Asociación Ancash
A large portion of the beautiful Ancash region is located in the high Andes Mountains, which are part of their natural and cultural heritage. It is in this area where the Antamina mining project has operated for 10 years, creating an opportunity to promote a change in the lives of the surrounding populations in this lively and developing area. In order to address the development of communities within its area of influence, Antamina created the Ancash Association in 2002 –the international year of the mountains– as a civil non-profit entity, tasked with promoting sustainable development in the region. Since the very beginning our institution has been a member of the Mountain Partnership.
An important part of our work is the close coordination with public and private entities that add up as strategic partners to achieve this objective, focusing on three areas; namely, revaluation of local culture, conservation of natural resources and tourism. The latter being the transverse axis of all our efforts, because we are convinced that tourism is the best way to promote the development of our long-forgotten mountain people and to take them out of marginalization. For the private investment, this model becomes an innovative way of working in mountainous areas, especially because of the support given to the Huascaran National Park, World Natural Heritage.
The opportunity for private companies to contribute to the development of the mountains is underway and we believe that it can be widely useful if we can get to include the development and actual integration of the mountains in national development through state intervention.
For this reason, mountain sustainable development, especially through integrated and socially inclusive policies as well as low-carbon-emission technologies, should occupy a prominent place in the agenda for Rio 2012 and must be clearly stated in its final declaration.
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