Saturday, 6 June 2015

2015 Are Tea House Treks of benefit to the Himalayan Regions?

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Are Tea House Treks of benefit to the Himalayan Regions?

The Attraction

 
About 130million years ago in the Cretaceous period the continental plate of India began moving north and collided into, and ultimately slide under, the Asian plate resulting in the uplifting of the huge and old compressed Tethys Sea floor. This formed one of the newest mountain ranges on the planet, the Himalaya, and this uplifting is continuing to this day. Evidence of this 60million year old activity is found in the exposed twisted rock strata indicating the immense pressure that resulted in the buckling and folding and in the presence of fossilized brachiopods, skeletal fish and corals which point to the oceanic origins of the Himalaya. Seashells from the Tethys Sea bed have been raised to near the summit of Everest during this process. 

The peoples living to the north and to the south of the great white divide believe the Himalaya to be the abode of the gods, the residence of the deities of India and Tibet. Thus it is that the Himalaya are held to be holy by the native people. Religious views attribute the celestial heights of the peaks to the axis mundi, a symbolic link between the spiritual and secular realms in a joining of heaven and earth resulting in the belief in a mountainous landscape populated by mythical creatures, treasure and monastic settlements; a mystical and spiritual environment filled with inexplicable power.


The stunning beauty of the Hima’ al-aya, the abode of snow (Sanskrit) is evident to all who caste their eyes on the South Asia Highland giants, stretching from Afghanistan to Myanmar. The range of mountains includes the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram and the Himalaya ranges.

To the north of the South Asia Highlands is the high Central Asia region which includes the Pamirs, the mountain states of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and the Tibetan Plateau. This geographic wonder is home to all fourteen of the worlds 8,000metre peaks, the deepest canyon, the Kali Gandaki Gorge and remote gorges, the Tsangpo Gorge is so remote it has only recently been discovered[1].

It is not suprising that such a spectacular and significant geographical feature with ancient beliefs rooted in a mountainous landscape populated by mythical creatures, treasure and monastic settlements, a mystical environment filled with inexplicable powers, has always been such a great attraction for tourists and travellers.

The Beginning

Early travelers left no written account of their journeys, it was not until the early pilgrims and devotees began their search for the legendary places described in the holy Indian and Tibet texts that there was a quest for religious awakening and exploration. Many centuries later the Jesuit priests were urged on by their own religious conviction, others who followed went for other reasons, for conquest, as traders some even went in search of geographical knowledge. Early Europeans first leant about these mountains when Alexander the Great crossed the Hindu Kush with his army in about 325 BC, other notable explorers arrived, Hsuan Tsang (Chinese) in 629 AD, Genghis Khan from the 13th Century, Marco Polo’s traveled in the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs in 1273 AD. In 1590 Father Anthony, a Jesuit priest included a map in his descriptions of the Himalaya and his travels through them. Over the following 500 years the information that has become available could not have been vaguely imaginable by the early travelers looking for new and better sustainable opportunities, knowledge and inspiration[2].  

From the work of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of the 1800s to the internet of today those with a quest for adventure have the Himalaya at their finger tips. But in today’s world is it a quest for adventure, is it developing sustainable livelihoods for those remote communities or is it blatant commercialism?

The first trekker in Nepal was Bill Tilman, who somehow obtained permission from the Maharaja in 1949 to make several treks in the Kali Gandaki, Helambu and Everest regions. The large international expedition era and the quest for the 8,000m summits started with Maurice Herzog, who led a French expedition to Annapurna in 1950.

During King Tribhuvan's visits to India, he met Boris Lissnnivich, a Russian ballet dancer who was running a club in Calcutta. Boris convinced the king that people would like to visit Nepal and would actually pay for the experience. Soon a few wealthy Europeans flew to Kathmandu's Gaucher ('cowfield') airport from India in an Indian Airlines Dakota. Boris accommodated them in his new establishment, the Royal Hotel. The ‘adventurers’ were charmed by Boris and the exotic Kingdom of Nepal. Thus Nepali tourism was born. The Royal Hotel and its Yak and Yeti bar went on to become the meeting place for travelers and climbers from the 1950s until 1971, when the Royal Hotel was closed[3].

