Impact of Tourism in Mount Everest Region: Approach to Modernization and Economic Dependency

Case study by:

Sophiya Shrestha

For:

South-Asian Economic Development

Economics 349

Professor Khan
Impact of Tourism in Mount Everest Region: Approach to Modernization and Economic Dependency

Introduction

Nepal was opened to foreign visitors in 1950 after two centuries of isolation. Annual tourist visit was as low as 10,000 until 1965 but dramatically increased in the following decades[1]. The majestic mountain ranges have always been the center of attraction for many visitors, attracting increasing number of tourists each year particularly for trekking and mountaineering activities.

The Mount Everest region, locally known as Khumbu, is the gateway to many majestic mountains including Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Khumbu is located in the high altitudes of the north-eastern part of Nepal. It is set in the valley of Imja Khola enclosed by majestic peaks rising above 8000-metres such as Mount Everest, Lhotse and Cho Oyu. Khumbu is located at the headwaters of Dudh Koshi near the Tibetan border and there are eight Sherpa inhabited villages in the area. Khumbu is home to Sherpas whose primary occupations were high-altitude animal herding and subsistence agriculture. SherpaSherpas were also involved in annual trans-Himalayan trade where they conducted barter exchange of Tibetan salt and wool for rice, maize, millet and wheat with Sherpas and Rais of lower Dudh Koshi area.

s are Mongoloid and Buddhist and share closer cultural ties with Tibet than Nepal. Increasing tourism activities have transformed the lifestyle of Sherpas in numerous ways.

Until 1964 only mountaineering expeditions were allowed to visit Khumbu but after the region was opened the number of visitors multiplied to 8000 and increased even more in the following decades. Most of the trekkers are from United States, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The most popular time of year to visit this area is in October and November when the weather remains clear.

Objective and Framework

The objective of this paper is to study the transformation of Khumbu region due to tourism activities. The study will attempt to evaluate the effect on the economy, society, culture and environment of Khumbu region and evaluate whether it can be considered a successful model of tourism-led development. I will be utilizing the framework of modernization and economic dependency[2]to study the changes brought about by tourism in Khumbu region. Modernization will include the evolution and integration of social structures into greater political and economic systems with technical, social and cultural transfer from ‘modern’ to ‘traditional’. I will utilize the framework of economic dependency to study the evolving interdependency at regional, national and international level brought about by the advent of tourism in Khumbu region.

Transformation of Economy

Greater employment opportunities and increasing affluence

The government of Nepal emphasizes development and growth of tourism in order to secure foreign exchange and to stimulate economic growth. Increasing tourism activities has lead to increasing prosperity of Sherpas and elevation in their living standards. While the annual per capita income for the nation was $229 (2003, WDI), annual per capita income for most of the people in Khumbu area was $1400[3]. Sherpas, who were involved in higher altitude work, earn average of $7000[4] annually which issubstantially above the national average. Mountaineering in Khumbu region is a source of substantial foreign exchange for the government of Nepal. A royalty of $50,000 is charged for a team of 7 people and additional $20,000 is charged if the team wishes to scale Mount Everest from East Ridge route.[5] The ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation also requires the expedition team to keep monetary deposit subject to refund after the dispatch of garbage from Nepal.

Most of the Sherpa households have adopted income-generating activities based on tourism. Sherpas are employed in trekking and mountaineering activities as group leaders (sirdars), porters and cooks as a part of trekking groups or mountaineering expeditions.While due to their growing positive reputation Sherpa men are most likely to find trekking or mountaineering job easily, participation of women have been relatively small though some women are employed as kitchen or camp crews or as pack-stock drivers. As Sherpas of Khumbu continue to discover better opportunities brought about by tourism, they have started consideringa job of porter inferior due to low pay. So, in recent years most of the porters in Khumbu are from outside the area; they are mainly the Sherpas,Rais and Tamangs [6]from lower areas.

Since the late 1960s, tourism based businesses and entrepreneurship has also mushroomed in the region. Numerous lodges have been built to cater to the trekkers and mountaineers. Stores selling food, souvenirs and selling or renting trekking or mountaineering paraphernalia are also quite popular. At the beginning Sherpas used to merely modify their own houses or herding huts as lodges, nowadays there are specially built lodges with modern facilities. However, the cost of building a lodge is increasing because of the high cost of land and rising cost of materials especially wood.

Running a lodge in Khumbu is a highly lucrative business as a popular lodge can earn as much as $10,000 a year, and most lodges earn at least $2000 annually. That provides enough funds to purchase supplies at the local weekly market or Kathmandu and to hire wage labor.A committee of local lodge owners has been formed to monitor prices of Khumbu lodges to avoid any price wars.

