How can innovation contribute to sustainability in mountains? Articles in this issues of Mountain Research and Development offer a diverse array of insights: In Yunnan, China, walnut producers used their local agency to build resilience in response to booms and busts of the crop.
In mountain product value chains across Europe, ecological practices are often linked to social innovation and collaborative governance. In Valle d’Aosta, Italy, local views on the circular economy indicate that such a model is well suited for mountain areas, but the transition requires sociocultural change and targeted policies. And an analysis of debates on landscape and the energy transition in the Austrian, German, and Swiss Alps shows that spatial planning has a crucial role to play in governing the process. The issue was guest-edited by Jörg Balsiger, Anne B. Zimmermann, João Carlos Azevedo, and Dietrich Schmidt-Vogt. In the editorial, they offer a rich reflection on different framings of innovation and its role in sustainable mountain development.
The volume is available online and open-access here.
Cover photo by Gusztáv Nemes.