International Mountain Day is celebrated on December 11 to raise awareness of the need to conserve mountains and their biodiversity. The day offers us a chance to spread awareness about protecting the mountain biodiversity as these fragile ecosystems are under colossal pressure from environmental change, overexploitation, and pollution.
Mountains are probably the most interesting landscapes in the world. Snow-capped peaks of the grand Himalayas or other mountain ranges have pulled in climbers from over the world for years. On International Mountain Day, all-mountain and nature lovers engage to examine and follow up on the best way to best conserve the delicate mountain climate – it’s flora and fauna. International Mountain Day is recognized every year on December 11. It is a UN assigned day to celebrate the rich biodiversity, as well as address the risks mountains face.
Inferable from the expanding footfalls of tourists, and expanding population, construction activities have expanded. More hotels, resorts, and homes are coming up in the mountainous territories. Aside from this, environmental change has negatively affected the mountains.
Rising temperature represents an intense challenge to mountain individuals, a portion of the world’s poorest, as they face considerably more prominent battles to survive. Besides, terrible farming works on, logging, commercial mining, and poaching are affecting mountain biodiversity.
Mountain glaciers are melting at phenomenal rates and they give it freshwater supplies downstream to a great many individuals. Hence, the issue influences us all.
International Mountain Day 2020 theme
The theme of the International Mountain Day 2020 is Mountain Biodiversity, so we should celebrate their rich biodiversity, as well as address the hazards they face.
International Mountain Day 2020 theme: Mountain Biodiversity features the need to address the dangers of mountain biodiversity face. The world’s most awesome landscapes are confronting risks all around. Environmental change and global warming, bad farming practices, logging, commercial mining, and poaching are negatively affecting mountain biodiversity. Plastic pollution is additionally undermining the delicate climate.
The United Nations has asked nations across the world to deal with mountains and their biodiversity. It perceives sustainable management of mountain biodiversity as a global priority.
Sustainable Development Goal 15, target four, discusses the preservation of mountains’ biodiversity regarding its global relevance.
Celebrate this International Mountain Day 2020 with your community and companions organizing an event or joining the discussion via social media using the hashtag #MountainsMatter. Pass on a few of the key messages, or share about the biodiversity in the mountains close to you, or a photograph of your #1 mountain.
Read More: International Mountain Day 2019: History, Significance, Theme of Mountain Day
40 Amazing Facts about Mountain
- The world’s tallest mountain ranges form when bits of Earth’s crust—called plates—smash against one another in a process called plate tectonics, and buckle up like the hood of a car in a head-on collision.
- Mountains make-up around one-fifth of the world’s landscape, and give homes to at least one-tenth of the world’s people.
- Heights of mountains are commonly given as heights above sea level.
- There are three types of mountains:
- Mountains of accumulation, formed by volcanic eruptions
- Folded mountains, formed by the conflicting of the earth’s tectonic plates
- Mountains of erosion, formed by outrageous climate
- The world’s highest peak on land is Mount Everest in the Himalayas. It is 8,850.1728 m (29,036 ft) tall.
- Mount Everest has the “highest elevation above the sea level,” which is the reason it is known as the highest point on Earth. The mountain’s epic height was first recognized in 1856 by a team accompanied by a British surveyor – Sir George Everest. The official height of Everest is determined to be 8,848 meters (29,028 feet).
- K-2 is the world’s second-highest mountain in the world, situated on the China-Pakistan border. It was named “the Savage Mountain” after George Bell (an American explorer) ascended the mountain in 1953 and stated, “It’s a savage mountain that tries to kill you.” Of all the highest mountains in the world, K-2 is for sure the deadliest.
- The name holds the Guinness World Record and comprises 85 characters. The name of this mountain is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu. When translated into English, the word signifies “the place where Tmatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as – landeater – played his nose flute to his loved one”.
- Ben Nevis is likewise the highest mountain in Great Britain.
