- Tourism on the world's highest mountain has nearly doubled in just three years.
- In the summer of 2022, the Nepalese Army removed a total of 33,877 kilos of garbage and recovered two bodies.
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| More than 200 climbers collapsed on the summit of Everest on May 22, causing a dangerous situation at an altitude of 8,848 meters. |
They launch a project to clean Everest of garbage before mass tourism
An initiative will mobilize mountain specialists and climbers such as Kilian Jornet, Alex Txikon, and Tamara Lunger to end the waste deposited on Everest after more than 40 years of commercial expeditions.
The "environmental engineering" and technology company The NeverRest Project will promote this project together with the Government of Nepal to green the tourism that increasingly arrives en masse to the highest mountain in the world, as announced by the organization this Sunday, coinciding with the Day Mountains International.
"After more than forty years of commercial expeditions and abandonment of waste in the area", from The NeverRest Project, they aspire to clean Everest in five phases, ranging from the evaluation of the impact of tourism to a raid to clean the mount on its side Nepalese, which will be carried out by local and international specialists.
The team includes engineers, technology specialists, biologists, and climate change experts, who will be joined by climbers such as Kilian Jornet, Alex Txikon, Tamara Lunger, Simone Moro, and the Nepalese Lakpa Nuru Sherpa, according to what the organizers have reported, who will also support in the collaboration of the company HyperloopTT to "connect international talent".
"The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, the NGO commissioned by the Nepalese government to monitor waste and environmentally manage the Sagarmatha National Park -the Everest region-, stated in its annual report that between 2019 and 2020 it had removed some 7.5 tons of garbage from expeditions in the Khumbu area -there were 60 tons between 2017 and 2018-, and more than 165 tons of waste from Namche, Lukla, and surroundings -251 tons between 2018 and 2019", they recalled from The NeverRest Project.
This organization, they are critical of mass tourism, one of the threats to this ecosystem along with the climate and biodiversity crisis that plague the planet as a whole.
"Every year new expeditions and trekkings arrive in the Everest area that causes the situation to perpetuate, despite the fact that every season waste removal campaigns and recycling work are carried out with companies based in the territory," they warn.
According to IUCN World Heritage, the department dedicated to the world heritage of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, between 2014 and 2016 the level of average annual visits to the Everest region was 30,000 people, while between 2018 and In 2019 the figure rose to 57,000, that is to say, that tourism almost doubled in just three years.
In the summer of 2022, the Mountain Clean-up campaign carried out by the Nepalese Army removed a total of 33,877 kilos of garbage from the slopes of Everest, Lhotse, Manaslu, and Kangchenjunga, a mountain in which two bodies were also recovered, pointed out from The NeverRest Project, that now they want to carry out expeditions to find out the "real" dimension of this environmental problem, given the lack of data.
"Globalization, economic and social crises, and life in changing and uncertain times cause the proliferation of short-term benefits that not only do not benefit but also have a negative impact on our economic and social system," the statement said.
His initiative also aims to create a "sustainable base camp" from which Everest waste can be managed, as well as launch educational awareness programs that give visibility to Nepali specialists.
For his part, Dhananjay Regmi, executive director of the Nepal Tourism Board, an entity dependent on the Nepalese government, stated in the letter that "everyone talks about mountains and sustainable tourism" and "Nepal also faces this problem and this question is always is when we promote mountains for tourism activities", so "it is time to think together to find permanent solutions".
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