Mountains cover more than a quarter of the Earths land surface. They carry deep spiritual significance, regulate weather and the water cycle, provide home to plants and animals, and, critically, hold about 70 percent of the worlds freshwater in their glaciers.
To highlight why mountains and glaciers need stronger protection, this years International Mountain Day on 11 December aligns with 2025s International Year of Glaciers Preservation to spotlight montane glaciers and the vital water they provide to more than 2 billion people, in addition to supporting agriculture, energy, biodiversity and more.
Ahead of Mountain Day, UNEPs Patron of the Oceans and endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh climbed Mount Kenya, which holds one of the last three glacier sites in Africa and is expected to lose all of its ice within the next five years. Pugh also met communities at the mountains foothills to learn how the vanishing glaciers are reshaping their lives, livelihoods and cultural identities.
The shrinking glaciers of Mount Kenya are a clarion call to cut the drivers of glacier loss, to help communities adapt, and to mobilize greater finance for glacier-dependent regions across the globe.
two million peoplein Kenya and Tanzania depend on water from Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya (pictured above), which, together with the Rwenzori Mountains, hold the last glaciers in Africa. The glaciers on Mount Kenya are almost all gone, having lost more than half their area since 2016 alone. Standing on the frontlines of climate change, Mount Kenya is poised to lose these ancient ice caps which have crowned the mountain since the last ice age by 2030.">
Mountains ADAPT Small Grants programme to diversify their crops with corn, spinach, aloe vera, dragon fruits and sukuma a hearty leafy green in order to make their food production more resilient and attuned to drier landscapes. ">
Yiaku Laikipiak Trust, which distributed the Mountains ADAPT small grant to the Naibor community. The pastoralists have to take their cows and livestock through the town up the mountain to find water because the rivers here, they have dried.">
peatlands wetlands formed from decomposed plant material that are some of the worlds richest carbon sinks, found on every continent. In mountain ecosystems, peatlands also play a key role in the hydrological cycle. They act like sponges, storing water and slowly releasing it, while filtering, purifying, and regulating river flows from water that comes down from the glaciers. ">
All photo credit by Duncan Moore / UNEP.
This expedition was made possible by theAdaptation at Altitude:Taking Actionin the Mountainsprogramme, and theGlobal Environment Facility, through its support to theLewis Pugh Foundation.
International Mountain Day, celebrated since 2003 through the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, creates awareness about the importance of mountains to life, highlights the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and builds alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.
