GLOBAL MOUNTAIN ACTION

Who we are

“We are a group of scientists and professionals concerned about the neglect to support sustainable use & well being of mountains, their people, their ecosystems, their cultures, their health, their diversity and their spirit. We are against promotion of evermore destructive, extractive use of mountain resources with few or negative benefits for mountain inhabitants, conducted without concern for to the environment, which we believe is detrimental ultimately also to national and international stability and security”

·       We established GMA as a not for profit association set up in 2009 in the Tessin, Switzerland with offices in Ethiopia, Peru and Switzerland.

·       The GMA acts as a platform to facilitate activities of its members compatible within a common philosophical framework

·       The GMA is funded by member contributions as per capacity to contribute, and retains an overhead for externally funded assignments of members under the umbrella of GMA. The association uses these funds to fund other actions.

·       People with similar vision with wide ranging expertise in themes relevant to mountains, in the science, business, arts, spirit, mind and other areas are welcome to apply as members.

What we do
We support actions embedded in the intent of Agenda 21 Chapters 14 and 13 on mountains and agriculture.

·       We engage in actions that revalue mountain cultures, to support their knowledge of agriculture and build on them with the best current knowledge to produce clean ecologically sound products, not displace them as is being promoted to this day.

·       We promote methods and cultures of food production that respect and build on traditional knowledge, that use ecological principles and strive to optimize diverse production of healthy food in systems designs that reflect natural systems.

·       We support efforts of stewardship and efforts to enable people to live economically easier lives in mountains whilst maintaining their traditions and the mountain environments.

·       We believe in engaging in the overwhelming migration phenomenon from rural mountain areas to urban centers, often in lowlands, and finding ways to optimize rural urban linkages that enable sustainable mountain development.

·       We work on activities that will enable people to adapt environmental & socio-economic change and if possible to mitigate effects in part by re-incorporating millennia worth of knowledge of indigenous mountain groups into the environmental and agricultural and water management actions.

·       We are concerned fundamentally with maintaining or restoring health and wellbeing to mountain regions of the earth and its people by promoting key actions in mountain for which we have or can easily obtain needed expertise.

Founding members

Marco Baltensweiler PhD

Agricultural Economics: Organic Food Production and Certification, Rural Agricultural Policies. 20 years professional experience in Africa and Central America and Swiss mountain issues.

Stefan Flückiger PhD

Agricultural Economics: Consultant. 20 years professional experience in Europe and Swiss mountain issues.

Amarilda Luque Ing

Agri-business: Mirco-finances, Natural Resources Management, Statistics, Monitoring and Evaluation, Youth education, Facilitation. 10 years professional experience in South and Central America, especially in the Peruvian Andes. With ties to the Aymara Huancho-Lima village by Lake Titicaca. Other interests include Andean music, textiles and rediscovery of traditional herbs for spice and health.

Bruno Stöckli PhD

Agricultural Economics: Debt Relief, Anti corruption, dialogue for new visions of development.. 25 years professional experience in Africa and Europe. Mountain Village resident in Tessin, Switzerland.

Peter Trutmann PhD

Biology: Mycology, Microbial Ecology, Plant & Soil Health, Crop Diversity, Traditional Knowledge, Research Management. 30 years international professional experience 19 years in mountains with national, international organizations and universities in Africa & Latin America, Australia, Switzerland and USA. Other interests include art, history, photography and music, mushrooms and herbs for food and health and basically, Human an Environmental wellbeing.

Gete Zeleke PhD

Geography & Land Use Management: Rural Urban Linkages, GIS, Management of Regional Agricultural Research Institute in Ethiopia, Mountains issues of Ethiopia, and other African nations. With ties to the Ahmara highlands near lake Tana.