I am enclosing an article I wrote for the Women's Feature Service on the Chambéry meeting. Feel free to forward it to colleagues who you think may be interested in it.

Best regards. Anita

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Mountain Women Raise Questions, Give Answers
By Anita Anand

Women's Feature Service

Chambéry, France, July 8, (WFS) -- In the majestic city hall of the town of Chambéry, located in Southern France, a two-day meeting on mountain women begins. Andre Gilbertas, President of Montanea, welcomes the participants.

"During the French Revolution, Sylvie de Concordet exclaimed: 'At a time when women's heads are being cut off, it is only natural that they demand to know why'." Gilbertas stresses that questions about mountain women are complex, difficult and sensitive. Mountain women face the same problems as women of the plains, but more amplified.

The United Nations General Assembly announced 2002 as the International Year of the Mountains (IYM), and Chambéry is the French focal point. This beautiful and medieval city, nestled in the valley between the Bauges and Chartreuse massifs, served as host for the European preparatory meeting for Celebrating Mountain Women (CMW). A global gathering, CMW will be held in Thimphu, Bhutan, in October this year.

How different are the lives and concerns of European mountain women from women in other parts of the world? "In traditional Alpine society, women were the first to get up and the last to go to bed. Just like their male peers, girls started working from the moment they could walk. Despite this, the financial well-being of the family, community and village revolved around the women," says Michela Zucca of the Centre for Alpine Ecology in Trento, Italy.

From the times of the hunters and gatherers, young girls and mothers maintained the ancient inheritance of knowledge which allowed for the exploitation of forest resources, says Zucca. Medicinal herbs, small fruits and mushrooms were collected and sold in markets. They worked the loom, knitted, provided clothing and linen, and made their homes more welcoming. In some areas, women would rent rooms or do 'seasonal' work in hotels.

There was no such thing as a holiday for women. A man had the local tavern, where a woman was not allowed to enter unless she went to collect her drunken husband. In times of economic hardship, women left the villages before the men in some areas. Under the 'hereditary farm' system, daughters were forbidden to inherit land if they had brothers. They either married a prospective heir, or became servants in their fathers' homes. Otherwise they left home for evermore, and did the most menial of jobs far from their own village. Under these conditions, female protests were voiced in lyrical form or by telling or rewording stories of legends and myths. Thus women also became the custodians of customs, memories and culture.

Migration from the mountain areas to plains is worldwide, and also common in the Alps. Zucca says that women began migrating when the men left. But women also left to get away from priests, villages, fathers, brothers and husbands. She points out that in the last few years, the situation has changed. Disillusioned by the urban reality, more women in the Alpine region have begun economic activity and initiatives.

The main economy of the Alps -- luxury hotels, mountain lift systems, and tendering of public works -- is in the hands of men. But the economy of the valley or the family business that allows people to continue living in the high mountains is in the hands of women. Tourism has for a long time overtaken agricultural income, animal breeding and rearing. It is the main income earner in the Alps, and in the hands of women. The majority of the tourism businesses are family run, and even though the proprietor is a man, it is women who manage the business.

The Alps and Sardinia, both regions with great pastoral traditions, are leading the way in linking agriculture to tourism. In Sardinia, women have founded a farm-tourism association. "There is a new economic concept: the identity economy," says Zucca. Businesses whose origins date back to a remote past are developing in a modern way, with modern technology, and with different goals and objectives. In addition to generating an income, these initiatives preserve and assist a "re-launch" of traditional cultures, allowing them to become the base for supplementing incomes.

This is also happening in other parts of the world, a positive reconciliation of the old and new ways of working and making a living. The transition economies of Eastern Europe -- Bulgaria, Slovenia, Albania, Armenia and Ukraine -- bring similar stories, with a difference. They are younger countries, with years of tradition, not unlike what is happening in the Alps. There is a dearth of gender-disaggregated data, and few pro-women policies that are being implemented.

"Domestic violence in Albania remains behind closed doors and is supported by the traditional and patriarchal attitude attendant to the Kanun (code of customary laws used in northern Albania)," says Xhixhi Xheni Sinakoli. Despite this and other discrimination and obstacles facing women, there is an overwhelming need of women in this region to be economically independent, and the entrepreneur spirit is fierce.

"Women played an important role in the first entrepreneurial wave in Slovenia during the early 1990s," says Patricija Verbole. The transition from self-management to a market economy removed many administrative barriers for the establishment of a new venture. The service sector grew, and global trends increasingly favoured conditions that fostered women's entrepreneurship. In addition, says Verbole, high unemployment and a job market in which women were not skilled to enter the workforce, or be in managerial positions, encouraged them to the turn to entrepreneurial activities.

The European gathering agreed on a Chambéry declaration, which will serve as a draft to the Thimphu declaration, to be finalised in the October global gathering, and sent to the Bishkek Global Mountain Summit (BGMS) -- the final event of the IYM.

The Chambéry declaration calls for recognition of the strength and contribution of mountain women to the national and international economy. It seeks policy measures that enable mountain women to create a life of dignity for themselves and their communities. It spells out what an enabling environment for health and well-being should be, and it stresses the importance of structures for information dissemination, knowledge sharing and networking, and the promotion of indigenous knowledge and culture. It hails the entrepreneurial spirit of mountain women and calls for more support for expanding this activity for women.

Raising questions and giving answers is a first step for European Mountain women. Working to get structures to work for them is a longer haul. But moving mountains has never been easy, and of all mountain people, women know this best.

Ends\1,075 words
Environment

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