Qomolangma (QNNP) National Nature Preserve

The Qomolangma (Everest) National Nature Preserve (QNNP), a park the size of Massachusetts, is home to the world’s highest mountains and 86,000 Tibetans. Future Generations staff helped develop and ten years later revise a master plan for this protected area.

It was among the first protected areas in the world with no outside wardens, relying instead upon stewardship by local people.

Village volunteers known as Pendebas, Tibetan for “workers who benefit the village,” are trained in primary health, nutrition and kitchen gardens, conservation concepts and management, and income generation to improve lives in the preserves’ 318 villages.Today, the locally registered Pendeba Society founded by an alumnus of the Future Generations Graduate School, supports learning and networking opportunities for 270 Pendebas within the QNNP.

Future Generations provides training on a local and professional level. The organization has:

• Initiated a visitor welcome center in Shigatze, a gateway to Mt. Qomolangma
• Provided training for a network of family-owned hotels to help locals benefit from increasing tourism to the region
• Restored three Tibetan monasteries, including: Rongbuk (the highest monastery in the world), ChuWa Temple (place of the ascendance of Milarepa), and the Paba Temple of the Kyirong valley