As a former Gurkha Officer and Military Attaché at the British Embassy in Kathmandu Jimmy Roberts had spent many years of his life walking the hills of Nepal. By 1965 he developed his idea to provide tents together with Sherpas, to guide and cook, to make Nepal and the Himalaya available to a wider community. In 1965 he took a group of ladies up the Kali Gandaki and founded Mountain Travel, the first of Nepal's trekking companies and the inspiration for the adventure travel industry[4].
 
As early as 1980, Karna Sakya of the Nepal Nature Conservation Society (NTNC) proposed a multi-use recreation area designed to carefully integrate tourism, basic rural development, and environmental protection. In the years that followed, environmental problems in Nepal received much national and international attention, and the Nepalese Government expanded its plans of action to include numerous environmental studies and specific investment projects. Even so, controversy still exists over the magnitude and cost of natural resource degradation and the efficiency of different styles of tourist developmental approaches. 

Eventually launched in 1986, the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) is the largest undertaking of NTNC, it was also the first Conservation Area and largest protected area in Nepal. In order to achieve its intended objectives, NTNC, through ACAP, launched various activities through the ‘integrated conservation and development’ approach under following thematic areas:-[5]
·         Natural resource conservation
·         Alternative energy promotion
·         Conservation education and extension
·         Gender and social inclusion
·         Community infrastructure development
·         Agriculture and livestock management
·         Sustainable tourism management
·         Heritage conservation
·         Health sector support
·         Research and documentation

·         Meeting the Expectations of Today

Large scale commercial trekking was first established in Nepal and Nepal still remains at the forefront of the trekking industry. However, can this industry still be called an ‘adventure’ industry and is it ‘sustainable’? Adventure surely means going into the unknown where the outcome of your ‘adventure’ travels cannot be guaranteed. It is now possible to complete your virtual trek on your home computer using Google Earth and other software; there are endless guide books, maps, internet trek briefings and itineraries available. Along the way there are signposts, guides and helpful villagers all willing to point out the trail and there are more trekking agents and trekking shops in Kathmandu that you can shake a trekking pole at and all to help you find the most suitable option to meet your every requirement and to 99% guarantee that you achieve your objectives and meet your expectations. Add to all of that, on the popular trails, you can now generally rely on arriving at a lodge each night, to be provided with good quality meals, beer and spirits, a comfortable bed, a fire and even attached bathrooms. A briefing will fully inform you of the ‘pleasures and dangers’ of the following day’s trek. So where is the adventure? Is the adventure not one of the very ingredients that entice people to visit the Himalaya regions? And is all this sustainable? In a bid to provide the ‘best’ and to become commercially viable and financially sustainable trekking agents are providing better equipment, you can even use tables and chairs beyond Camp 1 on Everest these days, solar lighting is ‘common place’, hot showers are ‘expected’, attached bathrooms ‘preferred’, an internet service and many other modern facilities are now almost ‘essential’ to entice the trekker to ‘book with us’ and ‘to stay in our lodge’. All this comes at a cost; money can be made, and lost, but the environment, at altitude, that takes years to recover from abuse. In these days of global warming and climate change the ‘abode of snow’ is being reduced rapidly, add that environmental change to the potential damage caused by thousands of trekkers filing up the same narrow trail, camping or staying at the same location, the rubbish generated, even if collected round the back of lodges it gets spread around by the chuffs, yaks and the wind, the constant buzz of the helicopters and the second reason to visit the Himalaya is diminishing, the scenic splendor and tranquility.

