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Dr. Martin Price

Biography

Professor Martin Price is Director of the Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands, where he holds the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Mountain Development. His work has focused on three main themes: mountains, biosphere reserves, and global environmental/climate change. The sustainable development of mountain areas has been a major theme since his MSc in Canada and his PhD in the USA. In Scotland, he led a major study on ‘sustainable estates’, with outcomes that continue to influence policy and practice, and was a Board member of the Cairngorms National Park Authority. At the European scale, he led three continent-wide studies of mountains for various European institutions and has played key roles in Euromontana. Globally, he was closely involved in the formulation and implementation of Chapter 13 – “Protecting Fragile Ecosystems: Sustainable Mountain Development”; – of Agenda 21, endorsed by the Rio Earth Summit in 1992; the International Year of Mountains, 2002; and the Mountain Partnership. He has acted as a consultant on mountain issues to many international organisations. He has played key roles in UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme at national and global levels, most recently coordinating the development of the Programme’s 2015-25 Strategy and Action Plan while rapporteur of its International Coordinating Council. He has also published on the development of the concept of biosphere reserves, which provides many opportunities for finding synergies between conservation and other aspects of sustainable development.

Currently, he leads a three-year project funded by the EU’s Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme, ‘Sustainable Heritage Areas: Partnerships for Ecotourism’ (SHAPE), which involves the two Scottish biosphere reserves and others in Finland and Norway, as well as sites in Iceland and Greenland. His work on the human dimensions of global environmental/climate change began while he was a postdoc at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, where he became the first secretary of the International Human Dimensions Programme. He worked on emissions of greenhouse gases in Africa and, writing about the impacts of climate change in mountain areas, was a Principal Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice-president Al Gore. Ensuring that scientific knowledge is widely understood and used has long been a major concern. He has written and edited 14 books – most recently, ‘Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions’ (University of California Press, 2013) – and nearly 200 reports, papers, book chapters, and articles; and has been Book Review Editor of the preeminent mountain science journal ‘Mountain Research and Development’ since 1994. In 2012, the King Albert I Memorial Foundation awarded him the King Albert Mountain Award: the citation states that “Martin Price, with his exceptional knowledge and his editorial competence, has played a vital role for the mountains of the world”. In 2018, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his contributions to public engagement and understanding.

Contact

Director
Centre for Mountain Studies / Centre d’études de montagne
Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands

EmailMartin.Price.perth@uhi.ac.uk

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