Prof. Dr. Fausto O. Sarmiento has been involved in major disciplinary and institutional change processes to promote sustainable development in mountain environments and in restructuring evaluation criteria used for landscape conservation in the Tropical Andes. He was Regional Editor for Latin America for the journal Mountain Research and Development, and is Editorial Board member of Pirineos, the Journal of Mountain Ecology, the Journal of Mountain Science, the Journal of High Andean Research and the Annals of the AAG. He serves in advisory boards of global mountain organizations and represented the International Human Dimension Program of Global Environmental Change to the Science Board of the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI). He was chair of the Mountain Geography Specialty Group (2002-3 and 2014-5) of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), is chair of the International Geographical Union's Commission on Mountain Studies (IGU), and former president of the Andean Mountains Association (AMA). Currently, he is deputy Vice Chair (Capacity Building) of the Mountain Biome of the World Commission of Protected Areas (WCPA), member of the Board of the Satoyama Initiative of the United Nations University (UNU), member of the board of the Earth Ethics Institute (EEI) and member of the Protected Landscapes Task Force in the World Conservation Union (IUCN).