 
When big expeditions and trekking began in Nepal, climate change hadn’t been heard of, rubbish disposal, was up to a point recognized, but at that time there wasn’t the modern packaging that there is today, plastic, polystyrene, a proliferation of glass bottles and jars and there was certainly no understanding as to how quickly the ‘adventure’ industry would boom and thus the potential damage to the environment it would create. In many of the world’s developing countries there is an attitude of ‘live for today and we’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes’, but, in modern times tomorrow comes very quickly and man-kind, not just in the developing countries gets caught on the hop. Nepal and ACAP tried to do the right thing developing the facilities around Annapurna to encourage trekkers, to provide local employment and to conserve the environment, but the earning potential was quickly recognised in other areas of Nepal especially in the shadows of the world’s greatest mountains. With no strictly monitored development plans, the ability to ‘persuade’ people to change their minds or to look the other way, the so called tourism development took off. Trekking agents were letting their groups camp anywhere, the local communities received little benefit , in fact just the opposite as their water supply was often polluted, their grazing land left full of rubbish with the evidence of toilet tents being obvious, and their own natural resources were getting plundered. The first step down the ladder to environmental catastrophe had been taken. Before long those people, or organizations involved in tourism quickly saw the potential of developing the ‘tea-house’ model of trekking and sadly this development excluded environmental awareness, local employment opportunities and benefits to the local community from the influx of tourist money through the tea-houses; the main benefactors to gain from many of the lodges are the people from outside the direct locality.

Nepal’s tourism industry is acutely aware of the situation it now finds itself in, however, the dye has been caste and to try to turn the clock back is virtually impossible. With such rampant tourism development of the last three decades, two of which saw civil unrest in the country, it has been very difficult for those in power to keep not only to the plans but to develop plans in line with the rapid demand both from the tourists and from those individuals and communities who interact with the trekkers and who, in return, expect a quick financial boost to their economy.

The Value of Hindsight
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, a luxury and something we can rarely benefit from in terms of a nations development strategy. But can other countries who wish to develop their Himalaya tourism learn from Nepal? Can all of the issues mentioned be better managed to maintain the feeling of adventure and to make tourism a sustainable industry? 

In the modern world life seems to be, in the main, controlled by money and time. A person in a high paying job probably has not got the time flexibility, a lower paid job means saving longer and harder. Trekkers have the constraints of budgets that are not always flexible, time off work that is not always flexible and often expectations that trekkers don’t see as being flexible. In all the trekking industry has been forced to work to a formula that provides the trekker client with the maximum chance to achieve his or her expectations and this in turn means working to a time schedule, with costs being fixed and routes clearly defined. Trekking is now a ‘regular’ holiday activity as is golf, skiing and beach holidays and it is accessible to those who have not necessarily had any outdoor experience. Included in the ‘expectation’ equation are the elements of risk assessment, income generation and sustainability. Everybody involved in the trekking industry, as in every other walk of life, has expectations, safety, and value for money, adequate food and accommodation, financial income and a sustainable future.

If we unpack these we are faced with certain conclusions, we need to prescribe a set itinerary so we are in control of potential problems along the way, we need to provide appropriate food and accommodation to meet the clients perception of value for money and to minimize ‘health risk’, cleanliness, hygiene and water all need to be of a good standard, that means a good substantially built lodge whose staff are well trained, where the cupboards are well stocked and with variety of food stuff, a unit where a standard is maintained and where a system can be held accountable. A camping alternative could often be prohibitively expensive and possibly too time consuming, there are environment issues on popular routes and the variety of food are, out of necessity, reduced. The agents need to be cost effective but at the same time keeping their prices in line with the competition and meeting union standards for Nepali wages. Those providing a service, the staff and lodge owners expect appropriate financial compensation for their contributions and they hope to develop their income generating abilities into a sustainable future.

