In November 2004, news was flashed around the globe that a delegation of environmentalists would present a petition (Climate Justice Programme 2004) to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to place the Sagarmatha National Park (SNP) World Heritage Site on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger, citing melting snow and glacier ice as the primary threat. This development, brought to the attention of Mountain Forum by Ms Salima Khatoon of the Mountain Forum Secretariat, was hotly debated in the Mountain Forum's global discussion list (mf-global@mtnforum.org). Several members of Mountain Forum also participated in this spontaneous discussion.
An overview of the debate
Dr Thomas Schaaf of UNESCO clarified that SNP was already a World Heritage Site under the World Heritage Convention, and that Qomolangma (the Chinese side of Mount Everest) was nominated as a Biosphere Reserve on 29 October 2004, and was now part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Program. UNESCO services both world heritage sites and biosphere reserves.
Prof Jack D Ives, while appreciative of the drive to enlist SNP on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger, expressed concerns that this may deflect attention from equally important challenges to the integrity of SNP, such as inefficient park management. He noted that carefully researched studies, such as those of the Imja Lake, researched in detail since the early 1980s, had altogether escaped the notice of most of the current group of environmentalists and filmmakers, and advised that a methodological scholarly approach (such as collection, replication and archiving of photographic images as a basis for the study of glacier and lake change) was needed instead of another “overdramatized rush for consulting contracts.”
Dr Lorenzo Cappon of the EV-K2-CNR Committee, an organization that has been working at the Pyramid Observatory located in Lobuche at the heart of SNP for over 15 years, regards the petition as confusing and counterproductive, as it is not based on updated documentation and information and therefore does not describe the actual situation. He agreed with Professor Jack Ives that by focusing on one single problem, the petition runs the risk of obscuring more immediate and equally important problems facing the region. Furthermore, he criticized it for being a ‘top-down’ initiative that did not involve or request the viewpoints of local stakeholders. He sees it as yet another example of mismanagement of a serious environmental problem, based on incomplete or out-of-date information and proposing unilateral interventions and “solutions.” According to Article 11.4 of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, the criteria for adding a World Heritage site to the danger list require description of “serious and specific” threats to a heritage site. Dr Cappon finally stated that “In the case of Everest, we cannot limit our call for protection to an isolated fear, without drawing in the multi-faceted influences a natural environment is faced with,” at the same time criticizing the petition for having left EV-K2-CNR's list of publications almost entirely unreferenced in the petition.
Mr Phuntsho Namgyel, PhD candidate at the University of Reading, UK, voiced the opinion that he was unable to piece together a case for the petition at a time when Russia too was signing the Kyoto Protocol and the latter was well on its way to becoming an international instrument for dealing with climate change. He wondered if the impact of climate change on a heritage site such as SNP was advanced for reasons of self-interest in order to add this site to the danger list. Moreover, he expressed concerns over what the implications would be for the national government and local communities if SNP was placed on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger.
Mr KN Vajpai of Prakriti, Dehradun, India, warned that not only a natural heritage site such as SNP, but also planet Earth itself may well be needed to be placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger with respect to the universe.
Mr Roger Payne, Sports and Development Director of the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA), mentioned the UIAA's expedition in 2002 to Island Peak (a low neighbor of Everest), when the film Meltdown was shot for UNEP to promote World Environment Day during the International Year of Mountains 2002. The expedition found a glacial lake 2.5 km long, 500 m wide and 100 m deep, whereas there had been no lake in the area in 1953 when Island Peak was first climbed.
Dr Javier Corripio of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology referred to an article in the online edition of The Guardian newspaper dated 24 September 2004 (Watts 2004). The article talked about a detailed study carried out by researchers from the Academy of Sciences on China's glaciers (which are said to account for 15% of the planet's ice). This study claimed that the highest ice fields would not last another 100 years. Dr Corripio noted that these findings were based on a simplistic linear extrapolation of the ice volume lost during the last 25 years, without considering topography, elevation, precipitation, or the general energy balance of high-altitude glaciers: “This is the equivalent of saying ‘If I can run 1 km in 4 minutes, I can run 180 km in 12 hours.’”
