Mountains

May I pause for awhile and I wish to thank you all my readers for your visit and for those who read some of my posts. You might have noticed that for every post I placed the source and "reproduced with permission". This book is a copyright, I wrote the FAO and ask if I can use the topics of this book here in my blog. They did approve my request with the condition that I should always state the source and "reproduced with permission". To be safe since not everybody can read all my posts and I have to abide by the FAO's rules, I put the "source" on every top of my posts, including the said authors of each topic.

For me, the subject of this book is educational so I decided to post this for those readers who like this kind of subject. I will finish all the chapters before I will proceed with my own posts. 

Again, thank you all so much for your visit and for your time spent to read some of my posts. Please continue reading...

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013, Saadia Iqbal, You Think!, The World Bank,   "The Youth Guide to Biodiversity" 1st Edition (Chapter 6) Youth and United Nations Global Alliance. Reproduced with permission.

Chapter 6. Verbatim.

Mountains don’t just look big and tall – their contribution as ecosystems is sky high too! They supply fresh water to almost half of the world’s population, and on every continent (except Antarctica), they provide mineral resources, energy, forest and agricultural products. Vegetation on mountains provides a range of environmental benefits.

For example, it influences the water cycle by capturing moisture from the air. Snowfall in the high mountains is stored until the snow melts in the spring and summer, providing essential water for settlements, agriculture and industries in the surrounding lowlands. Mountain vegetation helps to control this water flow, preventing soil erosion and flooding. Vegetation on mountains also helps to reduce climate change through carbon storage. Many of the herbs, game and other foods that sustain people are found on mountains.

What's Threatening Mountains? 

Mountain areas are facing a loss of diversity due to a number of factors, including the uphill expansion of agriculture and human settlements and logging for timber and fuelwood.

The illegal trade in animal parts and medicinal herbs is also contributing to biodiversity loss on mountains. Climate change is another factor that is threatening several species with extinction. Many plant species are moving uphill, partly due to climate change, which reduces available land area for those organisms already living there and increases competition for space and other important resources. Also, those species which already live at the top of mountains can’t move further up to get to colder conditions.

Watch a slideshow about species migration in the Amazon:
digitalmedia.worldbank.org/SSP/youthink/amazon