National 10 (Spotlight Weekly)

Strategy For Sustainability

Does Nepal gain by charging foreign tourists more than locals?

By AKSHAY SHARMA

"Kathmandu I'll soon be leaving you and your strange bewildering times will hold me down," sang Cat Stevens a generation ago. The song today serves as a reminder of the harsh realities that lie ahead as Nepal presses ahead with its "The Year of the Mountain" campaign to bolster tourism.

"Your country is very expensive," says Wolfgang Peterson, a 60-year-old visitor from England. "You can see Nepalese faces glow up, as we mean dollars to them." Peterson, who was staying at the Mahendra Youth Hostel at Jawalakhel, suggests that Nepal could earn more if it adopted a policy of charging the same amount to all tourists — foreigners and locals.

Trakkers : Lured by nature

Nepal's natural beauty beckons visitors from around the world. "I once said to myself that I would never come back to Nepal after a few Nepali teenagers assaulted me," says Swiss national Hans Rauthenbaur. "But the next season, I was back."

Rauthenbaur, 60, comes to Nepal twice a year. He narrates another episode of bitterness, this time surrounding his marriage to a 16-year-old Sherpa girl. "I thought I was in love. My wife had left me. Since I had always thought of Nepal as my second home, I came back. But the girl and her family had only plans to extort some dollars from me."

Hans came to Nepal as a young man several years ago and worked as an engineer. He soon fell in love with the country. "In order for trekking and tourism to achieve the maximum positive effect on the local population, the local population must be fully involved in the whole process. This was acknowledged long ago for the success of rural projects," he says.

An example of this might be Annapurna trail, famously known as The Apple Pie trek". The trail had been once called the "toilet paper trail" because of the litter. However, through the active participation of the local people, the trail has become an example for the country.

A three-day international seminar on mountains held discussions on several issues, including tourism. "Mountain areas are theaters of armed conflicts and violence — without peace, there is no development." Seventy national and international organizations from 20 countries adopted the Kathmandu Declaration on Mountains IMY 2002, urging their governments to work harder to establish peace in the mountains.

The 10-point declaration reaffirms international commitment in such areas as mountain education, modern mountain services, sound agriculture practices, bio-diversity protection, mountain resource management, high-altitude medical research, cultural heritage and eco-tourism.

Tourists in Kathmandu : Looking for more facilities?

Recalling the 1982 Kathmandu Declaration on Mountain Activities, the 2001 Declaration of Merida of the Andes and the 2002 Declaration of the UNU International Symposium on Conservation of Mountain Ecosystem, the Kathmandu Declaration 2002 pledges to implement previous commitments on conserving the mountain ecosystem.

Stating that the mountains of the world are undergoing serious problems, the declaration also stresses the urgent need for attention from governments, academics, civil society as well as business people.

Emphasizing the importance of recognizing the problems and prospects of mountains at all levels — from grassroots service delivery and activism to policy planning and decision-making — the declaration urges governments to set up and strengthen a repository of mountain knowledge.

Issues relating to mountains should be included in the formal and informal educational curricula in order to meet the real needs of the mountain people, the declaration states. It also urges the international and national scientific communities to push further the frontier of mountain knowledge in both natural and social sciences to harmonize exogenous and endogenous forces for the betterment of those living in mountain regions. The declaration calls for the development of modern mountain science that builds on traditional knowledge.

Reading out the declaration, Dipak Gyawali, member of the Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, said: "Mountain agriculture is symbiotically interlinked with agro-forestry. The challenge of harmonizing highland agriculture with environmental concerns lies in recognizing and strengthening community forestry and livestock practices and integrating them with the sustainable development of non-timber forest products."

Gyawali said the declaration had been drawn up to support the concept and practice of biodiversity registration, including that of codified and non-codified knowledge systems in mountain regions as a means to prevent bio-diversity loss as well as to protect the rights and indigenous knowledge systems.

"Verticality in the mountain regions is the cause of both aesthetic and backbreaking toil. Mountain regions are rich in all four major sources of renewable energy-hydropower, wind, solar energy and biomass. Development policy must be better informed about diversity," said Gyawali.

The international meeting urged business and industry leaders to work out and implement a "green audit" of production together with the conservation community.

Inherent geological conditions and climate being the main causes of frequent natural disasters like earthquakes, landslides, floods, volcanic eruptions and glacial lake outburst floods, the meeting stressed the need for in-depth scientific studies on various aspects of geology.

Calling for better sharing of knowledge and sensitivity toward geological equilibrium and increased intensity of research collaboration between earth scientists working on mountain regions, the meeting laid stress on medical practice, especially on prevention measures among pilgrims, porters and trekkers and people in remote mountain areas.

Diverse cultural and natural heritages of the mountains are traditionally inter-linked with each other. Cultural forces are influential factors in maintaining protected areas. "Sustainable eco-tourism should be promoted to directly benefit the local communities," says the declaration.

Ganga Jung Thapa, Dr. Chandra Gurung, Badri Dev Pandey representing the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation, World Wide Fund for Nature and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature respectively, highlighted the purpose of celebrating 2002 as International Mountain Year. Karl Schuler, Gabriel Campbell and Beth Schommer representing SDC, ICIMOD and Ev-K2-CNR also expressed their views.

The Annapurna trail is among the most popular ones, drawing 60 percent of the total annual trekkers. The unique mix of sub-tropical lowland oak, rhododendron, bamboo forests, high alpine meadows and desert plateau make for rare treat.

As you fly from Pokhara toward Jomsom with Mt. Annapurna — the 10th tallest mountain in the world — on one side and Mt. Dhaulagiri the other, you will not realize that once you have landed at the Jomsom airport you are at the deepest gorge in the world. There are about 474 species of birds, 101 species of mammals and 1,226 species of plants to greet you, if you happen to be a nature lover. The trail comprising of the two districts of Manang and Mustang the Annapurna region is rich with its varieties of chortens, Gompas, and temples.

Tourism is the world's largest industry. It has grown exponentially over the past few decades and is supported by a $3 trillion dollar infrastructure. It is continuing to expand at 15 to 30 percent annually in so called eco-tourism alone. But Nepal's tourism industry has seen a sharp fall due to the Maoist insurgency.

Tourism has created over-dependence and economic vulnerability. The implementation of an economic policy which sees ecological and societal stability as a resource to be packaged and sold for a short-term material gain has led to the abandonment of traditional and more sustainable means of survival. The addition of the word "eco" in front of tourism has proven to be cosmetic.

"An injustice has been done to so called backpackers ever since Thamel started to develop in the mid-1970s," says Hans. "Despite a long neglect by all tourism promoters and municipalities, this ëLittle Kowloon' has been putting money in different pockets."

Agrees Stephen Lipert, a 28-year-old back packer from Germany. "If back-packers had not paid a lot of money, Thamel clearly would not have grown to what it is today."

Does Nepal profit by charging foreign tourists more than local visitors? As any economics teacher would say, you can choose to exhaust a resource by deriving benefit from one item at a larger scale than going into a deficit by getting benefit and letting your resources get exhausted or benefit by using it over a longer period of time or doom the program itself by overusing it. In other words, by overusing the resources, Nepal's tourism industry might collapse.