The Centre for Mountain StudiesContributes to SustainableMountain Developmentat All Scales

The Centre for Mountain Studies (CMS)

is located at Perth College, University of

the Highlands and Islands, Scotland.

Since its establishment in 2000, staff

and students at the CMS have been

active in research and knowledge

exchange activities at all scales, from

the local, in Scotland, to the global.

Projects in Scotland have focused

mainly on estates, wild land (see

below), and forests. Work across part,

or all, of Europe has addressed

mountain foods (see below), adaptation

to climate change, large-scale regional

planning, and the characterization of

Europe’s mountains. At the global

scale, the CMS has been involved in

activities relating to sustainable

mountain development, global change,

interdisciplinary research, and

biodiversity conservation. The CMS also

runs a part-time online MSc in

Sustainable Mountain Development.

This article summarizes some recent

and ongoing activities. More

information, including additional

published references, is available on

the CMS website.

The world’s mountain forests

A quarter of the world’s forests arein mountain areas. These foreststypically have high biodiversity andprovide many goods and services forpeople both in the mountains and inthe lowlands, often far away.Mountain forests are important assources of wood as well as otherproducts such as medical herbs.When managed well, they are alsovital for ensuring reliable supplies ofhigh-quality water and for protectionagainst natural hazards such asavalanches, landslides, and floods.They are also the setting for tourismand many recreational activities.

These issues were explored in apublication (Price et al 2011)coordinated by the CMS and BOKU,University for Natural Resources andLife Sciences, Vienna, Austria, anddesigned as a contribution to theInternational Year of Forests 2011with support from the Swiss Agencyfor Development and Cooperation.Through introductory texts and 32case studies from around the world,this report presents the many valuesof mountain forests, outlinescurrent challenges for theirmanagement, and proposesrecommendations for theirsustainable management.

Quality foods and sustainable

mountain development

Recent years have seen a building ofmomentum around efforts to harnessquality foods as an engine forsustainable mountain development.The research in this area with whichthe CMS has been involved hasincluded the European MountainAgrofood Products, Retailing andConsumers project (EuroMARC),funded by the EuropeanCommission’s 6th FrameworkProgramme for Research andDevelopment (2007–2010) andinvolving partners from 6 countriesand a recent study with the InstitutSuperieur d’agroalimentaire Rhone-Alpes (Isara) Lyon, France, andEuromontana, commissioned by theEuropean Commission’s Institute forProspective Technological Studies.

The literature reviewed in thesestudies confirmed that mountainagriculture delivers a range ofpositive externalities, such as naturalhazards protection and carbonsequestration. Primary production

and food-related businesses alsorepresent an important source ofemployment in mountain regions,and the multifunctionality ofmountain agriculture is associatedwith substantial environmental andbiodiversity benefits. Research withinEuroMARC evidenced a considerabledemand for mountain foods, withconsumers in a number of Europeancountries willing to pay a premiumfor mountain products because oftheir association with high-qualitynatural environments and modes ofproduction. However, the term‘‘mountain’’ is used in relation to avariety of products, some of whichare produced outside mountainareas, which results in the reductionof any potential market advantagefor ‘‘legitimate’’ mountain foodproducers and a lack of accountingfor the positive externalitiesassociated with mountain foodproduction in the final price.

To explore these issues, researchconducted by CMS has examinedpolicy and labeling schemes that arerelevant for mountain foods. Issuesidentified included a lack ofconsistent interpretation of the term‘‘mountain food’’ across Europe andthe inadequacy of existingmechanisms for protecting andsustaining mountain foods. Despitethe development of a EuropeanCharter for Mountain Quality FoodProducts in 2005, the potential formisuse of the mountain termremains: it has no formal policy-based European definition, althoughnational-level schemes have beendeveloped in certain countries. TheSwiss Ordinance on the terms‘‘Mountain’’ and ‘‘Alpine Pastures’’legislation is the most advancedexample of such a scheme. This

MountainPlatformMountain Research and Development (MRD)An international, peer-reviewed open access journalpublished by the International Mountain Society (IMS)www.mrd-journal.org

Mountain Research and Development Vol 33 No 1 Feb 2013: 103–107 http://dx.doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-12-00131.1 � 2013 by the authors103

specifies that mountain foodproducts must be produced andprocessed in defined mountain, alp,or alpine pasture regions, with thebulk of raw materials also originatingin these areas. Similar schemes havebeen developed in France and Italy,and discussions are also underwaywithin the Alpine Convention on thedevelopment of a coherent definitionfor mountain foods.