Though employment as a part of expedition is seasonal, most of the Sherpas are employed throughout the year by the mountaineering and trekking agencies based in Kathmandu. Also the income earned during the tourism season is sufficient for the rest of the year for them as food, lodging and other expenses are paid by the expedition enabling them to bring the entire paycheck home.

Increasing Income Inequality

Income inequality has been increasing due to tourism based activities as not all household could establish the lucrative entrepreneurship or get lucrative jobs. Household in villages which are not optimal for tourism have significantly low income compared to households that are involved in high paying trekking or mountaineering employment or other tourism based business or that own large herds of cattle and Yaks. Nauje, one of the villages in Khumbu located at the entrance of Khumbu area has 70 percent of the total shops in Khumbu and almost all the lodges are also located here. Hence, households in Nauje have benefitted highly due to its prime location. Other villages in Khumbu that have benefitted due to their location are Kunde and Khumjung. While some villages like Phurtse, Yulajung and Thami Teng have no prospect for tourism as some of them are near the pass leading into Tibet where tourist are prohibited from visiting. Though income inequality persists there has been no social tension in the area. Instead the Sherpas who are not able to benefit from the tourism activities continue to look for trekking and mountaineering careers and also seek low wage employment in the areas where tourism activities exist.

While a number of Sherpas are engaged in lucrative employment opportunities, Sherpas, Tamangs and Rais from the lower altitude areas and villages with poor business prospect resort to low-wage employments in the lodges, hotels and other operations. They are often involved in low-paying jobs like hauling water, collecting firewood, cooking and cleaning.

Other Economic Changes: Multiplier effect, higher monetization of economy and inflation

Multiplier effect of money earned through tourism-based activities is evident in the area as the money earned through tourism based activities has been primarily been used to buy local agricultural products from low altitude areas and after 1980s in hiring local construction workers and agricultural day laborers. But significant amount of the money leaves local hands as it is spent on products and supplies from low altitude areas and Kathmandu. Money is also spent on pilgrimages to Kathmandu, India and Tibet and also on sending children to Kathmandu. The wage paid to laborers from low altitude region also leaves the local hands.

The local economy has been highly monetized. Rise in tourism activities has elevated importance and use of cash replacing traditional barter trade of goods as well as services. It has also lead to inflation of some of the primary commodities as lodges and mountaineering groups buy larger quantities of supplies pushing up the demand as well as price of goods. Inflation in food and fuel prices has especially put pressure on the low income groups that are not involved in tourism activities. Households that are involved in tourism activities can use their high tourism generated income to overcome inflation.

Effect of Tourism in Land-use and Environment

Subsistence Agriculture to Transitional Agriculture

Government as well as local communities focuses more on the economic growth triggered by tourism. However, tourism also results intransformationof the economy. Before tourism flourished in Khumbu, subsistence agriculture existed. In fact, Khumbu as a whole existed as subsistence economy which is -‘characterized by the isolation of the economic unit and by the independence of each household comprising the production unit’ (Barkay, 1981).Sherpas cultivated potatoes, barley and buckwheat.

Subsistence does continue to be the goal of agriculture and families growing crops with the help of reciprocal help and migrant labors with local knowledge and without any commercialization. Increasing focus on tourism has marginalized the traditional local subsistence agriculture shifting it to transitional agricultural system.

‘In Khumbu the transitional agricultural system is a result of a traditional system exposed to internal and external political, social and economic factors which have disrupted the traditional practices’ (Bjonness, 1983). Trekking seasons occur during the period of important agricultural works like planting and harvesting. Though women have always played the fundamental role in the cultivation of land, shortage of labor often arises due to absence of male members of household. This has lead to permanent need to hire migrant agricultural worker from lower altitude areas creating increase in expenses as well as less intensified farming resulting in reduced agricultural product despite increasing demand for food.

Increasing demand for food by tourists has been met by importing foods from lower-altitude region at weekly outdoor market in Nauje and Kathmandu. Transaction is funded by cash generated from tourism. Lodge-owning families have increased their production from their household gardens however commercial production of vegetables have not taken place. Households producing surplus potatoes sell it to the lodge owners and to trekking groups.

Change in Pastoralism

Effect of tourism on pastoralism has been greater as people have transformed the size and composition of herd they keep. Traditionally, they used to keep female Yak called Nak for dairy product and to cross-breed with Tibetan Bulls to produce Urang Zokpio in order to sell them in Tibet. These animals were also used to obtain manure and dried dung (fuel). Influenced by tourism activities, Sherpas keep few Zhum (female cross-breed) and cows for dairy products and a large number of Urang Zopkio. Urang Zopkio is popularly used by trekkers and mountaineers to transport their stuff. As people have been keeping large number of Urang Zopkio[7], it has increased pressure on grasslands and inhibited forest regeneration due to intensified grazing leading to depletion of vegetation making it incapable to hold the soil.

