Tourism Industry Footprint

In the Mount Everest area of Nepal we see a lot bigger problem that the government feels is directly related to tourism. The government fells that deforestation is becoming a problem in the area as a result of new visitors coming to the area to either climb the mountains or just to be there for the scenery. The problems that soon arose was the forest being cut down for firewood for both the native Sherpas and the tourists. The amount of firewood used by the various groups is quite large. Some days the amount used in the area can reach in excess of 200 tons. The other problem that soon arose with the forest was the Sherpas expanding the sizes of their own homes and building motels to accommodate all the new guests coming to the area. Although most of the buildings are made of stone there is still a good amount of logs being used to construct the buildings. In 1976 the idea of deforestation was a big concern among all of the natives around the area, finally the area was turned into the Sagarmatha National Park and the government made laws and regulations on how much wood could be used by everyone including the native Sherpas.

The Sherpas soon started to going to forests outside of the park and bringing it in to help with firewood and building materials. As soon as the areas exporting the lumber became worried of the same deforestation issue that the National Park was, they soon stopped exporting to the Sherpas. The problem with deforestation was probably not as big of a deal as it was thought to be in the beginning. In 1981 the a man belonging to the first group to climb Mount Everest , Charles Houston, took a return trip to the mountain and compared his pictures from his first assent in 1950 to the way the scenery looked in the present day. It showed two things, it showed that the area had a lot more forest than before but it did show slight degradation in the forest. So to a point the forest work regulations were working for the National Park. (Stevens...