In the first place these three-dimensional structures are dynamic earth features, manifesting powerful processes of uplift, erosion, volcanism, earthquakes, landslides, torrents and rockfalls due to tectonic and topographic processes. These processes, and the climate which is both variable and extreme, mean a slow recovery from disturbance to the soils, vegetation or fauna. This gives fragility to mountain ecosystems. Mountains are relatively remote from centers of population, wealth and political power. This compounds their economic and political marginality.
Access is poorer, law enforcement is less.
Related somewhat to the above is the situation where the mountains are zones of tension or conflict. One thinks here in part about illegal crops, moonshiners, bandits, guerrillas that have often characterized these wilder landscapes. Mountain ranges are often frontiers between states or nations and as such have been and are today often the scene of international tension or even warfare. This leaves a residual population in many mountain regions of older people and of course women, who do much of the land management. There is a special challenge in development scenarios addressing women's key roles.