Can peace in high altitude mountain areas be achieved by celebrating International Mountain Day by UN at the posh areas of capital of Islamabad at Margallah Conservation and Information Centre by organizing an art competition, a documentary show and a speech contest on peace?

This question needs to be address later or sooner. According to UN agency wars in mountain regions have increased in frequency in the last 50 years and violent conflicts are twice as likely to occur at high altitudes.

Poverty, isolation, lack of jobs and social inequalities that tend to be prevalent in remote mountain areas are among the reasons for the increase, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said in an e-mailed statement today to mark International Mountain Day. Mountain people are affected by conflict disproportionately to their numbers and the land they occupy,'' Michel Savini, FAO assistant director general, said in the statement.

Mountains cover 25 percent of the earth that is above water and are inhabited by 12 percent of the world's population. Mountain regions have been the scene of many of the most stubborn conflicts in recent decades, including conflicts in Chechnya, Kashmir, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Peru and Nepal, S. Frederick Starr, FAO said in the note.

The relationship between mountains and human conflict runs deep in the human history. History of mountain areas have seen many Hannibals crossing and climbing many Alps and killing thousands of innocent people by many Changaiz Khans.

As a student of history and political philosophy, I understand that mountains are natural barriers before plan and fertile areas start and conquerors in the quest of wealth and power eroded and smashed innocent face of mountainous societies in past. According to history of ethics, they were called barbarians. They were illiterate, uncivilized and ruthless creatures. Therefore we can say that mountainous areas world over have sensitive geo-political positioning and some how or other become victims of their geography and fall under the “great Games” of dominant and powerful.

Sociologists claims that human society has developed since then and norms, morels, laws, democracy, advent of technology, cyber revolution and many many more developments have transformed human society in a better place to live. Is it true? 

"Globally approximately 41 per cent of mountain land has fallen within the radius of a high intensity human conflict between 1946 and 2002, compared with 26 per cent of non-mountain land," said Adrian Newton, co-author of Mountain Watch. Africa, Mountain Watch claims, has witnessed the highest level of warfare with 67 per cent of its mountainous territories affected by conflict.

With mountains covering one quarter of the earth's land surface and home to 12 per cent of the world's population, the report shows mountain people are affected by armed conflict out of all proportion to their numbers and the land they occupy.

The last decade has seen an escalation of fighting in mountain areas as bloody conflict has erupted in places as diverse as Nepal, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Peru, Rwanda, Chechnya and Kashmir. Yet, while the characteristics of the fighting might remain specific to each area, the suffering of mountain people are same. War, marginalization, lack of land utilization, brain drains and poverty----all components are everywhere in conflict areas. "Until recently, few people were prepared to acknowledge the existence of a 'mountain problem' as such. Even today it's convenient to treat each instance of armed combat in mountain areas as unique," says Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

With experts talking of a globalised problem of mountain conflict, international recognition was finally achieved last year when the United Nations declared 2002 the International Year of Mountains.

After a series of conferences held around the world, the International Year of Mountains culminated in Bishkek, the capital of the Central Asian Republic of Kyrgyztan, with a Global Mountain Summit.

Flanked by the snow-capped peaks of the Kyrgyz Alatau mountains, delegates from 60 countries gathered at the four-day summit to discuss the issues facing mountain communities, including war, poverty, climate change and environmental degradation.

Poverty has long been a feature of life in high altitude communities, but the poverty that prevails in many mountain areas today is of a peculiarly modern sort. This new kind of poverty is not caused by scratching out a living from a harsh environment. It has its roots in a growing dependence on cities, often far away from the mountains.

"Mountain people are sending their brightest sons to get jobs in the cities in the hope that they will send money to their parents and those left behind. With many of their best and brightest members departing for jobs in the lowlands, mountain societies slip ever further behind," he said.

Starr says a feeling of estrangement from centres of population or capital cities is common in mountain communities where mountain resources like hydroelectricity are exploited, because the profits rarely return to the mountains.

"Caught between isolation and integration, but with enough access to modern communications to know they are being slighted, mountain people are resorting to desperate measures," he said.

Inevitably, poverty and isolation in the mountains provide fertile conditions for drug production, with rebel forces like the FARC in Colombia , which obtains more than 300 million dollars annually from drugs, taking advantage of the situation.

The involvement of international drugs cartels has a globalizing effect on conflict, as does the importation of foreign arms, the arrival of foreign fighters and the exploitation of the conflict by neighbouring states.

Afghanistan has seen a recent upsurge in heroin poppy cultivation, which is simply another sign that the country's troubles are far from over. "Afghanistan is overwhelmingly a mountain country and, unfortunately, perfectly fits the pattern for such regions.

Kashmir facing the conflict of “power and domination” since 1947 without any resolve and active support of international and so-called civilized world. Civilized world respect UN decisions and pour full armed force, diplomatic force and money for execution of UN resolutions where oil is present not in mountainous areas where conflicts are unattended since the last half a century.

Afghan wars since 1978 compelled millions of people to migrate and thousands of people to die without any blunder and sin.  Some time I feel that human beings are not much important for international donors and agencies than environments so I would like to add environmental impact of conflicts in Afghanistan. Satellite imagery reveals that conifer forests in the provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan have been reduced by over a half since 1978, concludes a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Post-Conflict Environment Assessment report.

Since 1979 up to 200 timber trucks a day, representing the loss of up to 200 hectares of forest, plied the main road in Kunar, according to local officials, probably two thirds of it destined for export markets in Pakistan.  Today local communities have lost control of their resources in these eastern provinces with warlords, 'timber barons' and foreign traders controlling illegal and highly lucrative logging operations.

The assessment also documented the loss of pistachio woodlands in the north; trees from which can produce 35-50 kg of nuts per year, providing significant revenue at US 1 kg. Almost no trees could be detected in Badghis and Takhar provinces in 2002 by satellite instruments, compared to 55 and 37 percent land cover respectively in 1977.

This appears to have been caused by the breakdown of a community forest warden scheme and stockpiling of fuelwood during uncertain political conditions. Later, according to interviews with residents, military forces cut trees to reduce hiding and ambush opportunities for opposing forces.

Goats and sheep are preventing regeneration of many forest areas. As well as controlling grazing one of the proposals being considered by the Afghanistan Transitional Authority is the creation of an "Afghan Conservation Corps", utilizing ex-combatants for reforestation efforts.

In the Amu Darya River, the assessment team found several hundred families had colonised previously unoccupied tugai forest islands - a unique ecosystem and refuge for species such as the Eurasian otter, wild boar, endangered Bactrian deer, waterbirds and birds of prey - to escape conflict. Prior to the Taliban period, local residents widely respected the island reserve status but the new colonists have been clearing and hunting the area, which covers a 100 km stretch of the river near the border with Tajikistan.

Two decades of warfare in Afghanistan have degraded the environment to the extent it now presents a major stumbling block for the country reconstruction efforts.  The report, produced in close cooperation with the Afghanistan Transitional Authority, shows how conflict has put previous environmental management and conservation strategies on hold, brought about a collapse of local and national governance, destroyed infrastructure, hindered agricultural activity and driven people into cities already lacking the most basic public amenities