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Video message delivered by Sustainable Summits leaders

08.06.2020

Conference leaders of “Sustainable Summits 2020”, many of which are Mountain Partnership members, spoke out on World Environment Day about the future of mountain environments, giving a post COVID-19 view from the peaks of the world.

The Sustainable Summits global leaders gave powerful messages in the 50-minute virtual programme, available to watch on Youtube.

Messages are delivered by 13 key Sustainable Summits global leaders from diverse backgrounds, including Dr David Molden, Director-General of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD); Rt Hon Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former chair of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the first Nepalese woman summit Mount Everest; Reinhold Messner, Italian mountaineer and Mountain Partnership Goodwill Ambassador; and more.

“I think that this crisis is a possibility to reorganize our tourism - not only in the Himalayas but also in the Alps. We have to change something,” states Messner, the first person to make a solo ascent of Everest. “Over tourism like we had on Mount Everest is not the future. We should organize it so that less persons in one season are approaching the highest peak of the world.”

This video message from Sustainable Summits organizers comes in light of the Sustainable Summits 2020 postponement. The new conference dates will be announced in due course.

The Nepal Tourism Board and Climate Alliance of Himalayan Communities (CAHC) will host Sustainable Summits 2020, the focus of which is on the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.

In 2010, the Sustainable Summits Conference was launched by the American Alpine Club with the primary goal of sharing solutions for managing human waste in the high mountain peaks around the world. The scope was later broadened to include the impacts of climate change and access issues in the high mountains. Sustainable Summits conferences have drawn representation from every continent.

Watch the video message

Learn more about Sustainable Summits 2020