The world’s mountains encompass some of the most spectacular landscapes, diversity of species and habitat types, and distinctive human communities. Mountains occur on all continents, in all latitude zones, and within all the world’s principal biome types – from hyper-arid hot desert and tropical forest to arid polar icecaps – and support a wide variety of ecosystems.

Mountain ecosystems are important for biological diversity, particularly in the tropics and warmer temperate latitudes. Isolated mountain blocks are often rich in endemic species. They host nearly one – quarter of all terrestrial biodiversity and are home to many of the foods that come to our table.