International Mountain Day celebrated with theme of ‘Women move mountains’

Travel Biz News —

International Mountain Day 2022 , celebrated on December 11 , emphasized on sustainable mountain development around the world.

International Mountain Day aims to raise awareness about the importance of mountains to life and seeks to build alliances that bring positive change around the world.

FAO is the lead UN agency for mountains and for organizing the Day, which was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2002.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)marked International Mountain Day 2022 with a high-level event at its headquarters in Rome, a series of celebrations around the world and a new study that sheds light on the issue of gender equality in mountains.

The theme of this year’s edition is Women move mountains. In mountainous regions, more than 50 percent of women carry out agricultural activities. 

Yet, women face discrimination in some form or other in many walks of life, and mountain women are particularly at risk when men emigrate in search for work.

This means women are often the primary managers of mountain resources, as well as guardians of biodiversity, keepers of traditional knowledge, custodians of local culture and experts in traditional medicine. It also means that they face a number of additional constraints. On top of lacking access to credit, land ownership, markets, trainings and digital access, they are even more exposed to the negative impacts of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. Women in mountain regions can also be victims of gender-based discrimination in many sociocultural environments and work sectors traditionally dominated by men, according to a release issued by the FAO.

“It is time to value mountain women and strengthen our support, providing them with access to what they need, especially to science, innovation, digitalization and technology,”FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said in his opening remarks at the ceremony in Rome.

To mark this year’s edition of International Mountain Day, FAO has published a study highlighting the stories and voices of mountain women, with a focus on rural areas and mountain tourism. The publication was produced together with the Mountain Partnership Secretariat and the Feminist Hiking Collective, a member of the Mountain Partnership and the Mountain Women of the World network.

Entitled Mountain women of the world: Challenges, resilience and collective power, the study is based on in-depth interviews with 313 local mountain women in eight countries – Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Italy, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and Tanzania.

Photo : Women in Bolivia .Women are often the primary managers of mountain resources, as well as guardians of biodiversity, keepers of traditional knowledge, custodians of local culture and experts in traditional medicine. (Patricia Breuer Moreno / FAO )

12 December 2022