News

Winner of #MountainsMatter photo contest

12.12.2016

Maryam Farzami of Afghanistan has won the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' (FAO) International Mountain Day #MountainsMatter photo competition. Her photo of an Afghan mother holding her infant daughter was taken in a remote mountain village in Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan.

FAO launched the photo contest in the run-up to this year’s International Mountain Day (11 December), which carried the theme “Mountain Cultures: celebrating diversity and strengthening identity”. People were asked to send photos of mountain cultures in action to help promote the vast array of mountain identities and raise awareness of their traditions and rituals.

A FAO jury chose six finalists from over 340 photos received from 57 countries. The six finalists were published on the Food and Agriculture Organization's Facebook page and received over 800 votes. Farzami’s photo won with over half of all votes. She wins a year’s subscription to National Geographic magazine.

The other finalists were Rodney Garrard from New Zealand, Debdatta Chakraborty from India, Amitava Chandra from India, Des Jacobs from South Africa, and Sujan Sarkat from India.

See all the finalists’ photos here.

International Mountain Day has been observed every year since 2003 to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development, and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.