Mr Gehendra Gurung, Director of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project, Nepal, called attention to the related phenomenon of glacier slides. In August 2003, a huge mass of glacier slid down to the mouth of Madi Khola River, which is fed by the lower glaciers of the south face of Annapurna II, damming it for hours. When the glacier and the water suddenly burst, the flood, lasting 6 hours, destroyed human life, land, forest, livestock, property, and infrastructure. While glacial lakes develop gradually and close monitoring makes it possible to predict floods, glacier slides are difficult to monitor and predict. They are more likely to occur without warning in steep parts of the Himalaya.
Mr Vimal Khawas of the Centre for Development Alternatives, Ahmedabad, India, noted that observations by geo-scientists have detected various rates of glacial retreat in different parts of the Himalaya. While the Zemu Glacier in North Sikkim has been retreating 8 m per year, the Kangchenjhau Glacier, also in North Sikkim, is behaving differently. He further stated that local measures such as checking deforestation and overgrazing in high-altitude areas may not be sufficient to check glacial melting, as glacial retreat is a global problem requiring global action.
Mr Mingma Sherpa of World Wildlife Fund USA recalled that the residents of Khumbu have seen little support since the famous glacial lake outburst flood of 1985 that drew the world's attention to this phenomenon in SNP.
Mr Rajiv Rawat, PhD Candidate in Geography at York University, Toronto, Canada, noted that with the intensification of natural resource use and the spread of urban sprawl into hill and mountain areas, more local research and activism at national and global levels is required. While the encroachment of industrialization onto hill and mountain areas is nothing new, he expressed his fear that the world is set to experience a far greater extractive process than ever before, particularly as China and India experience rapid growth on the Western model of high consumption and high pollution.
Mr Remi Chandran, Project Assistant at the Environment and Sustainable Development Programme (ESD) of the United Nations University, suggested that Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs) would be a good way to address impacts of climate change on fragile mountain ecosystems. The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Asia Carbon International B.V. and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi was a significant step toward enhancing Asia's participation in CDMs, entailing cooperation in the areas of stakeholder capacity building, establishment of a CDM Projects Portfolio, consolidation of the global carbon market, and other areas of cooperation focusing on mitigating climate change.
Ms Mandira Shrestha, Water Resources Specialist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Nepal, pointed to the transboundary nature of some glacial lake outburst floods. In April 2000, about 300 million m3 of debris, soil, and ice dammed the Yigonzangba River (a tributary of the Yarlanzambo, also called the Brahmaputra). Despite mitigating measures taken by the government of Tibet, the dam burst on 10 June 2000, resulting in a total economic loss estimated at USD 22.9 million and rendering over 50,000 people homeless downstream in Arunachal Pradesh, India. Because of the trans-boundary nature of glaciers, cooperation is required between the countries affected in terms of data sharing, monitoring of potentially hazardous glacial lakes, establishment of early warning systems, and adoption of mitigating measures. Ms. Shrestha stated that ICIMOD was working with its member countries as well as international experts to forge regional cooperation, with the aim of reducing these kinds of physical vulnerabilities in the Greater Himalaya region.
Conclusion
Like many issues that generate much debate, climate change in the Himalaya and its impact on glaciers is rife with competing arguments. While the efforts of activists making petitions can only be lauded in their intention, such efforts must be tempered with more extensive research and seek a broader opinion base.
When so many voices call attention to a plethora of issues, ill-researched and biased arguments tend to do a disservice to the larger issue, while trying to achieve the exact opposite. The use of the celebrity firepower of big-name climbers such as Chris Bonnington and Reinhold Messner to lead a petition drive in a ‘top-down’ fashion, without input from relevant local and national stakeholders, as well as from the researchers who have painstakingly documented the Everest region for decades, is counterproductive in the long run. Mountain Forum members remain acutely aware of the pitfalls of such an approach and continue to encourage all those involved with mountains and mountain development to debate such issues before hastening to any conclusions.
The messages to the mf-global discussion list on which this synthesis is based are archived at: http://www.bellanet.org/scripts/lyris.pl?visit=mf-global. Other members who contributed to this discussion (November 2004 to January 2005) on Mountain Forum's global discussion list were Peter Roderick, Director of the Climate Justice Programme, Dr Jane Pratt, Shan J. Ashton, Mr. Neel Kamal Chhetri, and Mr. Yubaraj Dinesh Babu of TERI.
