From lake to desert to field, mountain landscapes are home to one in five people. But land degradation and climate change are adding to the challenges of living in these remote zones. What innovations can sustain mountain communities and their land?

Protecting the land

With water for crops in short supply, innovations in drip irrigation – and even in biofertilisers created from discarded sheep fleeces – are helping to reduce water stress for farmers in the Kyrgyz mountains. Microforests, which can grow by five metres a year at high altitudes, improve the air and soil, and help retain water. They supply food, fodder and medicinal plants to help farmers in Afghanistan generate income.

UCA scientists, working with Bamyan University, have identified beans that adapt to harsh climates and offer reliable nutrition during the lean season. They grow in dry conditions and are harvestable before the rains end.

With funding from the Government of Switzerland, AKF and Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation have helped over 14,000 farmers to breed cows that produce more milk, enabling them to reduce livestock numbers and therefore costs.

Changing times

Mohammad Zaman, Agriculture and Climate-Resilient Programme Manager for the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) Pakistan, recalls: “Sixty years back, our huge mountains were lush green, with forests. But we are watching our glaciers melt. In the next 20 or 30 years, they will be gone. And people have cut the trees and bushes, and even dug out the artemisia plants to use as firewood.

“Now you can see these mountains are completely bare and they are really fragile and vulnerable to flash floods. Last year, 100 households in my village had their land, animals and trees completely washed out, and 10 lives were lost.” Read more about living at the frontiers of climate change.

The consequences are unevenly felt.

“Women contribute equally, if not more, to agricultural activities – for example, if heavy rains affect the stored fodder, it is considered women’s work to dry it out; if there is an extended dry spell, the women will have to resow. But their male counterparts decide what to sow or how and when to take produce to the market,” says Harpalsinh Chudasama, Climate Change Research Manager, AKRSP India.

“We include women as core participants in terms of training and benefits, so that there is an equal understanding [for both women and men] about the division of labour and responsibilities, as well as decision-making power in the household.”

Reducing risk

Rising temperatures are melting glaciers, causing floods. See what it’s like to live under the threat of glacial lake outburst floods in this film featuring Hunza residents.

The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) has trained over 40,000 volunteers in emergency response to mountain hazards. Watch how three female search and rescue volunteers are breaking taboos in northern Pakistan.

Technological advances could change the future. With help from NASA scientists and others, AKAH can predict hazards 30 and even 80 years from now in the mountains of Central and South Asia. These can help residents decide how to adapt, whether by planting trees to reduce landslide risks, regenerating degraded land, constructing greenhouses to extend growing seasons, or even relocating.

Providing infrastructure and facilities

Using fuels such as firewood hastens the loss of trees and the animals, birds and insects that live within them. If dung or agricultural waste is burned instead, it adds to air pollution and consumes nutrients that could have fed the soil. But solar and hydropower plants are providing a clean alternative.

And what of the future?

Watch The Sky is Far, The Earth is Tough

11 December is International Mountain Day. This year, the focus is on ways to adapt to harsh environments, deal with climate change, reduce poverty and restore biodiversity.