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Thus mountains reminds us of the governance challenges tied to the coupled human-earth system , a concept at the heart of the ESSP. While the introduction of the coupled human-earth system of a planetary scale into public discourse is a major accomplishment of the ESSP members, and essential to any global scale mitigation effort, adaptation to global change remains fundamentally a local or regional activity, authorized and supported by policy action at the national and international levels. The overlay of different institutions and the interaction of different interests governs the fate of mountains regions and cultures, and is thus the starting point for adaptation to global change. While this situation is not unique to mountain regions, it epitomizes the tensions between urban and peripheral regions, between the particularities of place and identity and the generalities of global scale interactions that will characterize our species search for sustainability in the 21st century.