RAWALPINDI, Dec 8: International Mountain Day will be celebrated on Thursday (December 11) to raise awareness about the importance of mountains to life, and to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build partnerships that will bring positive change to the world’s mountains and highlands.

This year’s Mountain Day provides an apt occasion to reflect on how hard it is for mountain people to consistently get adequate and nutritious food to lead healthy and active life. It draws attention to the special food security needs of mountain communities that have to be taken into account in the development of mountain-specific strategies and policies. For that reason, the theme chosen for the Day is ‘Food security in mountains’.

Priorities for improving food security in mountains include promoting and expanding traditional mountain crops; safeguarding indigenous land use practices; improving breeding programmes of mountain-adapted livestock; better market access; and mountain-specific public policy, developed with the participation of mountain people.

Recent studies indicate that mountain populations suffer from high rates of micronutrient deficiencies, which is one of the contributing factors to the significantly higher infant mortality rates in mountain regions.

Now food prices are soaring worldwide and increased transportation costs to remote mountain areas mean mountain communities are paying that much more for their food, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.

In Pakistan, price differences indicate the extent to which mountain communities are paying more at food markets. In the mountainous NWFP, compared to lowland prices, wheat was 20 per cent more expensive, maize over 30 per cent more expensive and wheat flour twice as expensive, FAO estimates.

The problem of hunger in mountains is getting worse. Harsh climates and the difficult, often inaccessible, terrain combined with political and social marginality make mountain people vulnerable to food shortages.

Indigenous knowledge about local foods and traditional agricultural practices in mountain areas is eroding and agricultural diversity as well as productivity is declining, further increasing the vulnerability of mountain people.

Northern Pakistan borders Afghanistan, China and India, is home to three significant mountain ranges: the Hindukush, the western Himalaya, and the Karakoram.

The Karakoram mountain range contains the greatest concentration of high peaks in the world and the longest glaciers outside the Polar region.

Five of the world’s 14 peaks over 8000m are in Northern Areas, including the world’s second highest mountain, K2, and there are some 82 peaks over 7000m within a radius of 180kms, making the country a continental panorama.

For millions of mountain people, hunger and the threat of hunger are nothing new. Harsh climates and the difficult, often inaccessible, terrain combined with political and social marginality make mountain people vulnerable to food shortages.

A FAO study indicates that 90 per cent of the world’s mountain people live in developing countries or countries in transition, and over 75 per cent are at risk of, or actually experiencing, hunger.

Nutrition studies also indicate that mountain populations suffer from high rates of micronutrient deficiencies. The problem is partly due to heavy rainfall and melting snow in mountains, which can leach the soil of its iodine content.

Data from the Himalayas indicate a high prevalence of ‘vitamin A’ deficiency, which can lead to poor night vision, eye lesions and, in severe cases, blindness as well as increased illness and death from infections.

Hunger and micronutrient deficiencies are contributing factors to the significantly higher infant mortality rates in mountain regions.

Nearly 70 per cent of mountain land is used for grazing. Over 300 million people live on mountain grazing lands and depend on livestock for their food security.

In Asia, the living aquatic resources of the mountain-rivers, lakes and reservoirs constitute an important source of animal protein, but they have been rarely considered in rural development initiatives, perhaps because fish stocks are limited and easily overexploited.

High altitude lakes, rivers and streams mostly have a low fish production and can be easily overfished, a FAO report states.

Considerable bilateral and other international assistance has been provided for trout culture development in the Trans-Himalayan mountain countries such as Pakistan, India, Nepal and China.

While the exotic brown trout is successfully established in the mountain-rivers and streams of northern Pakistan and is fished there on a subsistence basis, a number of hatcheries for rainbow trout production have been constructed in the Northwest Frontier Province and Northern Areas.