Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal
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The Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal is awarded every one or two years to an individual (rarely, two individuals working as a team) "for remarkable service in the conservation of culture and nature in mountainous regions." The medal both recognizes the service of
Sir Edmund Hillary Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached t ...
(20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) on behalf of mountain people and their environment and also encourages the continuing emulation of his example. The Hillary Medal is a project of Mountain Legacy, a Nepalese
non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
(reg. #1018/060-61; www.mountainlegacy.org); the president is biologist Kumar P. Mainali. The Hillary Medal was personally authorized by Sir Edmund in 2002, and ratified by the Namche Consensus, the declaration resulting from the 2003 Namche Conference: "People, Park, and Mountain Ecotourism." Hillary Medal presentations have taken place at various venues, including two in Tengboche,
Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
, (2003 and 2008); two in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
(2006 and 2010); one in
Khumjung Khumjung ( ne, खुम्जुंग) is a village in Khumbu Pasanglhamu rural municipality of Solukhumbu District in Province No. 1 of north-eastern Nepal. It is located in the Khumbu subregion inside Sagarmatha National Park, a world heri ...
, Nepal (2011); two in
Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...
, Nepal (2013 and 2017); and one in
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,
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
(2015). The 2017 Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal was presented to Peruvian engineer César Portocarrero in Kathmandu, on 11 December 2016.


History

As a member of John Hunt's British Everest Expedition, Edmund Hillary earned international fame as a result of his achieving the first ascent of Mount Everest, along with Tenzing Norgay, in what ''Time'' magazine has characterized as "the last major earthly adventure and also the last great symbol of
he British He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
Empire." Reaching the "Top of the World" was one of a series of adventures that brought Hillary world attention; these included the ascent of ten other Himalayan peaks between 1956 and 1965, an expedition to find the yeti; and an expedition to the South Pole as a member of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1958, a jetboat expedition up the Ganges in 1977, and a flight to the North Pole along with Neil Armstrong in 1985. Starting in the 1960s, Sir Edmund undertook numerous small-scale development projects on behalf of the Sherpa communities of the Solu, Khumbu, Pharak and Rolwaling districts of eastern Nepal. Working with friends, family, and volunteers, Hillary built some 27 schools, 3 airstrips, 2 hospitals, and an indeterminate number of bridges, water supply systems, clinics, and other infrastructure. He founded the
Himalayan Trust The Himalayan Trust is an international non-profit humanitarian organisation first established in the 1960s by Sir Edmund Hillary, who led the trust until his death in 2008. The Himalayan Trust aims to improve the health, education and general wel ...
to facilitate fundraising, and this non-governmental organization (NGO) was joined by Himalayan Trust UK, the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation (Canada), the American Himalayan Foundation (USA), the Hillary-Stiftung Deutschland (Germany), and other non-profit organizations. The idea for the Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medal came from the Nepal-based ecotourism and volunteer organization, Bridges: Projects in Rational Tourism Development (Bridges-PRTD), directed by Seth Sicroff. The award was conceived as a means of both honoring the humanitarian accomplishments of Sir Edmund and also encouraging their emulation by others. It was authorized by Sir Edmund himself in December 2002, and formally ratified by the Namche Consensus, the final declaration of the 2003 Namche Conference ("People, Park, and Mountain Ecotourism"). The Nepalese NGO Mountain Legacy was founded to carry out the selection and presentation of Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Legacy Medals.


Past recipients

2003: Michael Schmitz and Helen Cawley, for renovation of
Tengboche Monastery Tengboche Monastery (or Thyangboche Monastery), also known as Dawa Choling Gompa, in the Tengboche village in Khumjung in the Khumbu region of eastern Nepal is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Sherpa community. Situated at , the monastery is t ...
, Khumbu, Nepal 2006: Alton Byers, of
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
, USA, for research and development of protected areas in mountainous regions 2008: Anthony "Papa Tony" Freake, for Phortse Community Project, Khumbu, Nepal 2010: Scott MacLennan, for projects in mountain ecosystem conservation, sustainable economic development and support for unique mountain cultures, especially in Nepal 2011: Ang Rita Sherpa, for management of remote mountainous protected areas in Nepal, Central Asia, and South America 2013: Harshwanti Bisht, for her Save Gangotri project in the Indian Garhwal 2015: Jack D. Ives, for wide-ranging accomplishments in protection of mountain ecosystems and cultures, and for leadership in placing mountain issues on the international political agenda 2016: Civil engineer César A. Portocarrero Rodríguez of Huaraz,
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, for his work in mitigation of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) hazards in Peru 2017: Explorer and anthropologist
Johan Reinhard Johan Reinhard (born December 13, 1943) is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. He is also a senior research fellow at The Mountain Institute, a visiting professor at Catholic University, Salta, Argentina, an honorary p ...
, of
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
, USA, for archeological discoveries and scholarship in the Himalayas and the Andes. 2018: Mountain climber and philanthropist
Daniel Mazur Daniel Lee Mazur is a mountain climber, trekker, and expedition leader who has ascended nine of the world's highest summits, including Mount Everest and K2. In addition, he is known for several high altitude mountain rescues: the 1991 rescue of R ...
of
Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region. European ...
, USA, for rescue, recovery, and development projects in the Himalayas. 2019: Cultural preservationist and social activist Didar Ali of Gulmit in the
Gilgit-Baltistan Gilgit-Baltistan (; ), formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute bet ...
region of Pakistan, received the Hillary Medal in December 2019 for his work in preserving and promoting the
Wakhi language Wakhi (Wakhi: /В̌aхi, ) is an Indo-European language in the Eastern Iranian branch of the language family spoken today in Wakhan District, Northern Afghanistan and also in Tajikistan, Northern Pakistan and China. Classification and distribut ...
and culture. 2022: Kathryn March and David Holmberg, anthropologists, for their many decades of friendship and assistance to Nepal, and their leadership in educational exchange programs between Tribhuvan University and Cornell University


References

{{Reflist Orders, decorations, and medals of Nepal 2003 establishments in Nepal Edmund Hillary