What we do

Plateau Perspectives advances community-based conservation and sustainable development in high mountain regions. Its work began on the Tibetan Plateau, particularly in the high elevation rangelands and pastoral areas in the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow, and Mekong Rivers. This region is known in Chinese as Sanjiangyuan. The organisation has since expanded activities further afield across the Tibetan Plateau and into the Himalayas, as well as the mountain regions of Central Asia.

A central priority is strengthening the roles and interests of local communities within regional and national conservation efforts. This focus has contributed to the development of community-friendly collaborative management approaches, including models pioneered in the Sanjiangyuan region. Alongside its core field projects, senior staff also contribute expertise to externally led initiatives that align with the organisation’s mission.

Highlights

International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026

The International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026 underscores the global significance of rangeland ecosystems and the communities who care for them. It draws attention to the essential contributions pastoralists make in maintaining biodiversity, enhancing food security, and managing extensive dryland and mountain environments through longstanding knowledge systems and highly adaptive livelihoods.

By elevating these critical roles, IYRP 2026 aims to strengthen recognition of pastoralists as key partners in sustainable land stewardship.

Kyrgyz Nomad Trail

The Kyrgyz Nomad Trail (KNT) is a pioneering long-distance hiking route crossing the high mountains, remote valleys, and traditional pastures of Kyrgyzstan. Spanning more than 2,000 km through the heart of the Tien Shan, and expanding by an additional 1,000 km into the country’s southwest, the trail connects five of Kyrgyzstan’s seven regions—making it the longest continuous hiking trail in Central Asia.

Digital Nomad

The Digital Nomad project is developing a web-based and smartphone-accessible platform that functions both online and offline, enabling the delivery of information and training in low-bandwidth environments. The initiative focuses on supporting nomadic and pastoralist communities—especially in the mountain regions of Central Asia—by making practical, high-value learning materials easily accessible.

Environment

Community co-management

Plateau Perspectives has advanced community-based governance and resource management in many ways over the past decade, including support for herders’ cooperatives, revolving funds, and collaborative snow leopard conservation.

Yaghnob National Park

The CEPF-supported project “Strengthening co-management in Yaghnob National Park, Tajikistan” aimed to strengthen conservation and community wellbeing in one of the country’s most remote mountain valleys, supporting capacity building in wildlife monitoring, sustainable tourism, and collaborative management.

Central Asian Flyway

The Central Asian Flyway is a major migratory route spanning roughly 30 countries from the Arctic through Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. It supports over 300 species of migratory birds—cranes, geese, shorebirds, and raptors among them—connecting breeding grounds, stopover sites, and wintering habitats across wonderfully diverse landscapes.

‘Choosing Ecotourism’

Choosing ecotourism in mountain regions strengthens the relationship between people and nature while supporting sustainable development. It encourages low-impact travel, helps protect fragile ecosystems, and provides meaningful income for local communities. By valuing cultural heritage and environmental stewardship, ecotourism contributes to long-term resilience for both people and landscapes.

Development

Community health

Plateau Perspectives’ community health work has included training of doctors and women’s health workers, immunizations and other preventative health measures, the establishment of community health centres and rehabilitation work with people with disability.

Worldviews and values

All sectors of society must be involved if the ongoing destruction of nature—and the harm it brings to human wellbeing—is to be halted. A large share of the world’s population identifies with a faith or spiritual tradition, including in many of the planet’s most biodiverse regions. These traditions carry rich teachings about reciprocity, responsibility, and care for the living world.

Walking with refugees

Plateau Perspectives stands in solidarity with refugees by offering practical support for daily living and assistance in navigating pathways to safety. This includes helping individuals connect with sponsoring groups in countries such as Canada, enabling them to start rebuilding their lives and to move beyond the insecure conditions that originally led to their displacement.

Policy Briefs series

Plateau Perspectives’ series of policy briefs highlights pressing and emerging issues in community-based conservation and sustainable development in the world’s high mountains regions. New issues will be published ad hoc.

Partnership

Central Asian Conservation Network (CACN)

Plateau Perspectives is a member of the Central Asian Conservation Network, a regional platform for migratory bird and habitat conservation in the Central Asian Flyway.

Upholding ‘Territories of Life’ with ICCA Consortium

Custodian communities and their ICCAs – Territories of Life face growing pressures from rapid socio-ecological change. At the same time, they are increasingly recognized as vital for safeguarding the world’s remaining biological and cultural diversity. Plateau Perspectives supports Indigenous peoples and local communities through practical actions, partnerships, and collaborative solutions.

