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The Himalayan mountains lie along the northern borders of India, and stretch across the tiny kingdom of Nepal. For the Nepalese people, these mountains are holy places, home to the gods. Shiva, one of their gods, is believed to live on one of these mountains, and it was he who released the "waters of life" into their rivers and streams, nourishing the lands below. For centuries, the hill people of Nepal have been carving the mountains into well maintained, terraced fields to grow crops for their survival. Each family, owning around two acres, plants fields of rice, millet and other crops suitable for the lofty altitude. The growing season is only five to six months long and produces enough food for each family for about half the year. For the remainder of the year, the men take jobs as carpenters, laborers or sherpas, porters who carry supplies for trekkers from the West who are challenged by the peaks of the Himalayas. But behind the facade of brilliance and the spectacular beauty of the mountains is a story of human tragedy. To understand the story, we must go back to the very beginning. One hundred and fifty million years ago the earth was one large continent. Through a shift in the plates beneath the ocean, a portion that is now India split off and floated north. After millions of years adrift, that which is now India collided with the Asiatic continent. As the two plates smashed against one another, the crusts of each mass pushed upward, building the Himalayan range. A cycle of earthquakes, landslides and floods continued the growth process. Man learned to live on these mountains in a delicate balance that was maintained for centuries. But population growth has caused a shift in that balance. In just a few recent decades, this little country, about the size of Florida, rose in population to 14 million people. The farmers terraced higher and higher, into the mountains, close to the water's source. These terraces did not last against the force of the headwaters and would wash away after a few seasons, taking soil, rocks and stones with them. To compound matters even further, the increase in population was defoliating the mountainsides. Because Nepal's source of fuel was provided by its forests, the trees began to disappear. Villagers tell of when the task of gathering firewood to cook their food and warm their houses took only about an hour and a half. By the early 1970's, it took from sunrise to sunset to gather enough wood from receding forests to last for several days. In addition, the cattle, oxen and goats used to make farming easier, and allowed to roam free, were gradually stripping the mountains of their vegetation. Without the trees to absorb the torrential rains from annual monsoons, the "waters of life" became a force of death and destruction to the hills and in the valleys below. During the four months of rain that come each summer, the hill people watched, as their terraces were ripped loose from the mountains, sending the terraced rocks, topsoil, crops and cattle downstream. Each season, more land was being lost and eventually entire villages were being swept down the mountainside. After that, each time it rained, the hill people would stay awake all night, fearing that their homes would be washed away. Downstream, the debris poured into rivers, causing them to rise and overflow. Farm land became inundated with water, rivers and streams became muddy with silt. Water was undrinkable. As the farms and villages of the hill people were being washed away, the farmers downstream were loosing their land to the rivers. All were facing starvation. Historically, when civilizations in other parts of the world had destroyed or exhausted their land, societies collapsed and the people moved on. In Nepal, the people wanted to stay where they were, in their homelands, with their friends and their families, where their heritage was. In the 1970's, the Nepalese government knew that its country was in crisis, and with the help of several international agencies, they began experiments with integrated land management programs, building dams, reforesting mountainsides, planting grasses they then protected from overgrazing. A handful of community owned nurseries were created and sapling trees were available for villagers to plant on their land. The managers of the nurseries mobilized the farmers and the work of reforesting their land began. In the cities, solar power was introduced for energy back up in industry. A hydroelectric dam was built to utilize one of Nepal's greatest resources, their water. But in the villages, where a farmer's annual average income was $24.00 per year, solar panels were cost prohibitive and electricity was unavailable. They continued to have problems until an American Peace Corps volunteer, staying with a family in the hills, suggested that they build a bio-gas unit. The family he stayed with was the first to build one in 1973. Five buckets of water combined in a tank with a dozen loads of dung supplied by their animals, created enough methane gas per day to heat the home of a small family, as well as fuel for cooking. In combination with the use of bio-gas units, if 5-10 acres of trees were planted by each village annually, 85% of Nepal's watershed would be restored. But the story doesn't end there. The effort to reverse the effects of deforestation and its consequent soil erosion are being undermined by a new threat -the tourist industry, and more specifically, trekking. According to statistics printed in an article from "World Press Review" titled "HITTING-AND-OBLITERATING THE TRAIL", by David Nicholson, 1,500 tourists visited Nepal in 1970, compared to the 300,000 in 1993. According to the article, approximately 25% of those visitors were trekkers. In spite of tremendous efforts on the part of the World Wildlife Fund and other ecological groups to create "sustainable tourism" in areas like Mount Everest and Annapurna in 1986, the damage from the tourism industry is overwhelmingly irresponsible and reprehensible. "...an estimated 18 tons of rubbish, from tin cans and beer bottles to oxygen tanks, has been dumped on the mountain alone (this does not include such items as abandoned helicopters)." Everest's National Park has been labeled the world's "highest trash pit". But even worse than the trash is the concern for the trees. It has been calculated by the Katmandu Environmental Education Project that each hot shower required by the 70,000 trekkers annually necessitates the felling of three trees. Add to that the taste for a hot meal at tea houses and lodges built to accommodate them and paths cut into the mountainside everywhere to get from place to place, and you wind up with the same end results as before the villagers slavishly embarked on their monumental reforestation program. The well planned parks, involving the participation of local residents in protecting their land, as well as sharing in the profits their lands are earning, have yielded only twenty cents out of every three dollars spent by visiting trekkers. The World Wildlife Fund was financing the parks until the entrance fees of eight dollars per trekker could make the park self-supporting. To that fee should be added the cost of three trees. In the beginning, many villagers were opposed to the idea of a park. In other areas of Nepal where parks were created, they had heard of whole villages being moved so that the area would regain a wilderness appearance and of families forced to relocate and then dying of tropical diseases connected with the move. According to the chairman of the Nepal Tourist Watch, as reported in the "World Press Review", "...there is growing evidence that tourism contributes little to local development. Instead, it reinforces racist myths and cultural stereotypes, increases "mutual incomprehension," undermines families, and bolsters a political and economic elite." Most of Nepal's rural population is still dependent on its environment for their livelihood, and tourism is alleged to be one of the main factors in helping to destroy it, as well as all the good will of agencies like the Peace Corps, who are trying to promote better understanding between East and West. No more can we sit and criticize third and fourth world countries for their ignorance. We are working at cross purposes with the very agencies our tax dollars support. |