With the ecological acceleration and the indigenous revival trend of the present, the need for critical views of the reality of mountain systems has become evident in academic circles, such as the Commission of Mountain Studies of the International Geographical Union, the Mountain Research Initiative and FAO Mountain Partnership.
Fausto Sarmiento, professor of geography in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Neotropical Montology Collaboratory, with this new book, “Montology Palimpsest: A Primer of Mountain Geographies.” (Submitted photo)
“Montology Palimpsest: A Primer of Mountain Geographies” is a transdisciplinary approach to provide unbiased, decolonial scholarship about mountainscapes as socioecological systems with contributions of chapters covering mountain themes around the world. Fausto Sarmiento, professor of geography in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Neotropical Montology Collaboratory, headed a consilient global discussion to incorporate notions of this new montological perspective to understand epistemes of mountain ecology and their priorities for the conservation of biocultural diversity and identity markers of mountain heritagescapes.
The realization of montology as the convergent mountain science prompts the incorporation of other knowledges to complement Western science and haptic methods to better comprehend the intricate linkages of nature and culture present in mountain environments, where manufactured landscapes are evident with the signs of ancient ecological legacies.