The Voices from the Mountain series includes the following eight collections:

• Oral Testimonies from Cerro de Pasco, Peru
• Oral Testimonies from southwest and northeast China
• Oral Testimonies from Wollo, Ethiopia
• Oral Testimonies from the Lesotho Highlands
• Oral Testimonies from Mount Elgon, Kenya
• Oral Testimonies from the Sudety mountains, Poland
• Oral Testimonies from Nepal
• Oral Testimonies from Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh, India

Still to come later in 2003: the Karakorum (Pakistan); and the Sierra Norte (Mexico).

Panos worked with community-based environmental, cultural, and development organisations in select highland areas, training local people to record interviews on a range of issues in order to communicate their personal experiences and understanding of the challenges that lie ahead.

Published in 50-page, A5-sized booklets, each collection contains anecdote, information, history, culture, knowledge, opinion, and experience - with all the contradictions this combination may imply. The series features individual voices of ordinary mountain dwelling people, in the context of the effort to meet national development needs without further marginalising these people. The demand for mountain riches - timber, minerals, water, and tourism facilities - is more often driven by urban, lowland populations and industry than by highland communities, who inhabit diverse and unique environments that some say are essential to the survival of the global ecosystem.

Those interested in development issues may find that these accounts illustrate the complexities and realities of mountain living. Each booklet contains maps, photos, an index, and a glossary.

For more information, please click here for a description of the Mountain Voices website; this website is the basis for the publications.

Copies are available free to the media and to resource-poor organisations in the South.
Otherwise, copies are available for £5.00 plus postage and packaging.
To order please contact Kelly at kelly@panoslondon.org.uk