Current schemes and labels usedfor mountain foods includeEuropean Union schemes, nationalmountain legislative schemes, anda variety of regional schemes topromote market products based ontheir mountain origins. TheEuropean Union ProtectedDesignation of Origin and ProtectedGeographical Indication schemesrepresent important marketingchannels for many mountain foodproducts. However, producers viewthese schemes as lacking a distinctmountain focus and as beingbureaucratic and poorly suited to themarketing of many smaller-scalemountain products. More broadly,there is a lack of coherence inrelation to how mountain productsare defined across different schemes,at different scales. The potentialexists for the European Commissionto address this issue and alignexisting schemes through thedevelopment of a clear definition formountain foods. This potential hasnow been recognized, with theEuropean Parliament approving thedevelopment of a new regulation inSeptember 2012, reserving the use ofthe term ‘‘mountain product’’ to foodproducts produced and processed inmountain areas.

Land ownership, management,

and partnership in

Scotland’s uplands

Scotland’s uplands have a diversepattern of land ownership, withmuch of the land in privately ownedestates, some of which are many tensof thousands of hectares in area.

Estates are also owned byconservation organizations; publicbodies; and, increasingly, since theLand Reform (Scotland) Act 2003,local communities. The ‘‘SustainableEstates for the 21st Century’’ projecthas been underway at the CMS since2007, which is funded by the HenryAngest Foundation. The overall aimof the project has been to integratethe concept of sustainability into themanagement of large, upland estatesin Scotland. Researchers worked witha range of stakeholders and on anumber of case studies to understandthe complex driving forces thatinfluence landowners’ decisions andpractice. The project is now in itssynthesis phase: the detailed resultswill be published in an edited book(Glass et al 2013).

The project has illustrated theimpact of landowners’ decisions oncommunity resilience by highlightingtheir role in facilitating business andlifestyle opportunities by sustainingupland employment and supportingcommunity-generatedentrepreneurship. This theme wasexplored in more detail at 3stakeholder workshops across uplandScotland in late 2011. Funded by theEconomic and Social ResearchCouncil, the Scottish Government,and Scottish Land and Estates (anongovernmental organization thatrepresents landowners’ interests), theworkshops focused on the need formore estates to work in partnershipwith communities and otherorganizations to deliver mutuallybeneficial projects and outcomes.Workshop participants were asked tocomment on a short booklet called‘‘Working Together for SustainableEstate Communities,’’ and theirfeedback was incorporated into afinal version (Glass et al 2012).

The booklet emphasizes thatopportunities for engagement andpartnership are important and existacross a wide spectrum, from simplytaking a more ‘‘open’’ approach toestate management (an ‘‘open-doorpolicy’’), to the development of jointbusinesses between the estate and the

community, or the development ofshared equity schemes in relation tospecific services or assets. However,implementing any of theseapproaches requires consideration ofthe following key points:

1. Trusting relationships need to bedeveloped: estates should considerrepresentation on communityorganizations and/or groups todevelop new relationships and toexplore the benefits of workingmore closely with agencies andother stakeholders;

2. Methods and timings of interac-tion are crucial: communicationneeds to be two-way (rather than‘‘top down’’) and communityconsultation should be early,meaningful, and transparent;

3. Estate representatives need to bevisible and approachable: this iscrucial for developing a positiverelationship between the estateand the community; estates thatdevelop relationships with widerpartners, such as community de-velopment trusts and publicagencies, are better able to accesswider support, knowledge, andresources;

4. Developing positive relationshipsmay benefit from the involvementof an ‘‘honest broker’’: whenconflict occurs, a suitable ‘‘honestbroker’’ can act as an impartialmediator, sharing policyinformation and guidingdiscussions without vestedinterest;

5. Explore suitable models for ruralleadership: partnerships can in-crease the capacity of communi-ties and estates to engage in localdecision-making, and effectiveleadership can release volunteerenergy and increase the availabil-ity of locally social capital.

