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Contemporary Human Impacts on Alpine Ecosystems in the Sagarmatha (Mt

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Contemporary Human Impacts on Alpine Ecosystems in the Sagarmatha (Mt Contemporary Human Impacts on Alpine Ecosystems in the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Khumbu, Nepal Alton Byers The Mountain Institute, Elkins, WV An integrated analysis of landscape change in the alpine zone of Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Nepal, is presented based on the results from five separate research expeditions conducted between 1984 and 2004. Research results indicate that alpine ecosystems (4,000–5,200 m) within the Imja and Gokyo valleys have been significantly impacted during the past twenty to thirty years as a result of poorly controlled tourism. Impacts within the alpine zone include the overharvesting of fragile alpine shrubs and plants for expedition and tourist lodge fuel, overgrazing, accelerated erosion, and uncontrolled lodge building. Evidence suggests that similar scenarios of landscape change in the alpine zone are occurring elsewhere around the Everest massif as the result of adventure tourism. This article stresses that the alpine zone is a comparatively neglected landscape that is in need of greater protection, conservation, and restoration involving integrated, applied research to the clarifi- cation of problems, the design of remedial projects, and monitoring of their impacts. ‘‘Community-based Con- servation and Restoration of the Everest Alpine Zone,’’ a Sherpa-led project established in May 2004, is provided as an example of how the paper’s research results are currently being utilized by local communities. Key Words: Nepal, Sherpa, landscape change, alpine. lpine environments throughout the Himalaya In the following paper I present the results of an in- have been comparatively neglected in the sci- tegrated analysis of historical and contemporary land- A entific and development literature, despite the scape change processes in the alpine zone of Sagarmatha fact that elsewhere in the mountain world they have (Mt. Everest) National Park, Nepal, based on the find- been long recognized for their fragility and lack of resil- ings of five separate research expeditions to the region iency (Ives and Barry 1974, 871–951; Price 1981, 289– between 1984 and 2004. The earlier (1984–1987) work 300). Soils are young and thin, environments are cold was, quite unintentionally, among the first to challenge and harsh, plant growth cycles are slow, and even minor quantitatively the models of contemporary landscape forms of disturbance can take decades to heal. They degradation in the Sagarmatha National Park that were cover 3 percent of the earth’s surface and are inhabited popular at that time (Byers 1987a, b, c). In fact, results by more than 10,000 species of plants, making alpine suggested that the park’s subalpine (o4,200 m) forests, ecosystems one of the most biodiverse habitats in the shrub/grasslands, and surficial processes were relatively world per unit area (Ko¨rner 1999). They are also im- stable and that a then unknown combination of natural portant as highland water catchments for lowlands; as and anthropogenic factors appeared to be adversely im- sources of natural products (e.g., edible and medicinal pacting the alpine zone (4,000–5,200 m). Still, numer- plants); and for the sustainability of local agropastoral ous unanswered questions remained that I have economies through seasonal agriculture, animal hus- continued to pursue to achieve a better understanding of bandry, and the ecotourism trade (trekking and moun- human–environment interactions in the Khumbu and taineering). While there is a copious Himalayan literature elsewhere in the mountain world. The results of my post- concerned with human–land relationships within the 1984 work are presented here as an example of inte- lower agropastoral zones below 4,000 m (e.g., see Ives and grated and applied research in remote mountain regions Messerli 1989; Zurick and Karan 1999), few studies have that, in partnership with other scholars and field prac- focused on the sustainable use, conservation, and resto- titioners, has (a) served as a fundamental tool toward ration of the more fragile alpine landscapes. Linkages process and problem clarification, (b) facilitated the between, and awareness of, the importance of alpine conceptual design of prospective remedial projects based landscape stewardship and sustainable local economies on reliable information from the physical and social remain limited throughout the Himalaya as a result. sciences, and (c) led to the recent funding and ongoing Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95(1), 2005, pp. 112–140 r 2005 by Association of American Geographers Initial submission, March 2003; final acceptance, September 2004 Published by Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, U.K. Contemporary Human Impacts on Alpine Ecosystems in the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Nepal 113 implementation of a project in the Khumbu designed to Karan 1999, ix). Nevertheless, the positive contributions protect and restore a heavily impacted ecosystem, that of the ‘‘Himalayan crisis’’ debates could be said to in- is, the alpine zone. clude (a) a donor and development community some- what more focused on the need for reliable baseline information and monitoring systems, (b) a generation of Background: Khumbu and the Theory of Himalayan geographers committed to the principles Himalayan Environmental Degradation of long-term, integrated field research, and (c) a greater global awareness for the importance of mountain During the 1970s and early 1980s, it was commonly peoples, environments, and cultures in general (Stone assumed that the Himalayan mountains were approach- 1992; Mountain Forum 1995; Messerli and Ives 1997, ing catastrophic levels of environmental degradation, vii–xi). linked primarily to growing contemporary human and Paralleling the development of THED, the Sagar- cattle populations. Landscapes were said to be ex- matha (Mt. Everest) National Park, Khumbu, Nepal periencing unprecedented increases in deforestation, (Figure 1) was frequently cited as a representative case overgrazing, and the agricultural clearing of marginal study of historical1 landscape stability, followed by con- land. In turn, these phenomena were claimed to be re- temporary landscape change and degradation, in the sponsible for promoting near-crisis levels of fuelwood High Himalaya (von Fu¨rer-Haimendorf 1964, 1975, shortages, soil erosion, landslides, flooding, and sediment 1984; Lucas, Hardie, and Hodder 1974; Speechly 1976; deposition (e.g., Eckholm 1975a, b, 1976; Sterling 1976; Jeffries 1982; Bjo¨nness 1980; Coburn 1983; Hinrichsen Reiger 1981). Catastrophic consequences were predicted et al. 1983). Historically, this interpretation maintained within twenty years. Although supported by little that major landscape transformations (i.e., the large- quantitative or long-term data, a widely accepted para- scale conversion from virgin forest to shrub/grassland on digm for the international development community was most south-facing slopes) were the result of 500 years of established that became the foundation for dozens settlement, population growth, and pasture expansion by of multimillion-dollar conservation projects throughout the ancestors of the Sherpa people, but that ecological the Himalaya-Hindu Kush region. These well-meaning stability, nevertheless, predominated because of the projects were typically designed to reverse the trends effectiveness of indigenous management systems. Con- of environmental degradation through afforestation, ap- temporary issues such as increased forest loss, uncon- propriate technologies, alternative sources of energy, trolled grazing, and accelerated soil erosion were improved land management techniques, and other in- believed to have been encountered and/or exacerbated terventions (e.g., see USAID 1980). only since the late 1950s. Factors of influence, according By the mid-1980s, the conventional wisdom driving to most studies, included the imposition of nationalized these popular perceptions was isolated and synthesized forest policies in 1957, the consequential breakdown of into what ultimately became known as the Theory traditional indigenous management systems, Tibetan of Himalayan Environmental Degradation (THED; Ives refugee impacts in the early 1960s, misunderstandings 1987). The growing uncertainty resulting from the small associated with the park’s establishment in the 1970s, and often contradicting database in support of devel- the rapid growth of tourism, and various other factors. opment projects began to be highlighted (e.g., Currey Challenges to the Sagarmatha National Park ‘‘degra- 1984; Thompson and Warburton 1985; Thompson, dation scenario’’ began to emerge in the late 1980s with Warburton, and Hatley 1986), and the soundness of the completion of more detailed, longer-term studies of formulating management policy on popular and subjec- the park and its people (Byers 1987a, b, c, 1997; Fisher tive assumptions questioned (e.g., Ives 1985; Thompson 1990; Brower 1991; Stevens 1993, 1997b; Brower and and Warburton 1985; Hamilton 1986a, b). The THED Dennis 1998). Geographers, anthropologists, and others was challenged by the academic community as being have played key roles in the clarification of human ‘‘overly simplistic . not supported by rigorous or reli- disturbance and landscape change processes in the able data . and [guilty of ignoring] the great com- Khumbu and elsewhere in the Himalaya, utilizing a plexity of the region and its peoples’’ (Ives 1987, 189; range of field tools and methods from the
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