User:Nabin khadka

Mount Everest
--nabin khadka 21:19, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

By Nabin Khadka Dec 15, 2009 Mount Everest - Losing its Wilderness

People who can go to moon, can go everywhere in earth. This is the supremacy of the most sensible creature of the earth that human race must be proud of it. However, the wisest creature of the nature is disrespecting its mother nature. People are responsible for the ongoing environmental degradation in different parts of the world. Mount Everest is one of the places with extreme cold climate that has been adversely affected by people. It is in the progress of changing after Nepal has opened its mountains to tourists in 1964 (Stevens). The increasing numbers of visitors has seriously affected the Everest region. Developing tourism has brought economic prosperity to the region along with environmental degradations like pollution, deforestation, and disappearance of the endangered species such as Wild Yak, Musk Deer, Red Panda, and Snow Leopard. The quantity of pollutants is increasing day by day and the cleaning efforts have not been effective enough to deal with the worsening situation. It is estimated that more than fifty tons of plastic, glass, and metal were dumped till mid-1990s giving a new name to the Everest "the world's highest junkyard” (Gates). Therefore, the Nepalese government, climbing teams, and environmentalists must make combined efforts to improve the worsening situation on the roof of the world. In this paper, I will focus on how the environment of Everest has been significantly affected by tourism. My major discussion will be on Everest geography and environment, Sherpas and their cultures, overpopulation, economic prosperity, pollution, deforestation, and extinction of species due to tourism and the different preventive measures against the unnatural changes.

Mount Everest is the highest peak of the world standing at 29,029 feet (8,848m). It is a part of the Himalaya mountain range along the border of Nepal and Tibet which is situated at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau 27° 59' North latitude, 86 ° 55’ East longitudes (Nepal Tourism Board). In 1841, Sir George Everest, Surveyor General of India, first recorded the location of Everest and named it "Peak XV". In 1865, it was renamed Mt. Everest to honor Sir George (Gates). It is also called Chomolungma (Mother of Land) by Tibetans and Sagarmatha (Mother of Sky) by Nepalese. It lies in the place called Khumbu which is a piece of Solukhumbu district located in northeastern Nepal that includes Namche Bazaar, a main village of local tribe Sherpas’, as well as the villages of Thami, Khumjung, Pangboche, Pheriche and Kunde. Khumbu also contains the famous Buddhist monastery Tengboche, Khumbu Glacier as well as Sagarmatha National Park. (Bonington, 125)

Sherpas are an ethnic group of Everest region with their unique and distinct cultures and traditions. The Sherpa language is a dialect of Central Tibetan. Pangboche is the Sherpas' oldest village in Nepal formed before four hundred years after migrating from Eastern Tibet to Nepal (Nepal's People and Ethnic Groups). Sherpas major occupations include agriculture, animal husbandry, and trade. They follow Buddhism as their major religion. Living in high altitude villages without roads or cars, Sherpas hike everywhere and carry everything on their backs, even TVs and refrigerators. Today, they are known worldwide for their skillfulness and power of endurance (Nepal's People and Ethnic Groups).

Sagarmatha National Park is the environmental conservation area of the Everest region for the protection and conservation of flora and fauna. At elevations of around 3500 meters and above, forests of silver fir, birch, rhododendron and juniper trees are found and, in the lower forested zone, birch, juniper, blue pines, firs, bamboo and rhododendron grow (Sagarmatha National Park). Above this zone, all vegetation is dwarf or shrubs. As the altitude increases, plant life is limited to lichens and mosses. The forests are a habitat for at least 118 species of birds, including Danphe, Blood pheasant, Red-billed chough, and yellow-billed chough. The park is a home to different species such as himalayan thars, deer, langur monkeys, hares, mountain foxes, martens, himalayan wolves and rare species like musk deer, wild yak, snow leopard, Himalayan black bear and red panda (SAARC). Sagarmatha National Park is one of eight national parks which has been reported as suffering from pollution and deforestation due to tourism (Sagarmatha National Park).

Everest was closed to climbers until the summer of 1969 (Messner, 225). Now, visitors can enjoy beautiful scenes of tall Himalayas, experience the unique cultures of Sherpas, climb and ski mountains, ski on mountains, and enjoy mountain forests with mountain wildlife. During the 1960s only a few thousand visitors arrived each year in the mountains; however, their numbers amplified rapidly to more than a hundred thousand after 10 years. By the 1980s, 10% of the quarter million yearly tourists went to trek into the mountains (Zurick). “Drawn to the Himalaya by its wonderful sceneries and cultures, travelers continued to increase with each passing year until they peaked at the turn of the 21st century when a half million tourists entered Nepal.” (Zurick) The number of tourists is rapidly increasing without proper management of the tourism field. According to BLS, the number of tourists has been increasing constantly from 1990 to 2000. In 1990, the total number of the visitors was 254,885 which increased to 463,646 by 1999 (BLS). After 2000, the number of tourists slightly declined due to the unstable political situation of the country (BLS). The country was facing civil war for more than a decade untill it became a republic in 2007. However, the number of visitors is still more than enough in the top of the world.

