Communities, environment, victims of trekking holidays
Mountain resorts are popular holiday destinations for trekkers, yet these beautiful spots belie a host of problems affecting the local communities. These problems were highlighted at a workshop, Mountains and Media, held last month in Kathmandu, Nepal. The Jakarta Post's Ati Nurbaiti attended the event and wrote the following articles.
JAKARTA (JP): When Nepal becomes the topic of conversation, it seems to be only in the context of the wonderful trekking opportunities in this kingdom -- understandable given its blessed location amid the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas.
In the long lines at the country's airport you will find travelers returning to repeat treks from a few years earlier, or to try new routes that will afford them weeks and weeks of breathtaking views.
Nepal attracts trekkers from around the world. In the words of one German veteran, "You're not really alone. You meet one, two people at the lodgings and end up with many more."
People coming to Nepal seem to spend most of their money on airline tickets; a good night's sleep at the simple lodgings lining popular trekking routes costs a mere 40 Nepalese rupees -- not even 50 US cents ($1 is equal to about 73 Nepalese rupees).
"Real" climbers are joined by hordes of visitors who are not necessarily knowledgeable about peak climbing. According to experienced trekkers, a number of routes, most notably the Annapurna circuit, require only a strong will and a modicum of fitness.
As waves of tourists crowd the trekking routes, there has been resentment from the "professional" climbers, as well as locals concerned about the resulting impact on the community.
The impact of tourism was just one topic discussed at a workshop focusing on issues related to mountains and mountainpeople. The workshop was held from Dec. 12 to Dec. 16 at the Panos Institute South Asia and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), both based in Kathmandu.
The particular characteristic of poverty among mountainpeople was highlighted, a problem also found in Indonesia. The workshop was part of events leading up to the Year of the Mountains in 2002, a campaign meant to raise public awareness of the particular issues facing mountainpeople.
Concerned mountain lovers have long been engaged in such a discourse. One focus of an online discussion forum, Mountain Voices, was the planned construction of a road in the Upper Mustang area, which is among the most popular trekking routes.
After eight years of intensive tourism in the area, one participant in the discussion forum said that all locals got was "300 percent inflation, the habit of begging money for taking photographs .... "
Panos Institute South Asia sums up the dilemma of road construction: the roads are essential for marketing mountain produce, but when markets are opened up, their resources "are extracted at unsustainable rates, mostly by businesses in the plains".
Such dilemmas are likely to remain a part of life in the kingdom given that over 50 percent of Nepali live below the poverty line, "unable to eat two meals a day", as one expert says.
Journalist Sangeeta Lama says she thinks porters should be paid more than the 300 rupees they earn per day, per trekker. "One bottle of Coca-Cola (in trekking areas) reaches 600 rupees," she says, while pointing to the risks faced by porters. Quite a few are known to die each year from the long-term effects of carrying heavy loads up steep paths in severe weather.
The poverty of Nepal's villages remains largely unknown to visitors; the kind of poverty which sends young women into the flesh trade. Louise Brown in her book Sex Slaves notes that most Nepali women driven into prostitution -- many of them to brothels in India -- have been found to have come from "politically marginalized hill tribes".
The impacts of tourism are made worse by other disadvantages faced by mountainpeople. The sheer isolation of living thousands of feet above sea level means little access to schools, health facilities and markets.
The isolation goes further: experts say politics in the kingdom are dominated by people from the plains, hence the tendency to neglect those in the mountains. While the mountains are often cited as "valuable resource bases", they are sparsely populated. Politicians find that for the same investment, many more votes can be gained on the plains, writes Shantanu Nagpal in a report on food insecurity in the highlands.
Another problem for mountainpeople is the increasing burden on women as more men leave the villages to work as menial laborers in the cities, often forced from their villages by bad harvests and low prices at markets.
Is subsistent living a way out? Poverty expert Pitamba Sharma does not think so. Having come from a mountain village himself, he is ready to face reality: mountainpeople cannot live in isolation, regardless of the bemoaning of the negative impacts of exchanges with outsiders, including traders and tourists.
He tells of his father, who was willing to see his children leave to get an education outside the village, where the prospect for many is a life of back-breaking labor for meager returns.
The way forward, he told the workshop, is in small hill towns with markets, schools and the other infrastructure needed by mountainpeople. Farmers would benefit from direct access to markets, without the layer of middlemen.
Mahesh Uniyal, reporting on an ICIMOD study of hill towns in the book Tough Terrain, writes: "If the location is right, the market center will generate off-farm employment and attract potential migrants who would otherwise flock to large cities."
Also, intervention from the government, such as subsidies on fertilizers and free seeds to encourage cash crops, has largely failed. The sudden rise in income has led to the overuse of soil and neglecting traditional methods to maintain fertility.
An ICIMOD expert quoted in Nagpal's report says all the free seeds and subsidies "do not give farmers a fair idea of the cost of inputs going into their land".
The book reports another side effect of government intervention in the Himalaya highlands: In households used to consuming 20 kinds of foodstuff, now they consume only five. Traditionally planted leafy foodstuffs, millets and roots are displaced by rice and wheat.
The harsh climate, isolation and poverty are among the factors leading to the need for a quick response to the changing needs in the mountains. It is no wonder then, as anthropologists note, that mountainpeople can only afford to think in the short term.