The International Mountain Day (IMD) is celebrated annually on 11 December to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development, and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.
The theme for this year’s IMD is “Mountain biodiversity”. Mountains are storehouses of global biodiversity. Half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots are concentrated in mountains, and four of those hotspots lie in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. This IMD, we celebrate the rich biodiversity in mountains and call attention to the threats it faces.
ICIMOD will be organizing a week-long event – a “week for mountains” – to celebrate this important day by organizing various programmes in-house and in its country offices.