From Local Projects in the Alps to Global Change Programmes in Mountain Areas: The Development of Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in the Last 25 Years

Alexander von Humboldt conducted his most innovative fieldwork on Chimborazo (6267m), in Ecuador's volcano valley in 1802, exactly 200 years before the International Year of Mountains in 2002. He did not restrict his studies to simple observations of different altitudinal belts; he also included climate, plant life, geology and cultivated crops, and he measured several physical parameters (see Box 2.1) in order to understand the relationship and interactions between different elements and between natural processes and human activities.