"The world's mountains do not lend themselves to a simple definition," states the United Nations' concept paper introducing the idea of the International Year of the Mountains. Perhaps this goes some way to explain how one speaker at the recently concluded Pitlochry IYM conference claimed 75% of Scotland was covered in mountains, while another confidently asserted it was only 25%.

Still, what's a mere 50% difference when you're among friends? Because that's definitely what attending the recent Pitlochry conference - Nature and People, conservation & management in the mountains of northern Europe - felt like. The vast majority of delegates were members of public conservation agencies, such as the conference sponsor Scottish Natural Heritage, and more or less all sang from the same hymn sheet - which was the importance of 'sustainable development' in the hills.

>> International Year of the Mountains aims to highlight issues around the world

Unfortunately, like the definition of a mountain, it seemed no one could quite define exactly what 'sustainable development' meant either. But, like Motherhood and Apple Pie, everyone seemed to agree it was a jolly good thing. Vagueness, it has to be said, was a key component of many of the presentations. Indeed, there seemed to be no obvious theme or focus for this gathering save to form a talking shop for anything at all to do with mountains. Perhaps Professor Des Thompson, the principal upland adviser with SNH came closest to defining its purpose by suggesting it was an opportunity for "banging heads together", among scientists, conservationists, politicians - and the inhabitants of our upland areas themselves.

And goodness knows, awareness of mountains certainly still needs raising amongst decision-makers. Although the International Year of the Mountains was officially supported by 130 countries in the United Nations (including, interestingly, The Netherlands), the UK wasn't one of them. And the fact that until this year, the only other European country apart from Scotland without a national park was Albania perhaps tells us a lot about the complacent attitude we've held towards what is arguably the defining feature of Scotland's natural heritage; namely our mountains.

It was thus rather unfortunate that Allan Wilson, the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development, who was billed to open the whole shebang, failed to turn up. It had been expected that he would set the ball rolling with the announcement that the process of designating a Cairngorms National Park had just been tabled in the Scottish Parliament. The fact that it actually hadn't, plus all the controversy over the park's delineation, might just possibly have had something to do with the minister's no-show.

Buzz-phrases and blether

If sustainable development was a mantra chanted by most of the land managers and policy advisers who spoke, at least it was comfortingly familiar and everyone thought they knew what it meant. By way of contrast some of the buzz phrases spouted by MBA-influenced (Master of Business Administration) speakers were baffling. For example, Stephen Edwards of Switzerland's World Conservation Union explained how mountains provided "Cultural Services" to people (not to mention "Provisioning Services", "Regulatory Services" and "Supporting Services").

>> Mountains are crucial

It's possible he was trying to say that many people found mountain landscapes spiritually uplifting, as well as fun to go and play in, but perhaps felt that in these hard-nosed days of a global market economy it sounded too fluffy. This affliction marred several of the presentations dealing with formulating conservation policy for mountainous areas - or it may simply have been a method of disguising the fact that the speakers were all saying the same thing over and over again - namely that 'sustainable development' was essential. Whatever it was.