Accomplishments
West Virginia Stream Samplers - This is a watershed assessment and stream sampling training, education and communitry service program. More than 30 teachers and 1100 students have been trained since 2005.
Community Watershed Co - Management for a Safe Water Supply - This project ensures clean and safe water supply for Shangri-la Town, Yunnan, China, by facilitating multi-stakegolder collaboration for improved reservoir watershed management.
Pasturelands to Profits - This project links nomadic Tibetan herder families with more profitable markets while ensuring the sustainability of the grasslands. Community-based rangeland managment pilot activities have reduced livestock mortality by more than 60%, which has more than doubled the number of livestock each household can sell.
The Mountain Institute Exchanges and Study Tours - Since its inception TMI has promoted the exchange of ideas and learning between mountain communities across the globe. We have conducte exchanges between Tibetians and Peruvians, Nepalis and Chinease, Indians and Nepalis, Tibetans with Americans, and West Virginians with North Carolinians.
Vicos Living Memory - Under the leadership of TMI, a pilot initative was started in 2003 to repatriate documentary and photographic meterials to the Andean communiry to Vicos. These documents were produced by the Peru-Cornell project, the first worldwide project to test notions such as "community decelopment" and "green revolutions" in the late 1940s.
Highland-Lowlands Networks for Climate Change Adaptation - Implemented in Rio Santa watershed, a complex geographic area one third the size of Switzerland, this project was launched in 2007 to gather information on local perceptions of climate change impacts in the world's largest collection of tropical glaciers.
Remote Mountain Area Climate Change Research Initative - This project will develope community serveys and a data analysis methodology that will increase our understanding of mountain people's perceptions, threats, current adaptations, and needs regarding climate change.
Cordillera Blanca: A Unique Landscape Explained - In partnership with geographers from University of Amsterdam's Instute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), TMI produced a 200-page field guide in 2007-2008 to create awareness about the geo-ecology of this fragile landscape and the increase of natural hazards due to climate change.
Case Studies - TMI recently completed two case studies concerned with conflicet in mountain communities in Nepal and Peru: The first was "An Analysis of NGO Service Delivery Capacities in Nepal During Times of Conflict and Uncertanity," and the second was "Private Sector and Local Community Relationships: the Role of PVOs and Local NGOs in Promoting Democracy, Conservation and Sustainability in Peru."
Sagarmatha (Everest) Training Center - TMI is establishing a multi-purpose training center in the Thame Valley of Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park. This center will provide much-needed vocational training to poor and disadcantaged groups in the less-visted areas of the Park.
Blister Swamp Conservation and Restoration Project - This project commenced in 1999 to protect and monitor change in 150 acres of unique, privately-owned wetland habitat in the highlands of West Virginia. Long-term conservation in the area has been ensured through partner and private landowner agreements.
Beyuls: Sacred hidden Valleys of the Himalaya - Beyuls (sacred valleys) as sacred natural sites are unique to the Himalayan Region and among the followers of the Nyingma school of Buddhism. Nygmas believe that many Himalayan valleys provide refuge to people in need.
Cultural Revival of Andean Traditional Textiles - Weaving traditions in the Andes are thousands of years old and of high quality in many places. A pilot project was launched in 1998 to support family groups in two communities of the Huaripampa region to recover an almost lost weaving tradition as a way to create new income opportunities for their communities.
Nixi Artisan Initative - TMI has focused on the Tibetan handicraft industry in Yunnan Province of China, specifically on developing and preserving Nixi Black Pottery. According to archaelogical evidence the black pottery from Nixi is an ancient local tradition dating back to at least 2,000 years.
Mountain Community Energy, LLC - Mountain Community Energy is managed by and is subsidary of The Mountain Institute. Focusing on creation of energy alteratives for mountain communities in West Virginia, MCE LLC currently supports the development of landfill methane gas-to-energy facilities.
Community Participation in Expenditure of Public and Private Funds From Mining South - Following the largest investment of public and private funds that has been made available to mountain communities in the 186 years of republican history of Peru, there remains a lack of understanding of community perspectives and proorities on how these funds should be invested to achieve logical goals and sustainable development.
Transboundary Copperation in Khangchendzonga - The Khangchendzonga area of Nepal and Sikkim (India) is a global biodiversity hotspot requiring coordinated transboundary, landscape-level conservation efforts. Local inhabitants are poor and resource-dependent, especially on forest products and pastureland.