Horseback Planet Society

“Horseback Planet Society” was established to help develop sustainable community tourism in mountains regions, building on early work pioneered in the Yangtze River headwaters and the Qinghai Lake area. With a focus on environmental conservation and on horse-riding as a way to connect with nature and local cultures, the Society’s approach to responsible tourism is gaining great popularity in China. Plans are now also being put in place to further extend the reach of its mission, including the development of community partnerships in the Tianshan and Caucuses mountains.

Qomolangma (Mt Everest) Glacier Foundation

QGF is dedicated to supporting local communities and organization in the Tibetan plateau region to improve people’s quality of life and help protect the natural environment. Plateau Perspectives is supporting these important endeavours in several ways.

Araketke | Tendik Clinic

Plateau Perspectives is partnering with Araketke-Bereket (or “Araketke” for short), a multi-national community of volunteers committed to working with and empowering local partners to help build healthy minds, bodies, and communities in the Kyrgyz Republic. Through Tendik Clinic the foundation is serving a periurban community north of Bishkek with provision of health care. Araketke seeks to promote community development and wellbeing wherever it works across the country.

Kegawa Herders Cooperative

Launched in 2010, Kegawa Herders Cooperative now has over 90 member households. As voluntary association of entrepreneurs, the coop encourages innovative thinking as it helps to create new business opportunities in high grassland regions of the Tibetan plateau.

kora | High performance yak wool clothing

To summit K2: an extraordinary achievement! This also can be said of the Kegawa-kora partnership, which brings together Tibetan herders from the heart of the Tibetan plateau and an elite outdoors clothing company that seeks simultaneously to meet the needs of extreme mountain adventurers and to protect the ecology and the cultures of the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau region.

The World Yak Herders Association

Yurta Association promotes partnerships and conservation of biocultural diversity in High Asia. Cultural anthropologist Mr Carralero is working with a range of partners in High Asia to establish a ‘World Yak Herders Association’. Partnering organizations include Mountain Partnership, University of Central Asia, Kegawa Herders Cooperative and Plateau Perspectives.

Past Projects

First Project: Village Tent Schools

Basic education is a fundamental asset that helps with regional socioeconomic development. Early in our work in the Yangtze River headwaters, local community members and leaders requested Plateau Perspectives to support them in developing their own primary schools – initially in the form of tent schools, which could be moved as required to fit the needs of the Tibetan nomadic pastoral lifestyle.

Village Doctor Training

Health is a major problem in remote mountain regions, such as the Tibetan plateau. In particularly, mothers’ and children’s health was found to be especially poor – with around a quarter of children dying within their first year of life. Upgrading the professional abilities of village level health workers is the first line of defence.

Langduo Clinic, Tibet

Situated at the foot of Namche Barwa Mountain (7,795 m) in eastern Tibet Autonomous Region, China, the Langduo Village Clinic was built to serve the many nationalities who live in this rural district. This village clinic was built by Plateau Perspectives and is dedicated to the memory of Jane M Torrance, who supported the Tibetan people for many years through her faithful service as the charity’s administrator in Scotland.

Yagnob & Pamirs

The Pamirs Mountains and Yagnob Valley in Tajikistan are home to extraordinary landscapes, with abundant biodiversity and ancient cultures. The Yagnobi people are direct descendants of the empire of Sogdia. Both people from Yagnob Valley in northern Tajikistan and the Pamiri and Kyrgyz people in Gorno-Badakhshan have many distinct cultural traditions and local livelihoods well adapted to their regions.

Mountain Protected Areas

Protected areas, or PAs, are areas that receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological and/or cultural values. As outlined by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), PAs yield flows of economically valuable goods and services that benefit society, secure livelihoods, and contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Snow Leopard Conservation

The Snow Leopard Community Conservation Project has clearly demonstrated the benefits of working closely with herders for conservation. Traditional custodians of the land are the best partners for ensuring a sustainable future, and should be supported to manage biodiversity.

Growing Quinoa in Tibet

Quinoa is a nutritious grain originally grown in South America. It is well adapted to high altitudes and harsh, dry environments. With excellent nutritional and economic value, quinoa can contribute to enhanced food security along with poverty alleviation on the Tibetan plateau.

