Following his retirement as Director General of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, Nepal, Dr. David Molden handed over his role as Editor-in-Chief of MRD to his successor, Dr. Pema Gyamtsho, as of August 2021. At the same time, the team of editors-in-chief was joined by Prof. Yanfen Wang, Executive Vice President of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) in Beijing, China. Prof. Thomas Breu, Director of the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Switzerland and Editor-in-Chief since 2017, warmly welcomes Pema Gyamtsho and Yanfen Wang to the team. The three look forward to jointly promoting MRD’s long-term vision and defining the journal’s strategic orientation, under the overall guidance of the International Mountain Society.
MRD’s editorial team is deeply grateful to David Molden for his invaluable contributions to the journal over the past 9 years. His strategic foresight, extensive mountain knowledge, diplomatic savvy, and expert thematic inputs were essential to MRD’s development. Under his co-leadership, we published 3 special issues, 13 focus issues, and 21 open issues, containing 328 peer-reviewed articles that have increased global knowledge about the diverse realities, dynamic processes, and manifold opportunities and challenges in mountain regions. We wish David Molden all the very best for his retirement.
With Pema Gyamtsho and Yanfen Wang, two renowned experts in sustainable mountain development have joined our team. Pema Gyamtsho has a background in agricultural science, with a focus on sustainable management of high-elevation grasslands in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. He has extensive experience in planning, policymaking and legislation, drawing on nearly 15 years of involvement in Bhutan’s national politics, including as Minister of Agriculture and Forest from 2008 to 2013. Yanfen Wang is a prominent ecologist and similarly specializes in sustainable development of grasslands under climate change. Her roles as Vice Chair of China’s Ecological Society and Society of Natural Resources and particularly as Executive Vice President of UCAS has afforded her far-reaching experience in science policy and administration. We are very pleased about this expansion of our team of editors-in-chief, which will undoubtedly further strengthen MRD’s mission to bridge science, policy, and practice.
