Migration into Europe affects the Alps in various ways. The recent influx of refugees and a higher number of asylum requests has presented governance challenges for mountain communities. In Italy, the responsibility of regions to host asylum seekers increased when a national system was implemented to distribute asylum seekers throughout the country. This study explored the impact of current distributions through the analysis of 2 rural mountain municipalities in the northeast Italian Alps in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (also known as South Tyrol) in which reception facilities for asylum seekers have been established. A qualitative research approach offered empirical insights into the functioning of the reception system and governance in these communities. Our social network analysis of the research data, focusing on the labor integration of asylum seekers, indicated that stronger relational linkages among actors in rural mountain communities may facilitate access to the labor market for asylum applicants.

Outmigration from rural territories is a worldwide phenomenon that is visible in many mountain regions and creates a perception of a landscape of abandonment. Nonetheless, a counterprocess has also occurred over the past decades of increasing immigration into marginal areas, including mountain areas in Europe. This article compares case studies from mountain municipalities in Austria, Italy, and Romania that have experienced an increase in immigration. Despite their common spatial features, these towns have shown different approaches to managing immigration. This study compared the responses of local communities to immigrants from various backgrounds. Each case study concentrated on the most relevant group of new arrivals in that municipality and provided an analysis of the background conditions and main influences on the integration process. The focus was at the municipality level, supplemented with a broader regional view where possible. The case study in Trentino, Italy, focused on internal migrants who were mostly young people, the study in Romania on amenity migrants, and the study in Austria on asylum seekers. Bearing in mind the diverse starting points and immense cultural diversity in the study areas, the manifold experiences of the integration performed by community action on both sides (new arrivals and local residents) point to 3 main aspects as crucial to integration: the presence of a supportive social environment, the engagement of local actors who broker contacts between the groups, and the availability of appropriate meeting spaces.

Amenity and lifestyle migration is a global phenomenon that may be considered an agent of transformation of the local dynamics of rural areas. This new migratory trend has been observed in the last few years in the Andean Araucanía in southern Chile, an area rich in natural and cultural attractions. Migrants to the region who are proponents of agroecology—considered in the broad sense of the term as practice, theory, and social movement—have sought to contribute to local economic, environmental, cultural, and social development. Taking a qualitative methodological approach, including in-depth interviews of migrants and key local informants, this study sought to identify the motivations for the development of agroecological practices and to analyze their impact on the sustainability of local development.

Many rural mountain areas across the world are facing depopulation due to outmigration and negative natural population growth. This study examines depopulation in the mountains of Georgia based on the example of Oni municipality in the Racha region on the southern slopes of the Central (Greater) Caucasus. Depopulation in Oni, as in other Georgian mountain areas, has been driven by the socioeconomic and political disruption associated with the ongoing transition from a planned to a market economy after the demise of the Soviet Union. Based on official Georgian statistics for the period from 1989 to 2014/2016, the study documents a 50% loss of population over this period. While data on migration are lacking, the natural growth rate dropped from about −5‰ to −14‰, due to a combined decrease in the number of women of childbearing age (20–49 years of age) and in the number of births by women in this age group. Aging is reaching drastic levels, especially in rural communities, with 37% of the population in 2015 aged 65 and older. Settlements at higher altitudes are increasingly deserted. Investment in recreational economies based on local potentials such as hot springs, mountain tourism, and local (labeled) products, coupled with the establishment of protected areas as “working landscapes,” could help create local employment and reverse current negative population dynamics.

Massive outmigration from the Hill Region of Nepal has various implications for the older people left behind. This article assesses their situation and the challenges they face. To capture older people's experiences and views on the effects of outmigration on their living conditions, I applied a livelihoods perspective. This study, based on in-depth qualitative interviews and group discussions carried out in 3 mountain villages, found that outmigration has had a profound effect on local economic and social conditions. Economic effects have included reduction and in some cases abandonment of agricultural land due to lack of labor. Socially, the elderly have experienced disrespect and neglect from the young, and they lament the demise of traditional Nepalese norms and values in society and in the family. Outmigration in combination with shifting demographics has created entirely new life situations for the elderly and has made their lives more difficult. This article contributes to an underresearched topic relevant to the mountain regions of the global South and draws attention to a social group that has frequently been overlooked in both development and migration research.