In Nepal those high profile areas like Annapurna and Everest and areas with a domestic flight service or good road network are those areas most developed.  There are regularly placed lodges offering very good service and facilities, these are in the main sustainable. However, in Nepal everything rests on the political situation and the level of taxes imposed by the authorities, trekking permits, TIMS, Conservation Area Permits, Special Area Permits and for some related activities, filming, liaison office permits and licenses. The changing weather pattern is also a major consideration, bad weather with low cloud means domestic flights can’t take place, over the last few seasons this problem has been on the increase due to climate change. If the balance is not right then trekkers and adventure seekers will chose other destinations. In Nepal there are many other communities that wish to develop sustainable tourism but don’t have good accessibility for trekkers. No matter how much an area is promoted little will happen until the access route is perceived to be regular and reliable – delays caused by the weather or other transport issues are no longer an option that the modern trekker views as ‘adventure’ but more as a disruption to a perceived ‘guaranteed’ outcome . Initially, exploration of new areas and the advertising of the potential it has to offer are done as a result of several days trekking and exploration with full expedition type logistical support. This is often more expensive in terms of man-power and time as well as financial cost. For the remaining remote areas of Nepal, at present, these are in general out of the question based on the time factor alone.

However, such predictability can have a counter and negative effect on the indigenous community and the environment. Many groups of trekkers going to the same lodge(s) along the same trail have an impact on the environment. Trails get damaged and then in the monsoon time collapse unless properly constructed – a managed walk way. Hundreds of trekkers in a season produce a large amount of rubbish that needs to be disposed of human waste is a major consideration especially at altitude – a managed system for disposal. The local environment can suffer as a result of the over use by the trekking staff – staff need educating and proper accommodation and food facilities need to be provided – by the lodge? Above all the trekker of the 21st Century demands acceptable modern standards, facilities and time keeping.

The Future

Mistakes are not always a bad thing, but not learning from them is. A lot can be learned from Nepal’s experiences by other Himalayan regions who might want to develop a sustainable adventure tourism industry. Nepal is world famous for its mountainous trekking routes, but now, as a result of not only being the first country to develop trekking, civil unrest lasting two decades and the more recent disasters involving tourists, tourism in other neighbouring Himalayan regions are slowly beginning to take off and Nepal’s supremacy is being challenged. Development is always a fine balance between the environment and the local communities who want all the modern facilities, a locally developed income generating industry, health and education services without which there will be a slow bleeding of the population to the centres of perceived wealth and opportunity. Sustainable tourism takes time and without a stringent monitoring system this is always going to be a battle with those who will embrace whatever it requires to achieve their expectations, sadly including corruption and turning a blind eye to the law and local impact resulting from of their actions.
As I see it there are two distinct areas to be reviewed:-
·         Those areas that are totally remote and away from any form of habitation, and,
·         Those areas that embrace local communities.
Above all, the integrity of the environment and the communities has to be maintained in both situations.
Initially the key to any area wishing to become a trekker tourist destination is the need to consider accessibility. That said and done, then I proposes to look at the remote areas first. For example the likes of the Chadar trek in Zanskar and the Himachal Pradesh area in India.

