Launching Message

We are very delighted to present to you our new joint initiative on improved information and awareness raising on mountain issues for Central Asia. Given the role mountains play in our lives and for the Central Asian region, three Central Asian members of the Mountain Partnership, namely the AGOCA (Kyrgyzstan); Eco-Forum (Uzbekistan) and CAMP Kuhiston (Tajikistan) joined their efforts in informing public about the roles of mountains being as our water towers and home to a diversity of life-sustaining resources; threats and challenges the mountains and mountain communities face, interconnectedness and interdepence of mountain ecosystems: its upstream and downstream linkages and role that everyone of us should play to protect our mountains.
We have an ambitious goal of providing you with information going beyond the national boundaries and bring in regional and global perspectives and update you with information from other regions: how they are doing; and what the others do to save their magnificent mountains, what are the solutions they suggest and where the Central Asia can learn in order to avoid the mistakes of past and adapt ourselves in the changing environment. With this same reason, the lessons learned and good practices from other regions would be highlighted in our effort.
Our regular set of radio programs and newspaper columns in 3 Central Asian countries will run simultaneously. They have become possible with financial assistance from Swiss Development Cooperation Agency through the Mountain Partnership Asia Pacific Decentralized Hub located at International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) Kathmandu Nepal.
As the Central Asia shares common geographic features with the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, we hope to entice the attention to the issues with a solid backing from ICIMOD, a regional knowledge sharing and enabling center serving eight member countries of Hindu Kush Himalayan region.
Mountains cover about 25% of the earth’s surface and are home to 12% of the world’s population. The mountains are the source of the world’s greatest rivers: at least 75% of the planet’s surface freshwater resources come from mountains. Thus, mountains home greater diversity of lives and sustain livelihood of not only mountain people, but also populations at downstream depending on services such as water coming from mountain glaciers. It has been proven that as fragile ecosystems, the mountain ecosystems are highly vulnerable to the global warming impacts and serve as early indicators of changing climate. Indeed, many talk of mountain glaciers melting with rapid speed. Protecting and using sustainably the mountain ecosystems and resources have become the center of attention by international community: with the very first step of drawing public attention to mountain agenda taking place with adoption of Chapter 13 of the Agenda 21 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 1992. At the international level, mountains and their roles have been recognized highly and institutions such as ICIMOD, UN FAO and SDC work on mountain issues.
Furthering the commitments continued during the International Year of the Mountains-2002 with celebrations in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan with the Central Asian countries taking the lead in the process. Following the Bishkek 2002 event, the Mountain Partnership as global alliance of 160 partners including countries, intergovernmental organizations and major groups (e.g. civil society, NGOs and the private sector dedicated to improving the lives of mountain people and protecting mountain environments around the world was set up. Today the Mountain Partnership is launching this new initiative of its members for knowledge and information sharing between the mountainous regions and this way to bring the local perspectives up to the regional and international fora.
We also hope to build up the interactive platform and forum for dialogue and exchange of ideas with our Central Asian audience through providing a number of open access feedback channels on our outreach activities. They include:
1. SMS messages + (996) 0550 474449, + (992) 918-66-75-69
2. telephone calls to 0312 54 23 46, 54 05 73: ,
3. E-mails to following addresses: gulzada@camp.elcat.kg:A.Vakhitov@gmail.com; umarova_i@mail.ru; ebatjargal@icimod.org;
4. your interviews to our journalists; your ideas and suggestions to the E-discussion forum at http://www.camp.kg/forums
For more details of the open access feedback channels, please refer to the section at the bottom of the page.
We welcome you to share with us your experiences and knowledge and look forward to hearing from our readers and audience on your concerns and inputs on mountian issues
AGOCA/Eco-Forum/CAMP Kuhiston
Mountain Partnership Members from Central Asia