Life in the Mountains: Environmental and Cultural Diversity – Diversity of Development Models
UCA has released Dr. Yuri Badenkov’s seminal work Life in the Mountains: Environmental and Cultural Diversity – Diversity of Development Models as an e-book. The printed edition of the book was published in Moscow in 2017 as a co-publication of the Russian Geographical Society, the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geography, and the University of Central Asia.
The book is the product of decades of research on mountain communities in multiple geographies – the European Alps, Karakorum, Himalaya, Andes, the mountains of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Altai, East Africa, and the Northern Appalachians. A wide range of topics is covered to present a comprehensive discussion of the ethnocultural, environmental and socio-economic predicaments of various mountain communities and their search for sustainable development models. The last chapter deals with UCA as a case study of the role of education in mountain development.
Dr. Badenkov, a geologist and geographer, is a leading international scholar in mountain studies. Dr. Badenkov was a member of the panel of experts of the Commission on the Establishment of an International Institute of Higher Education, whose 1998 report conceptualized UCA as a regional university serving the needs of the vast mountain areas. He founded and led the Mountain Group supported by UNESCO at the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences. He was also a member of the group of experts who presented a mountain agenda for the Global UN ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. He is an active member of the Russian Geographical Society.
