By Isabella Oleksy -- Many mountainous regions are warming faster than the global average, including the western United States. Ecosystems are changing in response to multiple environmental stressors such as drought, beetle outbreaks, dust deposition, and changing snowpack, some of which are exacerbated by climate anomalies and global change in general. Disentangling the effects of natural [...]
By Dr Aida Cuni-Sanchez -- I was recently in the Cameroon Highlands to collect data on the socio-ecological functioning of mountain ecosystems, for the AFRISKYFOR project, funded by EU. The Cameroon Highlands contain tropical montane forests internationally renowned for their rich flora and high levels of endemism, combined with high degrees of threats (e.g. [...]
By Dr. Jessica Thorn and Cara Steger -- In April 2018, the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) attracted approximately 8,500 researchers, GIS specialists, industry professionals, authors, and other leaders in geography from around the globe. We convened to present and receive feedback on the latest scholarship, learn about current methods [...]
By Kanchan Shrestha -- In December 2017, a few days before International Mountain Day, over 400 experts from around the globe gathered in Kathmandu to call for a resilient Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH). The HKH, one of the most fragile regions of the world, holds significant natural and socio-economic resources that are critical for [...]
By Catherine Tucker -- In early November, I had the privilege of attending the second conference of the Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECSii) in Oaxaca City, Mexico. For many reasons, the conference ranked among the best I have ever attended. The setting itself encompasses many of the challenges facing mountains and other social-ecological [...]
As winter solstice is upon us and darkness hovers in the far north and south, Chris Cosgrove, PhD student at Oregon State University and Early Career Mountain Sentinels member, shares his zany fieldwork experiences from the Wrangell Mountains in Alaska from earlier in the year. Up Wait Creek Without a Pilot “… Doable but a [...]
* By Aida Cuni-Sanchez * Between the 17th to 20th September, the Pathways Conference 2017 took place at the Rocky Mountain National Park, in Colorado, USA. ‘Pathways to Success: Integrating Human Dimensions into Fish and Wildlife Management’ was an international gathering of over 270 scientists, NGOs, and government agencies, from 20 countries. The theme of the [...]
By Jessica Thorn. From 23-27th April, 2017, Mountain Sentinels hosted our third international workshop near the lovely Bend, Oregon, surrounded by the beautiful Mount Washington, Tumalo State Park, Three Sisters mountains, Santiam Pass and Metolius Spring. The meeting brought together 22 researchers representing 19 research, university, state, and educational institutions. We exchanged a wealth of [...]
By Dr. Jessica Thorn The biannual Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) was hosted by the United National International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in Cancun, Mexico from 22-26 May 2017. As a Mountain Sentinels postdoctoral research fellow, I was fortunate to attend the meeting to understand policy action priorities, build partnerships, and identify gaps [...]
Our workshop on “Participatory Modeling of Mountain Social-Ecological Systems” at the Rock Springs Resort, Bend, Oregon has begun! The workshop is led by Anne Nolin, Jessica Thorn, Julia Klein, Robin Reid, & Catherine Tucker. The broader objectives this workshop are to explore and evaluate transdisciplinary modeling frameworks for mountains, to identify relevant questions and scenarios [...]