Alpine Convention

The Alps

Submission by the Alpine Convention for UNCSD 2012

KEY MESSAGES

On the basis of their experience in the field of Sustainable Development, their role in wider contexts and their specific economic, environmental and social contexts, the Contracting parties of the Alpine Convention, through the Permanent Secretariat, recommend the United Nations, in the discussion at UNCSD to be held in Rio in 2012:

• to take into consideration the specific role of mountains and corresponding need for policies, in particular by strengthening transboundary institutional frameworks,

•  to promote, where relevant, the establishment of regional mechanisms for coordinated and integrated transboundary cooperation for sustainable mountain development; strengthen existing mechanisms, such as the Alpine Convention and the Carpathian Convention, and promote the exchange of experiences and lessons learned,

•  to recognise the role of mountain ecosystems to sustain and enhance the Earth’s sustainability by developing a reliable valuation framework including concepts of payment and compensation for ecosystem services as well as considering the economic value of services provided in the general interest (green accounting),

• to integrate challenges and assets of mountain regions on the way to a Green Economy framework in the conviction that a geographical differentiation is needed,

• to adopt a multi-sectoral, multi-level and multi-stakeholder approach enabling the UN to direct its Sustainable Development policy towards concrete areas of interest and to identify entities for cooperation and implementation of such policies at a regional level,

• to promote networks and partnerships of mountain stakeholders at all levels (governmental, civil society, and especially the private sector) and support the consideration on mountain related concerns within the relevant national and international organisations,

• to support mountain specific observation, knowledge and awareness on mountain specific environmental, economic and social aspects,

• to use the availability of the Alpine Convention to share its manifold experience in a specific regional Sustainable Mountain Development process for the purpose of knowledge exchange.

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