Tourism and Deforestation in the Mt Everest Region of Nepal
Author(s)
Stevens, Stan
Abstract
Over the past 50 years the Sherpa-inhabited Mt Everest region of Nepal has become a premier international mountaineering and trekking destination. Tourism development has brought prosperity to many Sherpas. It has also, however, had adverse impacts on regional forests and alpine vegetation because of the use of firewood by camping groups and inns and the felling of trees to construct inns and other tourist facilities. Concern that tourism was causing widespread deforestation helped catalyze the 1976 establishment of an inhabited protected area, Sagarmatha (Mt Everest) National Park, in the Khumbu region and spurred the implementation of a series of forest conservation and alternative energy development measures both within the national park and in a recently declared buffer zone in the adjacent Pharak region. This paper examines the changing pressures that tourism has placed on regional forests and alpine vegetation over the past half century and their role in regional vegetation change.
