The story
The International Mountain Society grew out of multidisciplinary collaborations of participants in the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB), especially MAB Project 6 (study of the impact of human activities on mountain ecosystems). IMS and the new journal, MRD, were aided financially and intellectually by the UNU, Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hochgebirgsforschung, UNESCO, the Commission on High Altitude Geoecology of the International Geographical Union (IGU), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). The intellectual underpinnings included the Biosphere Reserve concept that was applied by UNESCO in promoting research, training, and genepool conservation in designated areas, as well as the UNU's approach to mountain research that emphasized the importance of highland-lowland interactive systems.
The specific impetus for the founding of the IMS stemmed from 1974 conference on the Development of Mountain Environment that was convened by the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) in Munich. Participants, including John Cool, Frank Davidson, Klaus Lampe, A.D.Moddie, Joseph Stein, B.B. Vohra, and Jack D. Ives, concluded that there was a need for an organization linking mountain researchers and institutions and also for a journal focused on mountain research. These points came up again in a 1976 workshop convened in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At the time of incorporation in Boulder, Colorado, the officers of IMF were:
President: Jack D. Ives, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Vice-President: Corneille Jest, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris, France
Vice-President: Heinz Loeffler, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Secretary: Roger G. Barry, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
Treasurer: Misha Plam, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
From Wikipedia’s article on International Mountain Society, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4