Tourism and deforestation in the Mt Everest region of Nepal

Abstract

Over the past 50 years the Sherpa‐inhabited Mt Everest region of Nepal has become a premier international mountaineering and trekking destination. Tourism development has brought prosperity to many Sherpas. It has also, however, had adverse impacts on regional forests and alpine vegetation because of the use of firewood by camping groups and inns and the felling of trees to construct inns and other tourist facilities. Concern that tourism was causing widespread deforestation helped catalyse the 1976 establishment of an inhabited protected area, Sagarmatha (Mt Everest) National Park, in the Khumbu region and spurred the implementation of a series of forest conservation and alternative energy development measures both within the national park and in a recently declared buffer zone in the adjacent Pharak region. This paper examines the changing pressures that tourism has placed on regional forests and alpine vegetation over the past half century and their role in regional vegetation change. This analysis is based primarily on detailed accounts of past and present forest use and change obtained during fieldwork conducted in all Khumbu and Pharak villages, along with corroborating evidence from early foreign visitors’ accounts and photographs. Contrary to some early reports it now appears there has actually been little deforestation since 1950. The continuing use of firewood by inns, however, has contributed to the thinning of forests in some parts of the national park and to the depletion of shrub juniper in the most heavily visited alpine regions. There has been a greater impact on forests just outside the national park, which have been heavily thinned over an extensive area in order to provide timber to build inns within the national park.

Water Quality in the Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal: A Modification of Viable Field-based Testing Methods

“…Though agriculture is an important component of resident's lives, increased dependence on tourism has reshaped the local economy and social structure (Nepal 2000;Manfredi et al 2010;Panzeri et al, 2013). While tourism has brought prosperity, it also resulted in significant changes to the Sherpa culture through a complex interplay of effects on lifestyle and livelihood practices, resource governance systems, development interventions, and technological innovations (Stevens 1996;Rogers et al 1998;Stevens 2003;Byers 2005;Ives 2005;Panzeri et al, 2013;Mukherji et al, 2015). Within the Sherpa community, there is much debate about how to develop a sustainable economy without exacerbating environmental and cultural degradation (Nyaupane et al 2006).…”

An ever-changing place: interpreting landscape change in Sagarmatha National Park, Nepal; re-photographic survey and encounter

“…SNPBZ in 2011 is more connected, modern and economically diverse, with airports, cell phones, radios, TVs and internet access. Boon or blight is one label for the dilemma posed by tourist development in the region (Byers 2005;Nepal et al 2002;Stevens 2003). Not all villages have grown; those that have are located conveniently along the main trails (Brower 1991) and have economically progressive attitudes toward growth and tourism (Byers 2005).…”

Tourist Traffic In The Aconcagua Massif Area

“…Cunha (2010) emphasised the destructive impact of broadly understood tourist industry on plant and animal species in Brazilian Atlantic forest National Park and the possibilities of limiting harmful factors. The impact of tourist traffic on the degradation of the mountainous landscape of Australia was described by Edwards (1977), of Torres del Paine National Park by Farrell and Jeffrey (2001), of the Mount Everest area by Karan and Cotton (1985), Stevens (2003) and others. A significant problem on the highest mountain peaks (Kilimanjaro, McKinley, Aconcagua) was addressed by Apollo (2010,2011,2014), who linked tourist traffic with pollution of the natural environment with waste and faeces.…”