Both areas are remote and require several hours drive from the central community before reaching the start of the trekking. Once on the trail there are little or no communities and very few inhabitants living along the way. The initial and obvious pressure point is that of disembarkation/embarkation from/to the transport and this is where a great deal of environment damage will occur. Consideration must be given to parking facilities along with toilets and garbage disposal points, the latter to serve as a collection point for departing groups in which to deposit their trek generated rubbish. This facility should have an accountable and paid member of staff who controls a garbage deposit refund scheme and garbage issues along that particular trek. It would, I believe be a great shame to develop such a remote trek into a ‘Lodge trek’, once the lodges come then comes the supply train with their associated problems, then the power supply with unsightly solar panels, wind turbines, power lines and masts, pylons etc. And there is no turning back from this point. Additional staff are then required and before long the chain of development removes this trek from the ‘remote’ category, the very reason why the trekkers went there in the first place. It will not be too long before the new road and climate change completely modifies the Chadar without the pollution created from regular trekking groups. However, where considered appropriate, a good lodge could be constructed at the road head in a situation where the length of the drive might dictate that the first/last night is spent at the road head vicinity. The Chadar Trek specifically lacks a variation of camping locations so all groups tend to camp on the same beach or at the same cave. Rubbish is already a big issue with the ground being covered with old tins, plastic bags and bottles and the space for pitching a toilet tent is very restricted. It be worth considering situating some form of toilet facility, I don’t mean by building a toilet block but by possibly having a platform with appropriately spaced holes over which visiting groups could pitch their own toilet tent, the product of which then goes into a ‘blue barrel’ underneath the hole, the barrel could then be sealed and evacuated for example, once a week at the height of the season, after all waste would be in a frozen solid state at the height of the Chadar trekking season! By implementing a few cost effective and appropriate facilities the pristine beauty of these areas could be preserved with virtually no environmental damage while still generating a sustainable tourism related industry. The same could be said for Batal, although there are basic facilities available at the start of any trek going into this area these could be improved before the area around the small tea house becomes unmanageable.

It is not possible to turn the clock back, so, to reduce future negative environmental impact organizations like the Trekking Agents Association of Nepal (TAAN) and the IMF in India must implement vigorous educational plans to promote environmentally sustainable tourism via the many trekking agents working in uninhabited trekking regions. The Agents need to manage their own clients and in particular the local trekking staff to be environmentally responsible. Finally the local administration should take on the responsibility to providing environmentally friends waste disposal sites and incinerators. In India’s Himalaya trekking staff training is also essential before the point of no return i reached. I’m sure many readers will be aware of the rural road development plans that are engulfing the higher remote regions of the Himalaya, these roads are in the main built to deliver supplies, not necessarily for the movement of the local population. They are not always carefully planned or their development monitored, again causing negative environmental impact and again once the damage has been do there is no stepping back from the line.

To consider those trekking routes where communities exist along the way
The environmental impact of building a lodge, without appropriate consideration and planning can be devastating. The ground the ‘new’ lodge is to be constructed on will have no doubt previously been used for grazing or basic agricultural purposes, the stone used for the actual building will have to be quarried from another area destroying the surface vegetation of that location resulting in not only the removal of large quantities of stone but also the very fabric of vegetation that helps reduce erosion.  The internal finishing requires an enormous amount of timber, often taken from the local forests or flown in by helicopter, which in turn creates other environmental issues. Then there is the water source, plastic pipes and rubbish disposal. The lodge operators and staff are often brought in from outside the area so little of the generated income goes directly into the local community; food and provisions are again brought in from the main centers of communication. The trekkers bring with them noise pollution, light pollution and all the other negative aspects of introducing a large number of people into a previously sparsely populated and pristine area, all potentially disturbing for the local wildlife. It is estimated that an average trekking group of 15 people generates about 15kgs of non-biodegradable and non-burnable garbage in 10 days of trekking, producing tons of garbage in the mountain regions annually.

To keep the tea house services up to the trekkers’ expectations the owners are always under pressure to provide additional services – showers, battery charging, electric lights, reliable cooking even the provision of alcohol and bottled drinking water and of course healthy and varied food. Thankfully many tea houses are now turning to gas for heating water and cooking and solar or local hydro power for the supply of electricity. Sadly in the remote, difficult and expensive to reach trekking areas all these services create an environmental impact. What happens to all the old solar batteries at the end of their serviceable life, the glass beer and wine bottles, the plastic mineral water bottles, not to mention the deforestation as wood is cut to heat (not to cook on) the tea houses? Several of the national parks in Nepal are implementing policies restricting the cutting of wood and the ‘import’ of glass and soon plastic, however, busy tea houses have other issues to contend with including that of human waste, at altitude ‘brown toilets’ are not functional, the disposal of packaging, often plastic and waste food. There are also morale issues, during the busy season does the lodge owner rent all rooms out for high paying foreign trekkers or does he keep some to one side for the porter and trek staff. If facilities are not available for the trek staff then they will be forced to sleep ‘wild’ thus additional pollution and environment impact will be witnessed. In the Everest region of Nepal there are several porter shelters which are operated by local committees, in some areas ‘wild’ camping and the cutting of local wood is now banned. Many tea houses use temporary seasonal staff, often child labour, brought in from other areas, in many cases by-passing local labour that would probably be more expensive. Of course most of the provisions are transported in from the town or in Nepal, Kathmandu. 

