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Categories / Documentary Portraiture / Documentary Reportage /Tags / Asia / climate change / documentary photography / human interest / Nepal / tourism / Click here to open comments section, click again when done to close / 1 Comment

One Response to “The Khumbu Attracts Visitors From Around The Globe”

1. Tweets that mention Bite! magazine » The Khumbu Attracts Visitors From Around The Globe -- Topsy.com, on July 5th, 2010 at 9:50 pm Said:

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Text by Prawin Adhikari. Khumbu, also known as the Everest region, is one of the three sub-regions of Sherpa settlement in the Himalayas. The region attracts visitors from around the globe; mountaineering and tourism has now replaced traditional trade and farming to become the backbone of the Khumbu economy and culture. The high Himalayan and inner Asian ranges have the largest areas covered by glaciers and permafrost outside the polar regions. The ice and snow provides important short and long-term water storage that serves more than 1.3 billion people in the downstream basin areas of ten large Asian rivers that originate in the mountains. Imja glacial lake, created only in the last century by a prodigious retreat of the glacier, is cited by researchers as a potential disaster for Khumbu: An outburst would sweep away many a downstream settlement, destroy infrastructures and jeopardize communities, and forever destroy parts of an ancient culture.

There is plenty of information regarding the potential of this and other glacial lake outbursts in the Khumbu region, but there is very little documentation of the human aspect: How do Khumbu people perceive this threat? What change in climate have they experienced? What alarms them most? What is the solution to these perceived problems? Where should the solutions come from?

 A clear separation of opinions and attitude seems to exist. One group is not sure about the signs of change; it is restless and angry, demanding scientific solutions. It sees the retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas as the result of the hubris of the industrial nations. It sees its future threatened—language, culture, livelihood, all melting away with the snow on the mountains, and lives in constant paranoia that glacial lakes will burst and sweep away all of Khumbu.

The other group focuses the blame locally, and therefore sees the possibility of redemption through a change in behavior. This group blames itself for veering away from traditional modes of living to one that generates a lot of waste. Burning the waste and burying what
can’t be burned has obviously angered the gods. If the people of Khumbu stop angering the gods that live in mountains and valleys and rivers and lakes, the apocalypse as described in Sherpa scriptures—during which 9 suns will fill the sky and melt Earth—will be postponed until a later time, when, once more, people will forget their Dharma, and become deserving of such an infernal end.

This series juxtaposes the two worlds within Khumbu and tries to make sense of how real the changing climate is or the threats borne by its predicted consequences for the Sherpas of Khumbu, who are interconnected to, and, of course, affected by these complex changes.