“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 concerned with maintaining or restoring health and wellbeing to mountain regions of the earth and its people by promoting key themes neglected by mainstream research and development in mountain for which we have or can easily obtain needed expertise.
For this reason, 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.
We support actions embedded in the mountain agenda particularly as it relates to a balanced culture of food production (agriculture) in a time where new direction and paradymes are being sought in the way we live.
We engage in actions that provide information and technologies to enable better decision making, management and production that improve well-being and enhance flexible adaptation of mountain people and governments to global changes. We reject the 'R for D' model in favor of a 'R with D' model.
We select actions in key themes that affect human and environmental well being in mountains that are neglected by the major Agencies and Institutions working on mountains so as to bring them to international attention.
Our actions promote methods and cultures of food production that respect and build on traditional knowledge, and appropriate science and technology that use ecological principles and strive to optimize diverse production of healthy food in systems designs that reflect natural systems.
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 acknowledge the overwhelming migration phenomenon from rural mountain areas to urban centers, often in lowlands, an the need to engage through actions that help understand processes and linkages needed to optimize outcomes and types of interventions for sustainable mountain development.
To implement our mission we work to connect ourselves with the sciences, culture, arts, spiritual and enterprise groups or other groups that enable us to reach our goals.
Founding members
Marco Baltensweiler PhD
Agricultural Economics: Leader, Agriculture Department, Canton Glarus, Switzerland. Organic Food Production and Certification, Rural Agricultural Policies. 20 years professional experience in Swiss mountain agriculture & transformation. Experience in Africa and Central America.
Stefan Flückiger PhD
Agricultural Economics & Business: Migros Director for Sustainability. Organic products, European Community, Gourmet Foods. 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. Has ties to the Aymara indigenous communites by Lake Titicaca. Other interests include Andean music, textiles and rediscovery of traditional herbs for spice and health.
Bruno Stöckli PhD
Agricultural Economics: Coordinator of the Interdominational group developing a new vision for development. Previous experience in 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
Agricultural Biologist: Mycology, Plant Medicine, Soil Health, Food Security, Traditional Mountain Production Systems & Institutional Management. 20 years eexperience in mountains. 30 years international professional experience in Africa & Latin America, Australia, Switzerland and USA. Other interests include art, history, photography and music .
Gete Zeleke PhD
Geography & Land Use Management: Director of the Water and Land Use Center Ethiopia, University of Bern. Experience with Rural Urban Linkages, Land Use Change, 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.
