A National Mountain Conference in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA, was coplanned and cohosted by IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas, 14–16 September 2000, at Golden, Colorado. The partners in this effort were an alliance of The American Alpine Club, the American Hiking Society, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Colorado Mountain Club, and the Mountaineers. Ten members of IUCN's Mountain Protected Area Network played a role in the program presentations.
Topics covered ranged from the threats posed by mining, logging, and motorized recreation to a consideration of the sacredness of mountains, the impacts of trophy homes, suburbanization, and gateway communities. Water and air quality problems were discussed along with alien species problems and habitat fragmentation. Twelve critical issues were identified as forming the basis of an action agenda, including drafting letters to the presidential candidates in the November US elections.
These worrisome dozen issues are:
Encroaching urban environment.
Proliferating human infrastructure.
Damaging natural resource extraction.
Declining ecological diversity.
Diminishing mountain air quality.
Impairment of water resources.
Changing climate conditions.
Loving mountains to death through recreational overuse and misuse.
Ballooning numbers of inexperienced users.
Increasing user group conflicts.
Losing access to public lands.
Losing the mountain experience and solitude.
Examples of problems linked with these issues were presented from mountains all over the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. At the same time, there was also discussion of areas where progress has been made in retarding processes of degradation.
Larry Hamilton, Vice-Chair for Mountains in IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas, gave a keynote address on “A Campaign for the World's Mountains,” which shifted the focus from the national to the international scene, and highlighted both the Mountain Chapter of Agenda 21 and the forthcoming International Year of Mountains 2002.
An all-day field trip into the heart of the ski development country and old mining area allowed participants to see first-hand and up close what shape these critical issues take in reality.
