Himalayan Insight – The social wing of Heco
An NGO in the Himalayas – Our story
Himalayan Ecotourism (HET) has been working at the grassroots level with the local communities of the Tirthan Valley. While tourism has offered many an alternate livelihood, it has detrimental effects on the surrounding natural ecosystems through intense resource use.
Himalayan Ecotourism (HET) envisions a collaboration with the local communities of the Ecozone to support socio-economic development of the local people to reduce pressures of resource use on the National Park, while diverting profits to social and ecological initiatives such as children’s education, women empowerment, reforestation and forest fire prevention.
Due to HET’s model, we’ve found the extent of our non-profit work is strongly limited by the profits we secure from tourism. Hence, we want to shift the forest fire prevention, ecological restoration and children’s education programs to our new NGO, Himalayan Insight.
To keep working for our mission, we decided to supplement our organization with an NGO. This would not just sustain our social efforts, but also scale them up. With our strong, trustworthy relations with the locals and over 10 years of operation, we are optimistic about sustaining the thriving ecosystem we created.
FIRST MEETING
With the women of the village Pekhri in 2014.
Mission Statement
LOCAL LEADER
Working with the well-intentioned local leaders – Keshav Thakur.
Himalayan Insight is in line with its mother organization, Himalayan Ecotourism, about its goals.
Himalayan Insight’s mission is to provide a holistic approach to nature conservation by facilitating sustainable socio-economic development of local communities and empowering them to become advocates of nature conservation. We aim at restoring a symbiotic relationship between the rural communities and all other forms of life in the Himalayas.
Based on our understanding of the inherent connection between social welfare and conservation, our strategy is to provide opportunities to the local communities for –
- Economic Prosperity through a sustainable and ethical tourism business model
- Women Empowerment through establishment of their micro-enterprises
- Forest Regeneration community-lead programs
- Child Development considering tomorrow’s local and global challenges
Fairness, inclusiveness, transparency, respect and honesty are the set of values that we nurture to achieve our goals.
Reports
This is a report about all the work we did near the Great Himalayan National Park since the inception of Himalayan Ecotourism.
Most of our social and conservation oriented work is now being undertaken under our NGO Himalayan Insight.
The second part of the report delineates our action plan for the next couple of years.
The people behind Himalayan Insight
Our mentors and supporters
Payson R. Stevens
A businessman, a community-lover and an environmental scientist to organizations like NASA. Mr Stevens has played a crucial role in giving a concrete shape to our company as a social enterprise. He is now a painter, an artist and a decisive friend of the GHNP.
Sanjeeva Pandey
The first director of GHNP, ex-PCCF of Himachal Pradesh, Mr Pandey has constantly encouraged our grassroot movement in the ecozone of the GHNP since its start. By extending the support of the park, he helped us realize the vision of empowering communities and we continue to seek his mentorship.
Vinay Tandon
Ex-Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Himachal Pradesh, Vinay’s immense love for the Himalayan forests extended into his goodwill for our projects. He is deeply dedicated to empowering women and has provided great insights for our work.
Tony Gaston
Main research investigator of the establishment of GHNP, Mr Gaston has been one of our primary backbones of the reforestation programmes in the ecozone. His guidance made it easier for HET’s journey through the COVID-19 pandemic.
