Mountain Voices

“Mountain people are among the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged. Living far from the centres of commerce and power, they have little influence over the policies and decisions that influence their lives and contribute to the deterioration of their mountain homelands. With the exception of a few regions, such as the European Alps where mountain communities are politically represented in national governments, the voices of mountain people generally go unheard. As a result, many mountain people live on the economic fringe as subsistence farmers and herders, traders and day labourers, with no authority over those who exploit their mountain homes.”

Purpose

The passage above is taken from a site linked to my favorite web site on mountain peoples, Mountain Partnership — a voluntary alliance of partners dedicated to improving the lives of mountain people and protecting mountain environments around the world, launched at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002. Dig deeply into this site; you will find plenty of useful information. Eventually you should find a link to Mountain Voices (here it is in case you couldn’t find it). The purpose of this Discussion Assignment is to engage you in this page, to give you an opportunity to learn about the mountain peoples of one country, and to share that information with your group members.

Your Task

Please do the following:

1. Spend time digging into the Mountain Voices Website; be familiar with the material thereon, including the testimonies at the bottom of each country page. Pick one of the countries to focus on.
2. For your chosen country, read the webpage thoroughly, including as many of the testimonies as you have time for.
3. In an informal essay of no less than 350 words (and, please, no more than 500 words), summarize what you learned – comment and reflect. In other words, good content and some personal reflections on what you learned.