ABSTRACT
Approximately 10 percent of the global population 1.3 billion people reside above 3,000 feet in elevation, and 22 percent lives in regional mountain communities. Additionally, in Europe, the mountain population is shrinking at least 15 percent faster than the population in the lowlands, primarily due to youth outmigration patterns and deaths of the elderly. Even in the twenty-first century, many babies born in the Rocky Mountains of the United States, despite the presence of advanced health care, suffer from low birth weight, posing long-term developmental and health challenges. Although the government's initial efforts to conserve the mountain area were endorsed by international organizations, the Nepalese government's inattention to mountain communities has resulted in social and economic instability for the three cultural groups. The Bote, Majhi, and Musahar could not protest, due to strict laws in Nepal, until the turn of the twenty-first century, when democratic reforms were installed allowing more free speech and political protests.
