NEW YORK, USA, February 11, 2002: War, pollution and logging are despoiling the world’s mountain ranges. The Alps, the Rockies and the Hindu Kush are most threatened, according to a UN study released today. Mountains are the “water towers of the world,” supplying water to more than half the world’s population, said the report by the Tokyo-based United Nations University. But 23 of the world’s 27 current conflicts, from Afghanistan to Chechnya and Kashmir, are being fought in mountainous areas and are destroying the environment. Non-violent activities are scarring mountain ecology as well. The United Nations has designated 2002 the International Year of Mountains with the goal of alleviating the crippling poverty among mountain people and spotlighting the importance of mountains as the source of rich plant and animal life and more than half the world’s fresh water.
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