Mountains are threatened by several dangers: ageing populations, migration, exodus and overcrowding in urban areas, rapid destructuring of societies or communities, increasingly intensive use of natural resources, the search for costly solutions in the face of market competition that these territories cannot sustain, recourse to dangerous production…

This evolution leads to more and more conflicts over the appropriation of resources or territories, control of production, maintenance of identities and autonomies, access to fundamental rights, etc. Finally, often located in border areas, mountain territories are subject to numerous wars or guerrilla wars.

In order to preserve these global public goods, to maintain populations in territories where their presence is indispensable and to prevent them from swelling the megalopolises, it is necessary to persuade national and international actors of the need to imagine and implement appropriate policies and programmes.

This message will be all the better heard if mountain populations are organized and aware of their role.