MRI Global Newsflash April 2012

New project: Arange
The sustainable provision of ecosystem services (ES) in and from mountain regions is of crucial importance to an array of stakeholders and society in general. Mountain ecosystems can only continue to provide all these services in a rapidly changing world if a wide array of ES is considered in forest management at local, landscape and regional scales (multi-functionality). The project builds on seven case study regions in major mountain ranges throughout Europe.
Read more

More than 90% of Mexican cloud forest that is protected at present will not be climatically suitable for that ecosystem in 2080
Rocío Ponce-Reyes et al. (2012). Vulnerability of cloud forest reserves in Mexico to climate change. Nature Climate Change 2(3). Tropical montane cloud forests are among the most vulnerable terrestrial ecosystems to climate change owing to their restricted climatic requirements and their narrow and fragmented distribution. Although 12% of Mexican cloud forest is protected, it is not known whether reserves will ensure the persistence of the ecosystem and its endemic species under climate change. More

Recent researches about Cordillera Blanca Peru.
'Glacial tap is open but the water will run dry': retreating glaciers threaten water supplies. Read more.
 
First visitor center of UNESCO-world heritage tektonikarena sardona opened!
This visitor center is in the 'Glarnerland'in Glarus & Elm.
More information

Indian Himalaya Climate Change Adaptation Programme (IHCAP)
CEE Himalaya documented community voices on climate change impact and adaptation needs in IHR in collaboration with Climate Change and Development Division of Embassy of Switzerland. Children and teachers from nearly 16,000 schools from IHR are being sensitized about climate change and possible impact in the mountain region. They are being involved in small action projects on related themes, e.g. water, energy, biodiversity, waste management and cultural heritage within school and in the community. More.

MORE news can be found here.

Planet under pressure
Greg Greenwood wrote 2 blogs about this conference with reflections and summaries, which can be found here and here.

International conference on "Indigenous revival and sacred sites conservation".
5-7 April 2012. The conference emphasized important sacred sites in mountain areas. More details can be found here.

Biodiversity without boundaries 2012 (NatureServe)
22-26 April 2012, Portland Oregon, USA. More

Climate change and migration in mountain areas
3-4 May 2012, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Contact: migration@sussex.ac.uk

Land use in transition: Potentials and solutions between abandonment and land grabbing
20-22 June 2012, Halle (Saale), Germany. More

Climate change impacts on water/land and adaptation strategies in the Tibet-Himalayan region
27-29 June 2012, Pokhara, Nepal. More information in the attached file. If you agree to join the workshop, please reply to  (aili@mairs-essp.org),  Prof.Ouyang (houyang@icimod.org) and Ms. Yangying (yangying@mairs-essp.org) as soon as possible.

Ankara, MRI Key Contact Workshop prior to the SEEmore conference 2012
Wednesday, 4 July 2012, Ankara, Turkey. More.

MRI synthesis workshop
20-5-2012 Fort Collins. Building resilience of mountain social-ecological systems to global change. More. 

Kyoto Regional Conference 2012 of the International Geographical Union
Traditional wisdom and modern knowledge for the earth's future
4-9 August 2013, Kyoto, Japan. More

Mtnclim 2012 Colorado
Cirmount's biennial mountain climate conference, convenes Oct 1-4, 2012 at Estes Park, Colorado. See: http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/mtnclim/

International symposium ‘Changing mountain environments in Asia’ Tribhuvan University (TU) and Hokkaido University (HU)
7 – 9 October 2012
Theme: ‘Changing Mountain Environments in Asia’. More 

This is just a small selection of the upcoming events. For the total overview please visit the COMPLETE LIST on the website.

Interdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit an der Schnittstelle von Archäologie und Bodenkunde im Gebirge – Grundsätzliche Überlegungen und Beispiele des Mesolithfundplatzes Ullafelsen (Tirol).
Read the flyer or publication (both in German). 

The fire history, climate-human-fire interaction during the last several hundreds and also over several millennia in the temperate rainforests in the rugged mountains of western Patagonia in southern Chile.
Overall we found that climate variability has had a strong influence on fire activity via spring drought that antecedent the fire season.
We also found that since early Euro-Chilean settlers arrived to western Patagonia, fire frequency driven by climate variability has been amplified, and trends in fire activity during the 20th century have no analogue in the last ~500 yrs (based on tree-rings records), nor in the last 10,000 yrs (based on charcoal records). More. 

Reconstruction and prediction of climate and vegetation change in the holocene in the Altai-Sayan mountains, Central Asia
In Environmental Research Letters, 2009, 4, 11 p. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/045025
Dr. Nadezda M. Tchebakova. More

New discovery that the little ice age in Indian Himalaya was wet!
Climatic fluctuations during the LIA and post-LIA in the Kumaun Lesser Himalaya,India: Evidence from a 400 y old stalagmite record. Dowload paper. 

High mountain areas and their resilience to tourism development
Irena Mrak, University of Ljubljana, Facuty of Arts, Department of Geography, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

This monograph represents an innovative and important scientific contribution to mountain geography, environmental protection and the geography of tourism. It offers a comprehensive survey of current conditions in the rapidly developing field of mountain tourism in world mountain regions.  More.

CNRS (National center for scientific research) published a few months ago an article about temperature control on Glacial retreat during the Holocene in the Tropical Andes. More.

Mountain Research and Development 32.1 online and open access.
Focussing on water resources in the Upper Indus Basin and beyond, this issue discusses the linkages between climate, precipitation, glaciology, and river runoff in the Upper Indus Basin and offers methodological reflections and much more! More.

New article about Bulgarian Mountains
Peter Nojarov. 2012. Changes in air temperatures and atmosphere circulation in high mountainous parts of Bulgaria for the period 1941–2008. Journal of Mountain Science, Volume 9, Number 2, 185-200, DOI: 10.1007/s11629-012-2224-x. More. 

Elevation dependent warming paper is now published
Paper on Climate change in mountains: a review of elevation-dependent warming and its possible causes. By Imtiaz Rangwala & James R. Miller.  Online version.

Call for research groups, freshwater security
We live on a resource-limited planet where pressures on water usage are increasing rapidly and pose mounting challenges for sustainable water management. In addition, climate change is anticipated to cause many water-stressed regions to become even drier and the frequency of extreme events, both droughts and floods, to increase and exacerbate the disaster risk of the society. Read more

AGU session proposals
AGU is now accepting session proposals for the 2012 Fall Meeting in San Francisco, 6—10 December. Please note this year the meeting is from Thursday to Monday, not a normal work week schedule. The deadline for submission of proposals is 20 April 2012 23:59 ET.

Please read the guidelines before submitting a session proposal, and check to make sure there is not large overlap with already proposed sessions. Guidelines, session viewer, and session proposal site can be found on the  AGU Fall Meeting session proposal Web site.

10 minute survey for FAO
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the International Year of Mountains 2002, FAO is undertaking a review of the IMD concept in order to revisit its mission and improve its impact. Please complete the 10 minute questionnaire on the use and quality of these materials available on line at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FW6D5B8