Tourism: Taking control of Everest climbers‘ environmental impact (AP 2015)
Read the following paragraphs carefully.
A More than 3,000 people have stood atop Mount Everest since the world’s highest peak was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay 60 years ago. Climbing Mount Everest has become part of the adventure industry. In 2013, the first Saudi woman and female amputee made the summit. Other mountain records include the first wedding and the first video call. But all of these firsts come with a downside: the booming alpine tourism industry is having a big environmental impact.
B Nepal has eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest. Nepalese authorities say that the number of visitors has roughly tripled in the past 20 years. With the increasing number of tourists comes a growing amount of rubbish left behind on the mountains: food wrappers, climbing gear, oxygen cylinders, and even the bodies of climbers who died along the way. The frigid temperatures mean trash does not biodegrade.
C Over the past six decades, an estimated 50 tons of trash has been left on Mount Everest, „the world’s highest garbage dump.“ Mountaineering associations have complained about the growing number of inexperienced climbers leaving their garbage behind to save the energy they need to reach the summit or return to base camp alive. Famous climbers such as Reinhold Messner have said Mount Everest has been trivialized, calling for Nepal to close off access to the mountain for a handful of years to allow it to recover.
D Now Nepal’s tourism ministry has acted, deciding that from April 2014 onward, every climber going beyond base camp will be required to bring back at least eight kilograms (17.6 pounds) of their personal waste and hand it over to officials stationed there. That’s the amount the government estimates an exhausted climber discards along the way. The aim is to make sure that now new trash will be left on Everest.
E Pasang Sherpa, general secretary of the Nepal National Guide Association, thinks this new garbage rule is a good idea, but what’s lacking are clear instructions. „It’s not yet clear how many days after starting the ascent of Mount Everest we have to bring back the trash. And they also didn’t say how much has to be brought down from which camp. There are many different camps on different heights and we have to know from which camp we have to bring back how much,“ he said.
F If climbers don’t bring back their garbage, the tourism ministry will take legal actions against them, Nepalese officials said. But what exactly these legal actions entail remains unclear as well. Up to now, Everest climbers have had to pay a deposit of $4,000 (€2,900) that was refunded after proving that they brought back everything they took up to the mountain.
G According to Gordon Janow, Director of Programs of Alpine Ascents, a United States-based mountaineering school, Mount Everest can push even the most experienced climbers to their limit and if someone doesn’t pick up all of their trash, it doesn’t mean that this mountaineer doesn’t care about the environment or is lazy. „If someone is struggling to get down and stay alive it might be hard to think about picking up the trash,“ he said. „So if someone doesn’t come down with eight kilos, will a Nepali attorney find the person in their home country and will a judge say they should have taken the trash down even though it might have caused them an injury?“
H The new rules were not implemented to limit tourism. The Nepalese tourism ministry in fact encourages the increasing number of climbers and recently cut its fees in half for individual climbers of Mount Everest and other Nepalese peaks to attract yet more tourists. There are also plans to fix additional ropes and possibly ladders to ease congestion at bottleneck areas like the Hillary Step. After all, Everest’s tourism industry earns Nepal $3.3 million a year in climbing fees. On top of that, it supports tens of thousands of trekking guides and hotel owners who depend on climbers and tourists for their livelihoods. It will take a combined effort from mountaineers, the local Sherpa people and Nepalese authorities to liberate Mount Everest from its piles of rubbish.
Adapted from https://www.dw.com/en/taking-control-of-everest-climbers-environmental-impact/a-17502443