When these key points weretaken into account and productiveengagement and/or partnershipprocesses were developed, localgovernance models were stronger,with diverse mutual gains. The

MountainPlatform

Mountain Research and Development http://dx.doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-12-00131.1104

booklet can be downloaded fromwww.sustainable-estates.co.uk.

Although this research hasfocused on the mountains ofScotland, we believe that its findingshave far wider relevance in terms ofrecognizing and capitalizing on theopportunities for landowners,whether private, government, ornongovernmental organization, towork with the people who livein the communities on and neartheir landholdings for mutualbenefit.

Wild land and wilderness

Since 2005, wild land, wilderness, andre-wilding have been a focus of CMSresearch. In Scotland, wildlandscapes are areas withoutstanding scenery, with minimalevidence of human influence, diverseopportunities for high-value outdoorrecreational experiences, and often

containing large areas ofseminatural or near-natural habitats.The work on wild land began with astudy commissioned by ScottishNatural Heritage (Scotland’snational agency for biodiversityconservation) to study the benefitsand opportunities of Scotland’s wildlandscapes (Figure 1). A keyconclusion was that wild landrequired clearer definition andcriteria in Scotland to ensure thefuture sustainability of this resource(McMorran et al 2008).

Following on from this work,Scotland’s 2 national parks,Cairngorms and Loch Lomond andthe Trossachs, both in mountainareas, undertook the challenge ofmapping and managing wildness as alandscape attribute. CMS has beendirectly involved in this work inpartnership with the WildlandResearch Institute at the Universityof Leeds. The process of mappingwildness uses a geographic

information system to merge layersof data that reflect key criteria (egruggedness and remoteness fromroads, naturalness of vegetation,density of modern human builtstructures) that influence how wild agiven landscape is perceived to be.These criteria were based on existingrelevant policy and supported bypublic perception studies of wildland in Scotland.

These efforts have led to thedevelopment of detailed maps of acontinuum of wildness in the 2 nationalparks in conjunction with theon-going delineation of core areas ofwild land and development ofplanning guidance. More recently,Scottish Natural Heritage has usedthis methodology to develop maps ofwildness for Scotland as a whole.These were completed in 2012 andrepresent a landmark, with Scotlandleading the way in producingEurope’s most accurate and detailedmaps of wildness.

FIGURE 1 Red deer on Alvie Estate in the Cairngorms. (Photo by Neil McIntyre and courtesy of Scottish Natural Heritage)

MountainPlatform

Mountain Research and Development http://dx.doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-12-00131.1105

FIGURE 2 Wilderness Quality Index for Europe, showing mountain massifs and top 10% wildest areas. The index is based on a simpleequal-weighted combination of population density, road density, distance from nearest road, naturalness of land cover, and terrainruggedness. The top 10% wildest areas are defined on a simple equal area percentile basis and highlighted in blue. (Originally publishedas Map 10.5 in EEA [2010], reproduced with kind permission of the authors; special thanks to Dr Stephen Carver, director, WildlandResearch Institute [www.wildlandresearch.org/], School of Geography, University of Leeds for providing the map)

MountainPlatform

Mountain Research and Development http://dx.doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-12-00131.1106