As people keep larger packstock of cross-breeds called Urang Zopkio used as means of transportation by tourists to higher altitude regions, there has been rising problem of overgrazing leading to intense degradation of pastures in villages. Community regulation for grazing is violated when packstock are brought to Nauje to meet the expedition and the herd would graze in the lower valley grass. Erosion of alpine soil due to overgrazing is evident in Khumbu region. Lush greens in the higher altitudes have also been degraded due to trampling and browsing by expeditions accompanied by packstock[8].

Deforestation due to increase in demand for fuel- wood

Rise in tourism has lead to increase in demand for firewood as it continues to be the main source of fuel energy used for cooking, heating and campfires by lodges as well as trekking and mountaineering expeditions. Though increasing demand for firewood due to rise in tourism has lead to thinning of forests in Khumbu especially in the villages of Nauje, Khumjung and Kunde, disintegration of local forest management system due to nationalization of local forest by central government in 1957[9]under Panchayat system has contributed in aggravating the problem of rapid deforestation.Before nationalization of forest, local people operated traditional forest management system based on Buddhist belief to obligate people to protect local forest and even appointed forest guards. After the management of local resources was undertake by central authorities, local people felt alienated from forest and withdrew their traditional obligation. People often violated the rules set by central government to protect Khumbu forests.

Upon identifying the need for involvement of local people, central government established SagarmathaNational Park in 1976 and appointed Mingma Norbu (a local resident) as park warden[10]. Internationally accepted rules formulated by International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) were imposed strictly.Park authorities have banned expeditions from using fuel wood for cooking and heating and advised them to use kerosene stoves instead. They have also banned people from felling trees for construction purposes. However, such restrictions have not been imposed on local lodge owner who continue to use fuel wood increasingly. A lodge uses more than four times the amount of fuel used by local Sherpa household[11]. Despite the restrictions, local people continue to sell fuel wood to tourist for high economic returns.

High-altitude forest, woodlands and alpine shrub lands along the popular trekking areas have experienced pressure. Some lodges located in the higher altitudes along the way to Mount Everest have also put pressure on subalpine woodlands as they procure their fuel supply from there. Namche Bazar, historically with dense forest has been heavily deforested due to tourism activities.

Some initiatives have been taken to develop alternative sources of energy in order to stop depletion of natural resources but it is still insufficient and not fully developed. Hydroelectric project near Thami Og by Central government with the aid from Austria has been completed and may reduce fuel use[12]. Additional alternative energy source for Khumbu area is Namche Bazar 33kw Micro Hydel project. Other initiatives like installation of solar water heaters in lodges in Thyangboche and Namche Bazar provide supplemental alternative energy.[13]

Problem of Garbage Disposal

There has been elevating problem of garbage disposal created by tourist. Heap of garbage accumulated in the Mount Everest base camp area created an unsightly scene in the formerly pristine mountain region. The problem of accumulating trash is worsening mainly due the increasing number of mountaineering expeditions and trekkers. The gravity of situation has even lead to a proposal by Sir Edmund Hilary to stop allowing people to climb Mount Everest until the problem of garbage is addressed sufficiently. Foreign environmentalist, trekking companies and other organization has attempted to organize cleaning efforts with little success due to intensity and size of the problem.

In 1993 Nepalese government adopted the policy of granting only one permit per route per season to scale Mount Everest and also raised the royalty to $50,000 per expedition and environmental deposit of $4000 per expedition[14]. The expedition was required to pack all non-disposable trash and oxygen bottles to Kathmandu and eventually ship it to their country of origin in order to retrieve the environmental deposit. Some of the expeditions considered it sunk cost as they did not care to adhere to the regulation calling the deposit ‘a fee to leave trash in Nepal’ while some expedition did put an effort in adhering to the policy.

Though further trash disposal was substantially reduced, there was a persisting problem of historical trash that continued to mar the aesthetic value of Everest base camp area. Rob Hall and Gary Ball from New Zealand organized a group and successfully removed 4.5 tons of garbage from the base camp[15]. This was possible because base camp is easily accessible by yaks.Another important and exemplary step was taken by Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition, by scaling Mount Everest without using any supplementary oxygen and removing garbage from the base camp. Rob Hall from New Zealand and Todd Burleson from United States created an incentive program when they paid $2 for every 10kg of trash collected and $6 for every oxygen bottle[16]. Collected trash was sorted and disposed off responsibly. Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition also set an example by bringing minimum supplies from their country of origin and using supplies and food available in Nepal, which was instrumental in reducing the amount of trash generation. “Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition 1994 brought 900 kg of supplies from United States including personal gear and clothing, climbing equipment and food, while other expeditions on Everest that year brought over 900kg in food alone” (Bishop, Naumann 1994).