The VII European Mountain Convention was organised on 2, 3 & 4 October 2012 in Chambéry, France, on the topic of youth. Entitled “Youth to the top: the mountain path to the future! Creating a future for young people in mountain areas”, this edition was organised in collaboration with the region Rhône Alpes.

The aim of this year’s European Mountain Convention was to discuss the potential of mountain areas for young people and to assess the conditions needed to make mountain areas attractive to young people. The Convention gives participants the opportunity to discuss difficulties and good practices in responding to specific issues and policies concerning youth in mountain areas.

Like all other European Mountain Conventions, this edition gathered around 300 participants from 18 European countries, Armenia, Georgia and the USA.

Mountain areas have very important assets in terms of quality of life: particularly intense community exchanges, a rich traditional culture, access to a protected environment and leisure activities, as well as many different employment opportunities. But these areas often suffer from an image that is distorted, lacking dynamism and diversity.

This Convention challenged this image with arguments that highlighted the richness and strengths of these areas, and addressed the current problems that young people (and mountain people in general) face on a daily basis, offering transferable solutions to these problems.

Thus, the key questions for this Youth Convention were:

• how to keep young people in mountain areas?
• how to get them to return when they finish their studies?
• how to attract new young people, individuals or families, from other areas to our mountain areas?