Closing Everest

Fifty-four years after Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to summit Mount Everest, there is a serious push to temporarily close the mountain to expeditions.

Environmental groups are becoming increasingly concerned that growing piles of garbage and human and medical waste are on the verge of causing an environmental catastrophe on one of the great natural wonders of the world.

“Resting Mount Everest for a number of years is at the top of our list,” PT Sherpa, a spokesman for the Kathmandu Environmental Education Project, told Britain’s The Guardian newspaper.

Groups also worry that the increasing commercialization of the surrounding countryside, such as the establishment of restaurants, bars, hotels and internet cafes, is creating pollution and destroying the indigenous peoples’ way of life. Sherpa says that providing enough electricity and water for Everest-area and other Himalayan communities is challenging because of the tens of thousands of tourists and climbers competing for the same resources. He says urgent action is needed to protect depleting water supplies.

A recent United Nations Environmental Program study also found that the landscape of the mountain itself has changed considerably since Hillary’s ascent. It partially blames global warming, and also says the increase in tourism and expeditions has damaged the area.

“For a while, I wondered whether I had done a bad thing, made it too easy for foreigners to come up,” Hillary told a news conference on May 28, 2003, the 50th anniversary of his climb. “Just sitting around, knocking back cans of beer, I don’t particularly regard as mountaineering.”

The Himalayan Trust, a charitable organization he created to raise awareness about local inhabitants known as the Sherpas, is calling for a temporary moratorium. “We strongly believe that not just Everest, but the whole of the Khumba Valley needs a sustained rest,” said the trust’s Elizabeth Hawley.

A report by the World Wildlife Fund also says that only about 10 percent of the money tourists spend in the area reaches the local villages. But the Sherpas who make their living working as guides say that closing the world’s highest mountain will destroy their livelihoods and local villages. “There are tens of thousands of people in the region who solely depend on the trekkers and mountaineers for their income,” said Sherpa guide Ang Dawa. “If they don’t come, these people and their families will starve.”

For now at least, the argument may be academic. The Nepalese government says it has no intention of closing the mountain—or of foregoing the $94,000 fee it charges each team of seven climbers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 21st, 2006 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Under-reported. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.