Environment and climate change

Mountains are “Europe's ecological backbone”

Mountains: an asset for the benefit of all Europe

People who go on holidays in mountain areas will not contradict this statement: environment is a strong asset of those regions. The forests, the landscapes, the purity of air and water, the rich biodiversity of those areas do not only benefit mountains’ dwellers, but also Europe in its entirety. For instance, we talk about mountains as being “Europe’s water towers” because the precipitations on their summits flow downstream to provide water to the populations, for irrigation and industrial uses. The European Environment Agency is threrefore right to talk about mountains as being ”Europe's ecological backbone”.

A fragile asset

The characteristics of climate and relief of mountains explain why they have specific ecosystems. Those are often fragile and threatened in particular by human changes of activity (e.g. changes of land use) and by climate change. In fact, mountain areas are recognised as being amongst the most vulnerables areas sensitive to climate change (COM 2007-354): fast rising temperatures, massive melting of glaciers, changes of precipitation levels and of water courses, evolution of vegetation lines, etc.

Mountain people and the European population in general must act in favour of the preservation of environment in mountain areas.