An initiative will mobilize mountain experts and climbers to end the waste deposited on Mount Everest, after more than 40 years of commercial expeditions, the organization announced this Sunday, International Mountain Day.
The company of “environmental engineering” and technology The NeverRest Project will promote this project, together with the Government of Nepal, to rejuvenate the highest mountain in the world, to which tourism arrives more and more massified.
“After more than 40 years of commercial expeditions and dumping of rubbish in the area,” The NeverRest Project aims to clean up Everest in five phases, ranging from assessing the impact of tourism to a raid to clean up the mountain from its Nepalese side. , which will be carried out by local and international experts.
The team includes engineers, technology specialists, biologists and specialists in climate change, who will be joined by climbers such as Kilian Jornet, Alex Txikon, Tamara Lunger, Simone Moro and the Nepalese Lakpa Nuru Sherpa, informed the organizers, who will also count on the HyperloopTT company support for “contact international talents🇧🇷
“The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, a non-governmental organization contracted by the Nepalese Government to monitor waste and environmentally manage the Sagarmatha National Park – Everest region -, stated in an annual report that, between 2019 and 2020, it removed about of 7.5 tons of waste from expeditions in the Khumbu area”, said officials from The NeverRest Project.
The same officials added that, between 2017 and 2018, 60 tons of garbage were collected in the Khumbu area and more than 165 tons of waste in Namche, Lukla and surroundings, while between 2018 and 2019 that number was 251 tons.
This organization criticizes mass tourism, one of the threats to this ecosystem, along with the climate and biodiversity crisis that plagues the planet as a whole.
“Each year, new expeditions and ‘trekking’ arrive in the Everest area that make the situation perpetuate, although each season garbage removal campaigns and recycling work are carried out with companies headquartered in the territory”, warned those responsible.
According to IUCN World Heritage, the world heritage department of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, between 2014 and 2016 the level of average annual visits to the Everest region was 30,000 people, while between 2018 and 2019 the number rose to 57,000 , that is, tourism almost doubled in just three years.
In the summer of this year, the “Mountain Clean-up” campaign carried out by the Nepalese Army removed a total of 33,877 kilograms of rubbish from the slopes of Everest, Lhotse, Manaslu and Kangchenjunga, a mountain from which two bodies were also recovered, according to the The NeverRest Project, which now intends to carry out expeditions to discover the dimension “real” of this environmental problem, given the lack of data.
“Globalization, economic and social crises, and living in times of change and uncertainty cause the proliferation of short-term benefits that not only do not benefit, but also have a negative impact on our economic and social system”, reads if in the statement, quoted by the Spanish news agency Efe.
The NeverRest Project also aims to create a “sustainable base camp“, from which Everest’s waste can be managed, as well as launching educational awareness programs that give visibility to Nepalese experts.
For his part, Dhananjay Regmi, Executive Director of the Nepal Tourism Board, stated in a letter that “everyone talks about mountains and sustainable tourism” and “Nepal also faces this problem and this issue always comes up when promoting the mountain range for tourist activities.“, whereby “it is time to think together to find permanent solutions🇧🇷
Source: Sicnoticias