Over the past 50 years, the Khumbu region of Nepal has become a premier international mountaineering and trekking destination (Gates). Everest tourism has become the major source of income for the country and local people. Sherpas have tourism-related employment opportunities such as trekking agents, tour operators, trekking field managers, high-altitude climbers, porters and cooks (Zurick). Also, the government is collecting huge funds from Everest tourism. Each visitor must pay a tax while visiting Everest, climbers must pay higher tax than skiers and others activists. In this way, tourism has helped the economy of the country developing the infrastructure for transportation, electricity, and communication in Khumbu. Luxurious hotels, lodges, eating places, internet cafes, billiard halls, handicraft outlets, and shops are now available on the top of the world in Namche Bazzar due to the development of tourism (Zurick). Namche Bazzar is a gateway to Everest and is the last town before Everest. On the one hand, the life standard of local people is increasing day by day, while on other hand, the environment is constantly deteriorating.

Khumbu is getting polluted day by day due to the increasing number of visitors. People take different items along with them in their treks and expeditions and return back discarding them anywhere they want. Everest has been commodified and trashed; as a result it is currently facing garbage as one of its most serious problems. The heap of trash includes plastics, bottles, tents, ropes, crampons, oxygen cylinders, cell phones, laptops, aluminum cans, glass, clothes, climbing equipment, paper, food, and dead bodies (Gates). Some climbers have found bloody syringes and other medical waste (Gates). The non-biodegradable wastes do not decay and the extreme cold condition of the surroundings can preserve even biodegradable materials like dead human bodies. Therefore, the collection and proper management of daily trash, food waste, and human excrement generated by thousands of temporary residents is a growing environmental problem. The hotels, inns and the temporary tents near the border of Tibet collect their trash in a large wooden basket to be picked up by a truck per week and sent to the remote landfill without separating the products into biodegradable and non-biodegradable plastic waste (Feng). Though, Tibetans has progressed somewhat, Nepalese hasn’t been effective in collecting and dumping of trashes in local level; as a result Everest is getting polluted rapidly.

The ecosystem of the Everest region has been seriously affected due to overpopulation and pollution. They have adverse impacts on regional forests and alpine vegetation because of the use of firewood by camping groups and inns, chopping down trees to construct inns, infrastructural developments like transportation, and other tourist facilities. Sherpas use local forests as a source of foods, medicines, timber, building material, firewood, and grazing as part of their subsistence lifestyles and managing their inns (SAARC). Because of this, the mountain forests have been thinned over an extensive area, depleting the natural habitats of the flora and fauna. Some of the animals like musk deer and snow leopard are vanishing (Sagarmatha National Park).

50 years after conquering the summit of the Everest, Hillary found it so polluted that he spent his last decades raising cash to clean up the mountain (Gates). Sir Edmund Hillary was the first successful expeditor to Everest in 1953 (Gates). In 1976, Himalayan Trust and the Nepalese government with his aid established the Sagarmatha National Park to preserve the remaining soil and forest around Mount Everest. By the mid-1990s the park had an area of 1240 sq km (480 sq mi) (Nepal Tourism Board). To control the exploitation of the natural resources, the park has started a series of forest conservation and alternative energy development measures in the national park and also in a buffer zone, the Pharak region (Sagarmatha National Park). They are promoting people for the use of alternative sources of energy such as hydroelectricity and fossil fuels, and are planning and implementing different forest laws. The park is controlling deforestation and is preserving natural habitats of birds and animals. They prohibited cutting of forest and made rules for trekking and climbing groups about bringing their own fuel to the park for the conservation of local forests. They have made regulations such as burying or disposing garbage in a pit, commercial filming and climbing mountains require permission from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, and prohibition of mountain bikes or motor bikes inside the park (Sagarmatha National Park).

Brent Bishop, the son of Barry Bishop who summitted in 1963 with the first American ascent, is the financial leader of the Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition (SEE), a nonprofit organization established to clean Everest (Charles). In 1995, his expedition removed more than 1,400 pounds of waste, including more than 140 oxygen bottles, 200 batteries, and 100 fuel canisters which were a significant achievement for the SEE (Charles). His most successful expedition consisted of a five-man team who brought 5,200 pounds of trash (Charles). So far, the SEE has removed 17,526 pounds of garbage from Everest (Charles). Bishop is also encouraging other expeditions to make efforts of their own. Bishop developed an incentive program for Sherpas. He developed the program that uses a market-based incentive scheme while studying for his MBA at the University of Washington in 1993 (Charles). In addition to their salary of approximately 2,000 dollars, each Sherpa is paid two dollars for every ten kilograms of trash carried down to recycling plants, and seven dollars for removing every empty oxygen bottle from the mountain (Charles). Inspired by Bishop, sponsors are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund expeditions to bring down trash from previous expeditions.

