Cover of Youth and the Mountains Journal
The 2021 issue of the Youth and the Mountains journalis composed of research papers by undergraduate students from various academic fields at Utah Valley University (UVU) focused on the implementation of Sustainable Mountain Development (SMD) in Utah and globally.
The first section includes a copy of the written statement that was composed by students and sponsored by the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and the Utah China Friendship Improvement Sharing Hands Development and Commerce, two NGOs in consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It was distributed as an official document at the 65th UN session for the Commission on the Status of Women in March 2021.
The second section features student research focusing on aspects of SMD within the state of Utah, in the United States. These papers examine topics such as Native American stories providing a view of past SMD practices, and the housing crisis Utah is currently facing.
The final section contains student research on mountain communities within the Eurasian continent. One paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on tourism in Austria and Utah, a large source of income in these mountain communities. The next one focuses on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and their relation to the impoverished mountain communities of Georgia. There is a paper that describes the impact deforestation has on SMD in Nepal, with the last two papers examining SMD in the Middle East countries of Saudi Arabia and Iran.
UVU faculty members provided students with the opportunity to work on this volume through a student-engaged learning (SEL) model when they gained professional skills through collectively handling peer-review and content editing while faculty members served them as mentors.
Camilla Pendleton, Secretary of the Foreign Affairs Club
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