Is there a way forward?
Looking at the positive side of tea house trekking these services add a little more comfort for the trekkers and thus attract a certain percentage of the trekking population who would not otherwise visit these remote areas if they had to camp. Local income is being generated and local communities are being not only empowered, but, provided with a source of income;   but this must be sustainable and of course there can be certain positive advantages as a result of being exposed to foreigners. All the trekkers and mountaineers who visit Nepal expected to see a good and clean environment, if Nepal loses that on trekking routes together with the very real impact of climate change on snow and glacier melt in the Himalaya then what will the trekkers come to see? Will they continue to travel to Nepal or even the Himalaya?
The development of new trekking areas and new tea houses must in future be strictly monitored in a corruption free way. Maybe one way to develop awareness is for all new developers to submit an environmental risk assessment to the authorities before work begins. Any negative impact should be addressed through the developers implementing environmentally positive proposals – planting trees to landscape and protect the locality, terracing to manage the soil removed for levelling purposes, environmentally friendly waste disposal plans, landscaping quarry sites rather than leaving large exposed areas of broken stone. 

Alternatives with added value
There are less intrusive ways to accommodate trekkers in areas that have existing communities. The Home-stay scheme is designed to introduce trekkers into a community, to provide direct financial reward and to develop income generating possibilities for the residents. Small community vegetable plots can be developed that supply the local home stay facilities, certain areas have other natural resources that could be developed, fruit cultivation or side treks that offer the trekker the opportunity to stay in a location for slightly longer. The local family would provide a real cultural element to the trekker’s experience that they would otherwise miss. Training would be required in all aspects of customer care and this in turn would lift the living standards of the community, improve health and in time would bring other advantages to the locality. Although there would be a need for structural development this would not be on the same scale as mega lodge building. It goes without saying all this would need to be strictly monitored and those found ignoring the local planning and agreed terms of development would face heavy fines.

Summary
Any region wishing to look at developing a sustainable trekking and tourism industry should take the advantage of hindsight and study similar areas and countries, such as Nepal, who have already been through the process. They should consider the positive aspects of development and reject the negative implications. Consideration must be given as to why trekkers should visit a specific region and great care must be taken to preserve those trekker expectations, clean unspoilt environments, an adventurous and safe experience. In general trekkers only have a limited time to spend on their chosen activity and route, and that is what they have chosen to do, they do not want to spend additional time holed up due to transport issues, weather is beyond the control of the tourism industry, but a certain amount of predictability and accountability must be included in the planning process. Although trekkers are often viewed by the local population as being wealthy, and perhaps they are compared to the villagers that they might encounter, they should not be seen as the cash cow, and as a result permits, fees, entry passes, transport costs or accommodation and food tariffs should not be set at an extortionately high level.
A high percentage of tourism numbers are generated annually as a result of return clients, destroy the very reason that they choose to visit a certain region of the Himalaya and you destroy the sustainability and longevity of that industry. All development must be in total harmony with the locality and community in which the development is proposed to take place.

[1] Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya, David Zurick & Julsun Pacheco, India Research Press 2006
[2] Illustrated Atlas of the Himalaya, David Zurick & Julsun Pacheco, India Research Press 2006
[3] Tigers for Breakfast
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._O._M._Roberts
[5] http://www.ntnc.org.np/sites/default/files/ACAP_Achievements_Factsheet.pdf



























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