Hunger in Shangri-La: Causes and Consequences of Food Insecurity in the World’s Mountains

Jun 6, 2016 | Andrew Taber
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Over the past decade, the number of undernourished people around the world has declined by around 167 million, to just under 800 million people. However, this positive trend glosses over a stark reality: Food insecurity is increasing in the world’s mountains. This pattern has been under-recognized by development experts and governments, a dangerous oversight with far-reaching social and environmental repercussions.

While food security in the rest of the world has generally been improving, it’s been getting worse in the mountains. Putting this into context, the world’s mountains are home to about 13 percent of humanity and cover some 22 percent of Earth’s land area, yet in 2012 they contained nearly 40 percent of the world’s food-insecure people.

In addition to being home to millions of poor and hungry people – often hailing from marginalized ethnic minorities – mountains are frequently at the nexus of international borderlands and valuable natural resources. A high proportion of the world’s internal conflicts and wars are associated with mountainous regions.