International Mountains Day is being marked today across the world, including Pakistan, to raise awareness about the importance of mountains to life. The day highlights the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain people's and environments around the world.International Mountain Day 2017 provides an occasion to highlight how climate, hunger and migration are affecting highlands and to ensure that sustainable mountain development is integrated into the 2030 Agenda and in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
                      This year's theme is Mountains under Pressure: climate, hunger, migration.Almost one billion people live in mountain areas, and over half the human population depends on mountains for water, food and clean energy.Yet mountains are under threat from climate change, land degradation, over exploitation and natural disasters, with potentially far-reaching and devastating consequences, both for mountain communities and the rest of the world. 
                       Mountains are early indicators of climate change and as global climate continues to warm, mountain people — some of the world’s hungriest and poorest — face even greater struggles to survive.The rising temperatures also mean that mountain glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates, affecting freshwater supplies downstream for millions of people. Mountain communities, however, have a wealth of knowledge and strategies accumulated over generations, on how to adapt to climate variability. Climate change, climate variability and climate-induced disasters, combined with political, economic and social marginalization, increase the vulnerability of mountain peoples to food shortages and extreme poverty.
                   Currently, about 39 percent of the mountain population in developing countries, or 329 million people, is estimated to be vulnerable to food insecurity.As the vulnerability of mountain populations grows, migration increases both abroad and to urban centres. Those who remain are often women, left to manage the farms but with little access to credit, training and land tenure rights.  Out-migration from mountain areas will also result in an inestimable loss in terms of provision of ecosystem services and preservation of cultural and agro biodiversity.Investments and policies can alleviate the harsh living conditions of mountain communities and reverse out-migration trends from mountain areas.These aim to increase awareness and knowledge around the role of mountains and mountainous regions amongst the general population and professionals.  
             This year United Nation Development Program (UNDP),Mountain and Glacier Protection Organisation (MGPO) , International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD),EvK2CNR, World Wide Fund for Nature(WWF), International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN,Lead Pakistan and Devcom joined hands to  celebrate the international mountain day by organizing multiple events at Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA).