Mountains Under Pressure

Mountains in Canada are subject to an array of direct and indirect pressures from human activity and environmental change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) biodiversity assessment discusses these pressures as ‘drivers of change’, and these drivers are broadly relevant to mountain systems and peoples (Díaz et al., 2019). Pressures such as climate change, land-use development, and the increasing demand for tourism and recreation are tied to the “great acceleration” of increasing human population and activity since 1950 (Steffen et al., 2015). Each pressure drives biophysical, socio-political, cultural, and ecological responses, with effects that vary from region