2nd International Conference on Mountain Environment and Development (ICMED) was successfully held by the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, CAS (IMHE) in Chengdu from 16th to 18th October 2012. More than 80 participants from 11 countries and regions attended this conference. This conference was hosted by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), State Forestry Administration, China (SFAC), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and International Geographical Union (IGU), assisted by Bureau of Science and Technology for Resources and the Environment, Bureau of International Cooperation of Chinese Academy of Sciences、 Geographical Society of China (GSC), Mountain Branch of The China Society of Natural Resources(CSNR）and the Geographical Society of Sichuan (GSS).

2nd International Conference on Mountain Environment and Development (picture by IMHE)

On behalf of ICMED Conference Organization and Academic Committee, Prof. Deng Wei, Director of IMHE, and Prof. Gregory.B.Greenwood, Executive President of Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), gave welcome addresses respectively. Deng Wei indicated that in his speech: As the main location of forest ecosystems, mountains provide an important natural resource for the subsistence and the development of humanity. Meanwhile, mountain environments accumulate various kinds of mineral resources, water resources, natural heritage and scenery and so on, which provide a basis for varied industrial development. It is inevitable that the development of human society will come to depend more and more on mountain environments. Mountains are the basic resource for the survival of the human race, and the base for the sustainable development of society as well. The symposium has a triple purpose: 1) to follow the public appeals of the last thematic symposium and maintain its vitality; 2) to focus and enhance mountain research in terms of human future, and to provide scientific basis for rational utilization of mountain resource and mountain ecology protection; 3) to solve the problems of mountain livelihood adaption and sustainable development, and provide more scientific services for poverty alleviation in mountain region.

Participants from USA, Swiss, Russia, Poland, UK, India, Peru, Cuba, Hungary and China etc, carried on academic exchanges about the latest research achievements in the fields of mountain ecology, climate change, natural resources, natural disasters, sustainable development and poverty alleviation and so on, and discussed the problems in the mountain environment conservation and development under climate change.

The conference reviewed and consolidated the concept and leading thought of the first conference 10 years ago, strengthened and expanded the mountain research academic influence of our country, domestic and foreign scholars formed some consensus and achieved expected purposes.

After the conference, some participants went to Dujiangyan city and Yingxiu town to visit the Dujiangyan irrigation project and recovery reconstruction, hazards prevention and mitigation and ecological restoration in the earthquake-stricken area.