Mountain pride award announced for eight professionals

ISLAMABAD: Eight dedicated professionals serving the mountain communities and putting their best efforts into the conservation and development of mountains’ natural resources, mountaineering and promoting mountain music will be given the 2nd Pakistan Mountains Pride Award (PAMPA) on March 31.

A grand ceremony will be organised by the Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan) in Islamabad with the support of National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), Oil and Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDCL) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme, and the Westminster Academy.

Devcom-Pakistan launched Pakistan Mountains Pride Awards in 2019 to recognize the services par excellence of the individuals that they have rendered over the years to the mountains of Pakistan and its communities. The five categories of PAMPA include Agostino Da Polenza Mountain Conservation Award, Shoaib Sultan Khan Community Development Award, Nazir Sabir Mountaineering Award, Ashraf Aman Sustainable Mountain Tourism Award, and Ustad Jan Ali Mountain Music Award.

The winners for second PAMPA are Zahid Baig Mirza (National) and Khwaja Lashkar Hussain Azad from AJK (Regional) for mountain ecosystems conservation, Bibi Hussan (Gulmit) and Hasina Haider (Shiger) for their services to mountain women development, Sirbaz Khan for scaling most of the highest peaks, Muhammad Iqbal for his lifelong services to promote sustainable mountain tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan, and the legendary musicians and singers for promoting mountain music. The winner will receive a 3-D model trophy of the K2 base camp developed in 12x8x9 inches dimensions.  

Talking about the objective of the PAMPA, Devcom-Pakistan Executive Director Munir Ahmed said: “We need to recognize the services of individuals and organizations that have played their key role to inspire others for mountain conservation, mountaineering, community development, tourism and culture. It is essential to attract others to follow the footprints of the living legends and the dedicated practitioners. The award is just a token of appreciation for the exemplary work of our best professionals when they are breathing with us. Many human souls are working selflessly in the highlands, and they are not known to the people downstream. It is our duty to share their great work with the people living downstream. We will be expanding the categories of awards from next year to encourage people promoting mountain heritage and culture, crafts, agricultural and horticultural products.”

Ahmed urged the stakeholders downstream to provide marketing and networking opportunities to the communities and their local organizations to contribute their bit of efforts to uplift the life and livelihood for the locals. We all need to highlight the importance of the mountains as a hub of natural resources for the people living there and downstream and need to inculcate informed policy-making for the conservation of mountain resources by creating awareness and networking among the key stakeholders.