In conjunction with this work,CMS led the organization of anational conference on Scotland’sWild Landscapes in 2010 (www.wildlands.info) to disseminateresearch findings and provide aplatform for discussion of theimplications of current work.Subsequently, the ScottishGovernment commissioned a widerstudy, in which CMS was involved, onhow wild land is being managed inEurope and the lessons that could belearned for the management of thisresource in a Scottish context. Thiswork identified the importance of theadoption of ‘‘zoning’’ approaches forthe management of wild land inScotland and a greater integration ofecological elements within wild landmanagement, potentially throughfurther development of nationalecological networks. These findingswere presented at the EuropeanCommission’s Conference onWilderness and Large Natural HabitatAreas, in Prague in 2009, part of acoordinated strategy to protectwilderness and wild land areas inEurope that led to the adoption of aResolution on Wilderness by theEuropean Parliament in 2010. Thereis a clear relationship between theoccurrence of wilderness andmountains in Europe, as shown inFigure 2, prepared by the WildlandResearch Institute at the University ofLeeds (Carver 2010) as a contributionto the assessment of Europe’smountain areas coordinatedby the CMS and published by theEuropean Environment Agency (EEA2010).

Looking forward

Although the CMS is a small centerin a new university (the University ofthe Highlands and Islands onlygained title in 2011), it has a strongreputation at all scales fromScotland to the world. This is due,not only to its research, but also toits involvement in education andknowledge exchange activities,particularly in the context of theUNESCO Chair in SustainableMountain Development. With regardto education, it is hoped that therecent approval of the MSc insustainable mountain developmentfor global delivery will lead tostudents joining the course frommore countries around the world;already, it has attracted studentsfrom Bulgaria, France, Germany,Italy, Spain, and the United States, aswell as the UK. In terms ofknowledge exchange, in following onfrom 2 major internationalconferences on global change andthe world’s mountains in 2005 and2010 (Price and Weingartner 2012,in supplement to volume 32 ofMountain Research and Development), itis anticipated that a thirdconference will follow in 2015. It ishoped that many readers of MountainResearch and Development will be ableto attend!

REFERENCES

Carver S. 2010. Mountains and wilderness. In:European Environment Agency. Europe’s EcologicalBackbone: Recognising the True Value of OurMountains. Copenhagen, Denmark: EuropeanEnvironment Agency, pp 192–201.

EEA [European Environment Agency]. 2010.Europe’s Ecological Backbone: Recognising theTrue Value of Our Mountains. Copenhagen,Denmark: European Environment Agency.Glass J, McMorran R, Price M, McKee A, editors.2012. Working Together for Sustainable EstateCommunities: Establishing the Potential ofCollaborative Initiatives Between Privately-ownedEstates, Communities and Other Partners. Perth,United Kingdom: Centre for Mountain Studies,Perth College, University of the Highlands andIslands.Glass J, Price MF, Warren C, Scott A, editors.2013. Lairds, Land and Sustainability: ScottishPerspectives on Upland Management. Edinburgh,United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press. Inpress.McMorran R, Price MF, Warren CR. 2008. The callof different wilds: The importance of definition andperception in protecting and managing Scottish wildlandscapes. Journal of Environmental Planning andManagement 51:177–199.Price MF. 2011. The Centre for Mountain Studies.Mountain Research and Development 31(2):166–168.Price MF, Gratzer G, Alemayehu Duguma L, KohlerT, Maselli D, Romeo R, editors. 2011. MountainForests in a Changing World: Realizing Values,Addressing Challenges. Rome, Italy: Food andAgriculture Organization of the United Nations,Mountain Partnership Secretariat, and SwissAgency for Development and Cooperation. http://www.mountainpartnership.org/fileadmin/user_upload/mountain_partnership/docs/FAO_Mountain-Forests-in-a-Changing-World.pdf;accessed on 8 January 2013.Price MF, Weingartner R. 2012. Introduction:Global change and the world’s mountains—Perth2012. Mountain Research and Development32(Supplement):S3–S6.

AUTHORS

Jayne Glass, Rob McMorran, and Martin F.Price** Corresponding author:

martin.price.perth@uhi.ac.ukCentre for Mountain Studies, Perth College,University of the Highlands and Islands, CrieffRoad, Perth PH1 2NX, United KingdomWebsite: www.perth.uhi.ac.uk/mountainstudies

Open access article: please credit the authors andthe full source.

MountainPlatform

Mountain Research and Development http://dx.doi.org/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-12-00131.1107