upland and mountainous areas of the Asia-Pacific region as well as facilitating networking among its many members - online as well as offline - as well as subscribers and partners.

APMN derives its mission from the Call to Action, which came out of the Su stainable D evelopment of M ountain A reas of A sia (SUDEMAA) Conference of 1994, which in turn was the regional response of the mountain countries of the Asia-pacific to one of the key outcomes of the Rio Earth Summit, namely Chapter 13 of Agenda 21: "Managing Fragile Ecosystems: Sustainable Mountain Development" . Therefore, APMN's mission is to call on the governments of the mountain countries of the Asia-Pacific to put the evolving Mountain Agenda higher up on their respective national development plans through the 'voice' or advocacy of its constituencies. To this end, APMN provides a regional forum (with international linkages) for discussions of critical and emerging mountain issues falling under (but not limited to) the following themes recommended by the SUDEMAA Conference:

• Poverty alleviation and economic development
• Sustainable management of natural resources
• Gender-balanced decision-making in environment and development policies and programmes
• Preservation and promotion of cultural heritage
• Reducing vulnerability to mountain disasters

Moreover, as a service provider, APMN seeds discussions on critical and emerging mountain issues, generates, collects, packages and shares information on sustainable mountain development of the Asia-Pacific region with its constituencies as well as facilitates networking amongst them. It does all these and more through its Mountain Forum-Asia e-discussion list, publications as well as through electronic conferences and consultations, usually in collaboration with the Mountain Forum Secretariat and other regional partners such as Info-Andina/Latin American Mountain Forum, North American Mountain Forum, African Mountain Forum and European Mountain Forum.

Over the years, APMN has been instrumental in shaping and influencing the evolving regional and international mountain agenda through the mobilization of regional input from its constituencies. For instance, the International Year of Mountains 2002 was a watershed in that APMN was in the forefront, providing regional input to the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (out of which emerged Paragraph 40 of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation : 'Protecting and managing the natural resource base for economic and social development' ), to the Bishkek Global Mountain Summit (out of which emerged the Bishkek Mountain Platform ), to the Asia High Summit, to the global 'Celebrating Mountain Women' conference as well as to the emerging Mountain Partnership.

The challenge for mountain networks such as APMN is to take recommendations of these regional and global mountain agenda, which are actually blueprints for sustainable mountain development, down to the national and local governance level. To this end, APMN encourages its constituencies to be proactive in advocating sustainable development of mountain areas.

As global challenges such as globalization and global problems such as climate change gather momentum, mountains and mountain areas everywhere - even the remotest ones - are not immune to changes taking place or originating elsewhere. Thus, addressing the problems and challenges of regional or global dimensions calls for regional and global cooperation, which is why APMN was created in the first place to take up this challenge.

Membership in APMN is free and open to individuals and organizations concerned with sustainable mountain development. It is, therefore, hoped that those who are reading this will join APMN, and thereby contribute to sustainable mountain development of the Asia-Pacific.