Llamado de artículos para el Mountain Research and Development de noviembre

La revista internacional Mountain Research and Development (MRD) abordará en su siguiente número, el tema "Vulnerabilidad humana y Salud". Por ello, está buscando contribuciones para su sección DESARROLLO, que son las primeras 28 páginas de la publicación, y que estas podrían ser reportes de experiencias, enfoques innovadores, tendencias y desafíos relacionados al tema.

Los artículos enviados deben estar acompañados de ilustraciones y estar redactados en inglés.
Los interesados tienen hasta el 25 de julio del 2007 para enviar el artículo final con imágenes a la Oficina Editora del MRD.

Mountain Partnership member, Mountain Research and Development (MRD) , the international journal that features key development-related research on mountains, is planning an issue on ‘Human Vulnerability and Health" (MRD Vol 27 No 4, November 2007).

The Journal is currently seeking contributions for the Development Section - the first 28 pages of the journal - which reports on experiences, innovative approaches, trends and challenges in this field. The articles accompanied by color illustrations address a broad audience of practitioners, researchers, and policy and decision-makers.

Thematic Focus

Mountain people are often considered very vulnerable to shocks and external stress, with subsequent impacts on their health. MRD would like to reflect on this assumption and present promising approaches, projects and policies aiming at reducing the vulnerability of mountain people and sustaining their health. To assess vulnerability, it is necessary to understand how people and their often fragile biophysical environment interact in mountain areas. MRD conceptualizes vulnerability as exposure to perturbations or external stress, sensitivity to perturbations, and the capacity to respond to these perturbations. Sensitivity is understood as the extent to which people or an ecosystem can absorb impacts without suffering long-term harm. The capacity to respond is the ability to adjust to a disturbance, to prevent or reduce the risk of potential damage, and to cope with the consequences of changes. Measures aiming at reducing mountain people"s vulnerability may focus either on exposure, sensitivity or the capacity to respond, or to a combination of these aspects.

The MRD Editorial Team has identified various topics as potentially interesting for its readership. This is not a comprehensive list, of course, and suggestions for further topics are welcome. The main focus of papers should be on innovative development approaches, significant project experiences, novel policy efforts, etc.

• Food security and human vulnerability


• Response to hazards


• Climate change and impact on health: how to enhance the adaptive capacities of mountain people


• Conflicts and human vulnerability


• Enhance the adaptive capacity of  marginalized groups (minorities, age and gender)


• Innovative health services in remote areas

Format

Papers must be submitted in English and written in an engaging non-technical style, illustrated by attractive color photos and other forms of illustration. Papers in the Development Section of MRD are reviewed by the Editorial Team and not sent for external peer-review. Length: 3-4 pages in print, i.e. 10,000 - 14,000 characters, including spaces.

Deadlines

If you are interested in submitting a paper for the Development Section on one of the above topics (or another, related topic), please send a notice of intent as soon as possible, and an abstract outlining your approach and the main statements by 11 June 2007, at the latest. The final version, together with all figures, must be submitted to the Editorial Office by 25 July 2007 .

Should you have questions or suggestions, please send them to the MRD Editorial Team, c/o susanne.wymann@cde.unibe.ch , who will be happy to provide additional information about this important theme for mountain development. For more information on the journal in general, please consult the Mountain Research and Development web site: www.mrd-journal.org .