In 1998, an expedition called the Everest Environmental Expedition removed more than 2,200 pounds of trash and developed a method to remove human waste from Base Camp and Camp Two (Charles). In 2000, Everest 2000 Educational Trek, a climbing team from Canada, helped in removing garbage from the mountain and aiding the cleanup effort in the surrounding communities (Charles). Similarly, Inventa Everest 2000 Environmental Expedition devoted two months in collecting trash from Everest's higher camps. The team with two-dozen Sherpas used extra-large backpacks to transport the trash to the base of Mt. Everest. They sorted the pollutants and then composted burnable and biodegradable trash (Nepal Tourism Board).

As a nation, Nepal didn’t care for Everest’s environment for many years. Nepal became serious about Everest environment after 1992, when the Ministry of Tourism decreased the number of expeditions annually and raised the climbing fee (Charles). Recently, the government has made a requirement of four thousand dollar deposit for each expedition before the climb. This deposit is returned assuming expeditions bring down as much trash as they carried up the mountain (Charles). Also, the government has started to help financially to the Everest cleaning projects. The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee under the government has been highly successful in improving waste management in Everest (Nepal Tourism Board).

It seems that the treks and expeditions should be closed in this region however; the poverty of the country does not allow it to pass on the revenue. Many expeditions have made Everest lose its mystery. Present demand of each Nepalese and the nature lovers is that Everest must be saved. The past fifty years has effectively deteriorated its environment and, if the condition continues like this, then deterioration will reach to that critical point at which the natural environment cannot be recovered. The Nepalese government, climbing teams, and environmentalists should effectively deal with this worsening condition. They should make a master plan to protect Everest. Sherpas and other local villagers should be given alternative ways of earning for living. Formulation and implementation of strict laws, rules and policies should be done to protect the natural state of the top of the world. Some of the efforts such as the establishment of conservation areas and the formulation of current policies are not enough to save Everest. It needs more care, love and respect. Government, community and each individual must be very serious about the bulging problems at the top of the world, so that the future generations will be able to see the natural Everest and care for Everest as their ancestors did. So, please, don’t trash our own future.

Annotated Bibliographies: Bonington, Chris. Everest, the Hard Way. New York : Random House, 1976.

Chris’s book provides the facts about Everest. After, visiting Everest he wrote this book. He wanted to climb until he reached to the top of the mountain. He has described the process of climbing and the different paths to climb Mt. Everest with maps and pictures of the location. The book contains the basic information about various places in Khumbu such as Sagarmatha National Park, Khumbu Glacier and Tengboche Monastry which are very useful for my paper.

Nepal Tourism Board. “Sustainable Products.” 2009 Nov 1, 2009  The Sustainable Tourism Network (STN) is an informal network of individuals and organizations which is promoting sustainable tourism practices in Nepal. It is an official site of Nepal Tourism Board which deals with development of sustainable tourism in the country. It has given information about Everest, especially the efforts that were done to save Everest and the future plans. It helped me too much to prepare my research paper.

Zurick, David, “Tourism on Top of the World” Focus on Geography; Spring2006, Vol. 48 Issue 4, p9-16 EBESCO- academic search elite. Nov 1, 2009



This is a scholarly reviewed article from the book “Focus on Geography; Spring 2006, Vol. 48 Issue 4” and can be found under EBESCO- academic search elite. The article explains about the tourism in Himalayas and it’s adverse on the surroundings. The article has been able to answer to my research question. The article has been very effective to cover the bulging problems in Everest.

Work cited:

BLS “Tourists Arrival Then Now and Predictions” Nepalvista-Nepal Travel Blog January 22, 2008 Nov 1 2009 

Bonington, Chris. Everest, the Hard Way. New York : Random House, 1976.

Charles, Braman “Envirnmental problems and Efforts to save the Mountain” Associated Content.com Aug 13, 2005 Nov 1 2009

Feng, Yongfeng “Cleaning Up the Mount Everest”, World Watch Institute vision for a sustainable world. May 15, 2007 Nov 1 2009

Gates, David “The Demystifying Of Mount Everest” Newsweek Vol. 141 Issue 22, p38. EBESCO- academic search elite. Feb 6,2003 Nov 1 2009

 Messner, Reinhold. Everest : expedition to the ultimate / Reinhold Messner ; translated by Audrey Salkeld New York : Oxford University Press, 1979

“Nepal's People and Ethnic Groups.” Visit Nepal 2009 Dec 10 2009 < http://www.visitnepal.com/nepal_information/people.php>

“Nepal Tourism Board.” Sustainable Products. 2009 Nov 1 2009 

“South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).” Sagarmatha National Park. Nov 1 2009 

Stevens, Stan “Tourism and deforestation in the Mt Everest region of Nepal” Geographical Journal; Sep2003, Vol. 169 Issue 3, p255-277 EBESCO- academic search elite. Nov 1 2009  Zurick, David, “Tourism on Top of the World” Focus on Geography; Spring2006, Vol. 48 Issue 4, p9-16 EBESCO- academic search elite. Nov 1, 2009 