Already 15 year ago the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) highlighted that mountains are an important source of water, energy and biological diversity. As a major ecosystem representing the complex and interrelated ecology of our planet, mountain environments are essential to the survival of the global ecosystem.

The COST Strategic Workshop on ‘Global Change and Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions' scheduled to be held on 7 - 9 April 2008 in Innsbruck (Austria) will identify the implications and challenges of climate and socioeconomic change for the future development of mountain regions. Thus global warming, land use change, biodiversity and carbon sequestration, water, tourism, natural disasters and primary production are identified as key questions for the future and dealt in keynotes and working groups.

The objective of the Strategic Workshop is to provide rationales and guidelines for mountain research agendas and funding agencies. Target groups therefore are researchers, project managers, sponsoring agencies, politicians and practitioners.

As former strategic workshops organised by COST have proved, the conference may have a direct and effective impact on European research strategies and funding policies. The participation of many and the most prominent actors in mountain research and policies are important for the impact of this conference. The participants may be sure to have been included in this dynamics from the very beginning on.

The following topics are treated as cross-cutting issues and will be discussed in detail:

• Multifunctional land use in a global change context
• Challenges for sustainable tourism
• Demand and evaluation of ecosystem services
• Water: strategic resource, public good, ecosystem
• Sustainable transport
• Scenarios of global change

Detailed information on the workshop is available under http://bfw.ac.at/mountain/ or by contacting the local organisers Dr. Robert Jandl (Austrian Federal Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape (BFW), Email: robert.jandl@bfw.gv.at) or Prof. Axel Borsdorf (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Email: oeaw-borsdorf@uibk.ac.at).