- The tallest known mountain in the solar system is Olympus Mons, situated on Mars.
- Mountains often serve as geographic highlights that characterize the natural borders of nations.
- Mountains happen more frequently in oceans than on land; a few islands are the peaks of mountains emerging from the water.
- Around 80% of our planet’s freshwater starts in the mountains.
- All mountain ecosystems share one significant trademark for all intents and purposes – quick changes in elevation, atmosphere, soil, and vegetation over short distances.
- Plants that might be found on mountains incorporate conifers, oak, chestnut, maple, junipers, stonecrops, campions, ferns, mosses, and climbers.
- Thirty of the world’s highest mountains are in the Himalayas. The highest 14 mountains in the world are completely found in the Himalayas.
- Around 300 individuals have died attempting to climb Everest over the previous century. Many bodies stay on the mountain, frozen strong.
- Mountains can be rough and barren. Some have trees growing on their sides and very high mountains have snow on their peaks.
- In some mountainous zones, the rivers are forever frozen. These are called icy glaciers.
- The Himalayas are a mountain range that started forming when bits of the earth’s crust ran into one another 55 million years prior.
- The Himalaya in Asia formed from one such enormous wreck that began around 55 million years prior.
- Before the presence of gadgets, for example, GPS or altimeters, geographers measured mountains using a strategy called triangulation, which included measuring the mountain top from a wide range of perception points.
- The summit of Mount Everest, at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters), is the highest point on Earth.
- In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, mountains are often represented as holy places where God uncovers himself to individuals.
- The tallest mountain measured from top to bottom is Mauna Kea, an inactive volcano on the island of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
- On a list of the ten tallest mountains in the solar system, five are found on the surface of Mars.
- The tallest mountain in the solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars—an incredible 15.5 miles tall. For correlation, Everest is generally 5.5 miles tall.
- Estimated from the base, Mauna Kea stands 33,474 feet (10,203 meters) tall, however it just ascents 13,796 feet (4,205 meters) above the sea.
- Some of the highest mountains are at the bottom of the ocean. Hawaii is at the highest point of a volcanic mountain in the Pacific Ocean. The greater part of the mountain is below water.
- The largest range of mountains is in the Atlantic Ocean.
- May is the ideal month for endeavoring to climb Mount Everest. This small window of time falls between winter and the summer monsoons.
- As per the book of Genesis, Noah’s ark, at last, stopped when it arrived upon the slopes of Mount Ararat, situated in a mountainous region that covers modern-day Turkey and Iran.
- Mountain ranges are long chains or groups of mountains. Ranges are normally at least 1,000 miles in length. The Rocky Mountains and the Himalayan Mountains are examples of mountain ranges.
- Otherwise called the Rocky Mountain goat, this mammal is indigenous to North America. Mountain goats have cloven hooves and toes that empower them to cover wide steps. Also, the bottom of each toe has a hard pad that gives them a strong grip. It is believed that mountain goats can ascend mountains better than even the most skilled human mountaineers.
- A group of mountain ranges is known as a mountain system. For instance, the mountain systems of the United States incorporate the Rockies and the Appalachians.
- There are colossal mountains underwater. The most popular undersea mountain is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge while the highest ocean mountain is Mount Vema in the South Atlantic Ocean.
- The greater part of the world’s freshwater starts in mountains, and all the world’s significant rivers are taken care of from mountain sources.
- Mount Kailash in Tibet has been considered so holy by Tibetans for a great many years that nobody has ever been permitted to climb to its summit. Admirers visit and circle the mountain’s base.
- The Islamic prophet Mohammad claimed he got a large number of the disclosures that make up the Quran while in a cave on the slopes of the mountain Jabal al-Nour, close to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
- A few mountains get somewhat higher every year, and some even get somewhat shorter. In time all mountains fade, worn away where the rocks are presented to the weather. New mountains are formed by the steady movements of the Earth’s crust.
