Mountain Voices
“Mountain people are amongthe world’s poorest and most disadvantaged. Living far from the centresof commerce and power, they have little influence over the policies anddecisions that influence their lives and contribute to thedeterioration of their mountain homelands. With the exception of a fewregions, such as the European Alps where mountain communities arepolitically represented in national governments, the voices of mountainpeople generally go unheard. As a result, many mountain people live onthe economic fringe as subsistence farmers and herders, traders and daylabourers, with no authority over those who exploit their mountainhomes.”
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 ofmountain people and protecting mountain environments around the world,launched at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002. Digdeeply 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 thisDiscussion Assignment is to engage you in this page, to give you anopportunity to learn about the mountain peoples of one country, and toshare that information with your group members.
Your Task
Please do the following:
Spend timedigging into the Mountain VoicesWebsite; be familiar with the materialthereon, including the testimonies at the bottom of each country page.Pick one of the countries to focus on. For your chosen country, read the webpage thoroughly, including as many of the testimonies as you have time for.In an informal essay of no less than 350 words (and, please, no more than500 words), summarize what you learned – comment and reflect. In otherwords, good content and some personal reflections on what you learned.