Migration for work remains a livelihood strategy in subsistence farming communities globally, especially in view of unprecedented environmental change. Farmers in the high Himalaya migrate during the winter, when farming activities are reduced. This study examined the drivers of seasonal migration in the context of climate change and migration's role in food security and livelihood resilience in the district of Humla, Nepal. Focus group discussions and a household socioeconomic survey were conducted. The results suggest that rather than climate change impacts, structural poverty is the root cause of migration, such that men from poor households with small landholdings and high food insecurity, mainly belonging to low-caste groups, migrate for work during the winter. Focus group participants also presented a clear perception of climate variability and change and their negative impacts on crop production. In this context, the poorest households find cultivating their own land risky. Moreover, the traditional practice of sharecropping, which helped them reduce food shortages, has also become less profitable. Therefore, more households are likely to participate in seasonal migration in the context of climate change, and those already migrating are likely to do so for longer time periods. Currently, such migrants take up low-paying unskilled wage work, mainly in towns and cities in Uttarakhand, India, which enable them to make only modest savings, hardly enough to repay the debt their family has incurred during food shortages. Even in the future, these farmers are likely to be limited to the same migration pattern, because they lack the social ties, education, and financial capital needed to fulfill the administrative and monetary requirements for more economically promising long-term overseas migration. Thus, it is unlikely that migration will make a significant contribution to building livelihood resilience in the context of climate change in remote Himalayan farming communities.

The movement of rural households from remote uplands to valley floors and to semiurban and urban areas (internal migration) is a common phenomenon in the middle mountain districts of Nepal. Understanding the causes and effects of internal migration is critical to the development and implementation of policies that promote land use planning and sustainable resource management. Using geospatial information technologies and social research methods, we investigated the causes and effects of internal migration on land use and land cover patterns in a western mountain district of Nepal between 1998 and 2013. The results show a decreasing number of households at high elevations (above 1400 m), where an increase in forest cover has been observed with a consequent decrease in agricultural land and shrub- or grassland. At lower elevations (below 1400 m), forest cover has remained constant over the last 25 years, and the agricultural land area has increased but has become geometrically complex to meet the diverse needs and living requirements of the growing population. Our findings indicate that internal migration plays an important role in shaping land use and land cover change in the middle mountains of Nepal and largely determines the resource management, utilization, and distribution patterns within a small geographic unit. Therefore, land use planning must take an integrated and interdisciplinary approach rather than considering social, environmental, and demographic information in isolation.

Based on a case study in central Kyrgyzstan, this paper examines the links between the environment, rural livelihoods, and labor migration. The low diversity of income-generating activities in rural areas increases vulnerability to climate change impacts, other environmental stresses, and market failures. As a result, additional livelihood strategies such as labor migration and engagement in trade or other business ventures have become essential coping strategies for rural households. Remittances sent by migrants contribute not only to individual rural households but also to rural community development. Remittances help repay loans that have been taken out by households for different purposes, particularly for running or expanding farming and animal husbandry. When remittances are spent to increase livestock herds, the resulting intensive use of nearby pastures often leads to overgrazing and land degradation.

The Sanjiangyuan region is a typical ecologically vulnerable region. Although environmental initiatives in the region have had positive results, criticism has arisen that one of these, the ecological migration policy, did not achieve the desired results regarding the transition to off-farm employment and livelihoods. This study examined key factors influencing the engagement of pastoralists in the Sanjiangyuan region in off-farm employment. Binary logit and probit models were adopted along with in-depth household surveys in the Sanjiangyuan region to support the quantitative and qualitative analyses. The results indicate that off-farm employment in the region is generally not significant (18.13% of the investigated households had members working in off-farm sectors), and that education and government subsidies have had significantly positive effects on engagement in off-farm employment, while the number of livestock and the distance between house and town have had significantly negative effects. These results suggest that it is necessary to establish more financial support for off-farm employment and livelihood transitions, in addition to strengthening ecological compensation. Promising approaches could include offering different types of skill training and increasing employment opportunities in off-farm industries.

