Poverty with a View

Life in the World's Mountainous Regions:

Shiprock stands as a solitary sentry over the desert of the Four Corners area. To the Navajo Tse Bi dahi, or "the rock with wings", is a sacred place. This rock was once a great bird that carried the ancestors of the Navajo to safety in Northwest New Mexico when fleeing a warring tribe.

Adventure athletes express reverie for mountains of rock and ice in their own way. The Alps were climbed in the 1800's and Everest's summit was first reached in 1953. Sir George Everest, a British surveyor-general of India, had his name bestowed upon the world's tallest mountain in 1865. Tibetans call the mountain Chomolungma, mother goddess of the universe. When early adventurers first began exploring the slopes of the Himalayan giant, local people were mystified and a little frightened. Locals were amazed that anyone would want to visit the top of the mountain and scared of the possible consequences that could ensue when one offended the mountain gods.

A close friend who pioneered a climbing route on the Ship Rock monolith had to obtain tribal permission to climb there. Sacred sites are not always respected however. Devil's Tower in Wyoming continues to be one sacred site where a few rock climbers persist in climbing during tribal holy days in spite of repeated requests to curtail such activities at those times.

Natural Resources:
The mountainous regions of the world are repositories of natural resources that we depend upon. Forests are harvested for lumber and mountainsides are excavated for minerals. Freshwater is born from snow and glacier melt in the high peaks and nourishes plants and animals, including people, throughout its journey to the ocean. The headwaters of the Colorado River, one of the most important rivers in the Western US, are high in the alpine tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park.

The protection of mountains and natural resources such as plants, water sources and wild life has become a pressing issue that people need to be aware of. Mountain soil and vegetation are easily, and sometimes permanently, lost to erosion when natural resources are exploited in an unsustainable manner.

The degradation of mountain ecosystems directly affects nearly half the world's population, including both highland and lowland communities. According to the International Year of the Mountain, an initiative started by UNESCO, "degradation of mountain environments poses a serious threat to the world's biodiversity and food security. Specially adapted to a wide range of altitudes and climates, mountain ecosystems have produced a wealth of plant and animal species..."

Mountain People In an area so rich with natural resources you would think that there would be plenty to eat. Sadly, the opposite is true; many of the 800 million chronically undernourished people in the world live in mountainous areas. While rivers flow freely, mountainous areas are defined by their inaccessibility. Urban areas are typically far away. Roads when they exist at all are often impassable for much of the year due to weather, rockslides, avalanche and flooding.

In Peru, one small single-track dirt road leads to the village of Tinqui, the traditional starting point for the trek to Nevado Ausangate. Ausangate is considered sacred by the people of the high Andes and in another sense became sacred to climbers and trekkers following its first ascent in 1953 by a German team that included Heinrich Harrer, author of Seven Years in Tibet and member of the climbing party that summated the infamous north face in 1938. When I was last in Peru the price of gas was approaching $12 a gallon. Bringing tools, food and other supplies to this tiny mountain hamlet is a difficult and expensive undertaking

Langtang, Nepal is a three day trek from the nearest road. The nearest road is a 12 hour drive from Kathmandu over a bone jarring 4wd road. Were it not for the fact that Lantang is still a fairly popular trekking destination, very little in the way of building materials, food, fuel or other supplies would ever arrive there. As it is, all supplies to Langtang and several smaller villages in the area are transported by human porters whom often carry loads equal to, or greater than, their body weight for wages of less than one dollar per day.

The Tamang villages that lie a few miles west of the terminus of the Langtang approach road produce beautiful woven goods and unique, traditional hats and jackets. Rarely are these items found in the souvenir shops located throughout the Thamel area of Kathmandu. Goods produced for trade cannot make it out of the community, hence the community has no economy. It is also difficult to make it up to the villages. The inaccessibility of mountain communities leaves many needs unmet. Education and health care are rare. Poverty and malnutrition are the norm.

It certainly is not the case the people of our mountainous regions thrive in their simple and idyllic lives. It may appear this way to the casual visitor but the reality is a life in the mountains is a hard life. Crops and livestock are much harder to grow leaving empty plates or severely limited dietary options. Infant mortality rates are higher in most mountainous regions as well, owing to the inaccessibility and resultant lack of medical staff or facilities.

The people living at the top of the world in Nepal, Tibet, Peru, Africa and much of Central Asia, to name a few are keenly aware that their lives are not the same as others they have met either on the nearby trail or in an annual foray to a nearby city. They value the same things as people everywhere do: education, healthcare and the opportunity to provide a good life for their families. I have watched school age children in the high Andes walk many miles, in winter to attend school. Often as I walked the same path as they, I would be asked if I could spare a pencil or some paper as they needed it for their studies. I have witnessed this same dogged determination to become educated in the blistering heat of the labyrinth of Mexican canyons we refer to by a single name, Copper Canyon and the cold winter chill at the top of the world in Nepal.

The Mountain Fund works in the world's mountainous regions to alleviate poverty, lack of health care and worsening environmental problems. Mountain Fund member agencies protect porter's rights, operate health clinics, protect children, advance sustainable travel and do much more humanitarian work around the world. Learn more by visiting The Mountain Fund's website at www.mountainfund.org