Yushu Earthquake, April 2010

Plateau Perspectives initiated a rapid response, establishing a medical camp and providing immediate emergency care for over 1,200 people within two days of the earthquake that devastated Yushu on 14 April 2010. In later phases, basic household supplies as well as equipment for emergency response teams were purchased and distributed in Yushu by a team of volunteers from China and abroad.

Post-Earthquake Rehabilitation

A major earthquake devastated Yushu on 14 April 2010. More than 2,200 people died and around 10,000 people were left seriously injured. Plateau Perspectives assisted with immediate medical care, and subsequently also with development of regional rehabilitation services.

Humanitarian Fund

The high mountain regions of the Tibetan Plateau and across Central Asia suffer from some of the world’s harshest environmental conditions. Shrinking natural resources, especially water, often leads to rising insecurity… Snowstorms, drought, earthquakes and conflicts also may arise… Where possible, Plateau Perspectives aims to continue partnerships even in desperate times in the regions where it serves.

China Relief 2020

China is undergoing a difficult start to the new year. Much is already highlighted in the media, both in China and abroad; we can only imagine all the personal stories behind the scenes. However there is hope, too, as health service providers and ordinary citizens are showing concern for their neighbours.

Visit https://china2020.org/

Other Relief Work

While Plateau Perspectives’ work is focused on community development and protecting the natural environment in mountain regions, occasionally there are special circumstances that warrant a change of focus – at least temporarily. Such is the case when natural disasters strike, such as severe snowstorms.

Citizen Science

The Mountains of Central Asia biodiversity hotspot are well recognized around the world, but still lack adequate conservation. Plateau Perspectives is partnering with Lapis Guides to develop a series of digital field guides to encourage greater engagement in conservation.

Study Tours Around the World

Plateau Perspectives has organized several study tours over the past few years in order to learn from national and global experiences about strategic development topics or practices related to resource governance and management, protected areas management, poverty alleviation and community-based tourism.

Sustainable & Responsible Tourism

Ecotourism is “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the wellbeing of local people.” Plateau Perspectives is building local capacities in community ecotourism with the aim to promote local development as well as environmental conservation including protected area management. Partners include communities and responsible tour operators in China, Kyrgyzstan, and beyond.

Qinghai Ecotourism Website

Ecotourism is “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the wellbeing of local people.” Plateau Perspectives is building local capacities in community-based tourism for development. The Qinghai Ecotourism website was built to promote this important concept and approach in China, with a focus on Qinghai Province, and to promote awareness of local community tourism ventures in the Tibetan Plateau region.

D-Starine Projects

Founding in 2005, D-Starine encourages and trains volunteers to serve on disaster relief projects and on community development and reconstruction programmes. It is committed to enhancing communication and promoting exchanges between urban youth and a variety of ethnic groups from all over the world. D-Starine has cooperated with Plateau Perspectives since 2010.

Conflict with Brown Bears

As wildlife recovers from natural and anthropogenic pressures, populations increase and behaviours change. In recent years, the level of human-wildlife conflict in the Sanjiangyuan region has been increasing, especially with brown bears. This project sought to trial the viability of solar-powered electric fences as a safeguard against intrusions by bear into herders’ winter homes.

Veterinarian Training

Veterinary trainings were given to animal health workers in Zaduo county in December 2009 and July 2010.

Bee-keeping, Bhutan

Under the auspices of Royal Thimpu College (RTC), on on-going Apiculture (bee-keeping) project is exposing college students to field-based educational opportunities, as well as improving crop yields and strengthening community connections.

Shuguang Community Development Center

The NGO Sichuan Shuguang Community Development Training Center aims to strengthen community abilities and to promote communities’ “harmonious development” and well-being through participatory work methods. It is collaborating with the Plateau Perspectives team on several projects, including the development of herders’ associations and local development revolving funds.

Revolving Development Fund

A community-managed revolving fund for local development was first trialled in Lari in 2011. Supported by Ford Foundation, this project works with herding communities to assess social and natural capital and build management capacities in ways that promote community level autonomy.

Academic Partners, 2005-2014

Plateau Perspectives has partnered with a variety of academic institutes and research centres over the years, especially in Qinghai Province and Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Areas of collaboration have included natural resource management, wildlife monitoring and research, social development, and applied civil engineering to enhance access in remote mountain regions of the Tibetan plateau.