Severe land degradation and the consequent series of drought and famine episodes have caused major waves of human migration in Ethiopia over the past 5 decades. The main objective of this study was to assess the impacts of consecutive resettlement programs (spontaneous and planned) on the forests in southwest Ethiopia. The spatial distribution and extent of forest cover were mapped for the periods 1957, 1975, and 2007 based on visual interpretation of aerial photographs and satellite images. The rate of deforestation was analyzed using overlay and buffer analysis techniques available in ArcGIS software. Focus group discussions and household surveys were conducted to collect information on landscape (forest) change and the causes and consequences of deforestation. Results from the forest cover change analysis revealed that the study area lost large tracts (80%) of its forest cover between 1957 and 2007. Demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural changes introduced by migrants were the leading drivers of deforestation in the study area. In addition, the rate of deforestation in the region has been exacerbated by a low level of education and awareness of the local people about the benefits of forests, lack of regulations to protect the forests, habitat destruction to deter crop-damaging wild pests, forest clearing for fuelwood and charcoal making, and wood extraction for construction and household furniture purposes.

Juniperus is an evergreen gymnosperm genus with a broad geographical distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. Juniperus constitutes important vegetation associations in the Himalayan highlands that have significant ecological and socioeconomic importance. This research investigated the distribution pattern, community structure, and ecosystem services provided byJuniperus -dominated subalpine vegetation in the upper Neelum Valley, Pakistan. Vegetation attributes and geographical characteristics were systematically recorded at 4 selected sites. Two species of Juniperus, Juniperus communis L. and J. excelsa M. Bieb., were found to have average importance values of 23.4 and 20.02%, respectively. J. excelsa showed an average basal area of 0.30 m² ha⁻¹ and an average stem density of 46.95 ha⁻¹; J. communis had an average basal area of 0.25 m² ha⁻¹ and an average stem density of 33.21 ha⁻¹. A total of 56 Juniperus-associated plant species from 29 families were recorded, with Asteraceae as the dominant family, followed by Lamiaceae, Polygonaceae, Rosaceae, Caryophyllaceae, and Apiaceae. Predominant associated species included Thymus linearis, Aster falconeri, Rosa webbiana, Berberis lyceum, Anagallis arvensis, Rumex nepalensis, Poa alpina, Bistorta affinis, and Iris hookeriana. The calculated average values were Shannon's diversity, 3.07; Simpson's diversity, 0.94; species richness, 1.11; species evenness, 0.90; and maturity index, 45.90. Hemicryptophytes were the dominant lifeform in the area (57.14%), and microphylls (46.42%) were the dominant leaf type. Overgrazing and fuelwood cutting were identified as serious threats to both Juniperus species. Restoration of the degraded juniper stands through collective efforts by government and local communities and regular monitoring is recommended.

Mountains are crucial places in which to observe, experience, and learn about rapid weather and climate shifts, felt to varying degrees in different contexts. Fire lookout observers, immersed in the mountain environments of Alberta, Canada, for 5 to 6 months of the year, many of them returning to the same place for over 3 decades, have a distinctive and little-studied perspective on weather experience and how seasonal changes, sudden weather shifts, and subtle weather irregularities are experienced first-hand in alpine regions. Drawing on recent fieldwork in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, this article sheds light on fire lookout observers' awareness of mountain weather in their everyday lived experience and in their observations of wildfires as severe weather events. A focus on wildfire smoke as one way of experiencing wildfires allows us to touch on the implications of smoke dispersal for communities near to and far from wildfires.

The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) supports regional and transboundary cooperation to meet challenges of climate change, disaster risks, and sustainable development in the Hindu Kush–Himalaya (HKH). Action to sustain the HKH has the potential to directly improve the lives of more than one fourth of the world's population. However, facilitating cooperation and policy coherence among the countries sharing HKH resources is a persistent challenge in a region that is prone to conflict and is highly variable regarding development. At ICIMOD, we work across HKH countries to help attain common goals related to sustainable development, using our skills in bringing together different groups within programmatic transboundary approaches covering topics such as river basins or transboundary landscapes. In addition, the Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme and the Himalayan University Consortium have made strides in promoting regional and transboundary cooperation among HKH countries, particularly emphasizing research synthesis and the role of academia.

The Key Laboratory of Mountain Surface Processes and Ecological Regulation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a research institution focusing on processes and mechanisms of mountain environmental variation and its ecological regulation in China, especially in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. By studying the movement of soil and water, as well as the material circulation of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and more, the laboratory aims to reveal processes and mechanisms of mountain environmental variation specific to soil erosion and nonpoint source pollution, the vulnerability of mountain environments, and responses and adaptations of mountain environments under global change. Based on this, it seeks to propose countermeasures of environmental conservation and ecological control in mountain areas and to provide scientific evidence and technical support for sustainable development and ecological security in mountainous areas of China.