Price, Martin F.

Mountain areas cover 24% of the Earth's land and 26% of the global population lives in or around these areas. At the global scale, perhaps their greatest value is as 'water towers', providing water for over half of humankind. As global centres of biological and cultural diversity, they are among the world's major tourist destinations. For urban citizens, mountains provide diverse opportunities for recreation; they have also long been vital for spiritual recreation, including sacred sites for all major religions.

Mountains cover a quarter of the earth's land surface. They provide water for at least half the world's people and they are visited by hundreds of millions of tourists every year. This informative text blends up-to-date information and years of personal experience to raise awareness of our mountains.

Cooperation at the scale of entire mountain ranges, whether through formal agreements or regional institutions, is widely acknowledged to be desirable. The Caucasus, generally better known for conflict than cooperation, is a major centre of biological, landscape, and cultural diversity. Appropriate mechanisms to maintain and foster these various types of diversity - which are intricately linked - are urgently needed and as first step, this report gives an overview of the region and details of existing structures for cooperation at all levels