FAO.org

Mountain Homestays is a Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE) initiative to improve the livelihoods of marginalized communities in remote corners of the Himalayas. Many of the communities GHE works with live in extreme poverty. Bringing in tourism can help generate income, preserve their art and culture and improve their quality of life. GHE has announced 20 trips to these villages in 2017. These trips focus on community development through renovation of village houses, preserving local heritage and art and livelihood improvement. [...]

The autonomous region of Valle d’Aosta, Italy, is organizing an Instagram photo contest in celebration of International Mountain Day. The theme of the contest will be “Living in the mountains of Valle d’Aosta”. Participants have through the end of December 2016 to submit images taken in the territory that show the relationship between the people who live there and the local mountains.

The Turkish Mountaineering Federation (TMF) will celebrate IMD on 11 December by cleaning up the environment and providing support for the protection of mountains and sustainable mountain climbing. TMF will also participate in seminar about the spiritual importance of Mount Ağrı in Eastern Turkey. Mount Ağrı has a spiritual meaning for most religions. Ersan Başar, President of TMF, will give the keynote presentation about how several individuals in the past century claimed to have located Noah’s Ark on Mount Ağrı. [...]

Students at the University of Padjadjaran, located by Mount Manglayang in Sumedang, West Java, Indonesia, are organizing a workshop in celebration of International Mountain Day on 11 December to support the local peoples of the Desa Genteng mountain village to improve their agribusinesses. The workshop “Promoting Entrepreneurship and Farm Financial Management for Sustainable Mountain Development” is the launch of a three-year programme to boost livelihoods in the community.

Events are being organized throughout the Altai Republic, Russia in celebration of IMD. The Gorno-Altaisk State University has launched a photo contest about cultural diversity in the Altai Mountains, which are home to ten indigenous peoples and over 50 nationalities. In the Kosh-Agach District, schools have organized a folk music and dance concert and an exhibition of traditional products and young local artists’ pictures. In Gorno-Altaisk on 12 December, there will be a round table on sustainable mountain development.

The Adaptation for Ecosystem Resilience in Africa (AFERIA) Project hosted an essay competition in honour of the 2016 IMD theme. To encourage youth to interact with older generations to gain insights and information about the benefits of ecosystem services from mountain ecosystems, the AFERIA Project invited high school students in the Jimma Highlands (Ethiopia), Taita Hills (Kenya) and Kilimanjaro area (Tanzania) to submit essays comparing the benefits of ecosystem services from mountains today and in the past.

The University of Central Asia (UCA), jointly with Mountain Partnership members in Kyrgyzstan, will lead an observance of International Mountain Day on 9 December at UCA in Bishkek. There will be a public lecture on the ancient nomadic calendar ‘Aisanak’, followed by the Climate Champions Award ceremony for the best traditional adaptation practices among mountain villages of the Central Asian Mountain Communities Alliance. The event will feature a mountain products exhibition, led by the Public Foundation ‘Agency for Development Initiatives’. [...]

The Public Foundation ‘Yrystan’ will lead a celebration of International Mountain Day on 10 December in the Botanical Gardens of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. During the event, they will present their publication on the guidelines for a distance-learning course on sustainable mountain development. The course has been recommended by the Ministry of Education of the Kyrgyz Republic as an extra-curricular programme. Among invitees are Mountain Partnership members, schoolteachers and schoolchildren.

artsPlace Canmore, Banff Mountain Film Festival and Crowfoot Media announce an event combing storytelling and video to showcase the Rocky Mountains in celebration of International Mountain Day in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. The event “Life @ Altitude” will feature the Heart Waters story from father and son team Kevin and Brian Van Tighem, an interview with long-distance hiker Leslie Gerein, and a viewing of the short films Land of Emperors, Shift, At What Price and Thyself.

The University of Perugia will hold the meeting "International Mountain Day: the eco-museums of the Apennines, a resource for the rebirth of our mountains” on 2 December at 9.00-13.00 in Perugia, Italy. The recent earthquakes that severely affected the regions of Lazio, Marche and Umbria have given cause to devote more attention to mountain territories, specifically their natural, historic and artistic bounty. There will be live streaming of the meeting on YouTube.