Call for case studies for new publication on Mountain Soils

As a contribution to the UN Year of Soils 2015, the Mountain Partnership Secretariat is preparing a publication on mountain soils jointly with FAO, the Department of Agriculture, Forest and Food Sciences of the University of Turin and other key institutions. 

The publication aims to highlight the important role that healthy mountain soils have in providing vital resources and services to both upland and lowland communities, and how their preservation is key to food security, disaster risk reduction and overall sustainable development in mountains.

We are contacting you to ask whether you would be interested in contributing with acase study to the publication. Kindly notice that we would like to have this document ready by April 2015 hence any contribution should be submitted by 15 February.

Submissions should cover the following topics (please see attachment for more details):

• Mountains soils and agriculture: conservation, climate smart initiatives, forestry activities, livestock impact on soils, land reshaping, food production;
• Mountain soils and threats: soil loss, avalanche, erosion, degradation, desertification, risk management approaches;
• Mountain soils and climate change: snow cover change, melting of glaciers, carbon stocks
• Mountain soils and human activities: transport, mining, tourism, cultural heritage

If you would like to propose one or more case studies, please send them to alessia.vita@fao.org providing the following information:

• A brief intro summarizing the contents and findings of the case study;
• the country (or countries) to which the case study refers to;
• the organization(s) involved in funding the activities included in the case study - if relevant;
• the organization(s) involved in implementing the activities;
• the results/impacts of the activities of the case study;
• with reference to the attached table of contents of the report, the sections to which the case study refers

Once we have received all the proposed case studies, we will review them and select a representative number, taking into account their geographical distribution, themes, implementing and funding organizations. 

If your case study is chosen, we will contact you by the end of February with further details and request you to submit the final case study by 15 March.

At that point, and only if your proposal is selected, a full case study will need to be provided. Its total length should be up to 1 000 words (which will be possibly edited) and submitted with up to 5 high-quality images including credits and captions (of which some will be used). All the authors of the case study will be acknowledged in the publication and receive a copy. Please note that no financial compensation will be provided.

We would be grateful if you could forward this email and its attachment to anyone else who might be interested in submitting a case study.