Indigenous Nepalese Knowledge For Waste Free Tourism

February 20, 2007

Indigenous Knowledge For Waste Free Tourism [ 2007-2-16 ] By Hari Krishna Uprety

Khumbu is no doubt a popular tourist destination. Every visitor who comes to Nepal for the first time wants to go to Khumbu, the region where the highest peak of the world Mt. Sagarmatha and other magnificent mountains are located. The region also offers uninterruptedly, unspoiled and esoteric cultural heritage along with Sagarmatha National Park (SNP)-the World Heritage Site that is synonymously known as Nepal's Unique Selling Point (USP) in tourism language.

Khumbu is home of famous Sherpas. According to the 2001 census, Khumbu inhabits about 6,000 population mostly of Sherpas within its three administrative Village Development Committees (VDCs) namely Namche, Khumjung and Chaurikharka (Pharakpa).

Tourism was introduced in the region after Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hillary for the first time successfully conquered the roof of the world- Mt Sargarmatha or Everest in 1953. The region received highest number of visitors (25,924) in 1999 and 2000. Tourists' arrival in the Khumbu region has not come down from 13,841 (2004) even when the nation was badly marred by severe conflict. In 1985 some 8,000 tourists had visited the region.

Due to high number of tourist arrivals, migration of local people from its hinterlands to the Everest trail is in increasing trend because of its business potential. Growing number of tourist hotels/restaurants, lodges and teashops along the trail has invited various sanitary problems like shortage of drinking water, problem of sanitation and waste management. In cold climate decomposition is too slow or even non-existent particularly during winter. However, sanitary condition is better at expensive hotels. But such hotels are not easily accessible to all tourists and support staff.

Local people of interior Khumbu, close to the main trekking trail, still live a traditional way of life following the century old practices of soil management, which was in practice in other parts before tourism began in the region in 1950s. They still use human waste as manure in the potato farms.

Potato being the staple food of the mountain community, many people even today depends on potato for their survival in these areas so the practice of human waste use is still alive. All houses in off trail villages like Thame, Khumjung, Phortse, and villages at Pharakpa, Muse, Thulo and Sano Gumela own indigenous toilets called Sottar Charpi. Such toilets are very common in Sherpa houses.

People collect leaves from nearby forests and use for night soil cover after every use of toilets. Use of leaves for waste cover reduces awful toilet smells which is later used as manure in farmlands particularly for potato growing. In the early days, local Sherpas from rural backward and poor villages of the region were hired to fetch the manure but now labourers normally from other districts like Khotang, Sankhuwasava and lower parts of Solukhumbu go to carry compost load to the farmlands at a higher rate of wages.

In tourism, such indigenous practice itself might be tourism product for selected tourists who prefer to be aware of the indigenous knowledge and practice. However, modern system has replaced these sustainable practices which might be a great threat to tourism in the future. Even now, Khumjung and Namche are facing problems of waste management due to heavy pressure of hotels, lodges and restaurants where modern toilets are built-up that require substantial amount of water to flush out. Building drainage systems, treatment plant and mechanized disposal in such high altitude will require unaffordable cost and introducing high tech sometimes might not work and sustain. Now porters carry human waste back from the Everest Base Camp (EBC).

Overlooking of indigenous practices by modern societies and its practitioners has created problem to proper disposal of human waste along the Everest trail. Some teashops have directly connected toilet outlets to nearby streams to get immediate relief instead of making compost. Such a practice may contaminate river water and invite various water borne diseases like diarrhea and dysentery to downstream water users. Improper disposal of night soil has further reduced possible growth of organic farming and people have to import chemical fertilizer for farming.

If we could propagate this indigenous practice of waste management and composting technique with bit improvement in order to reduce bad smell along the main trekking trail wherever space is not constraint and in other culturally and socially feasible areas, this would substantially help to promote organic farming.

Thus the development partners should encourage the people to introduce and propagate improved version of such toilets to ensure its friendliness to tourists and at the same time to produce compost for vegetable and a waste free trail for the visitors in other similar tourism potential areas of high mountains. One modern toilet's cost might be enough to build three indigenous toilets with improvement. The hotels, which have built up modern toilets, can also realign their septic tanks/soak pits design and make compatible with the improved Y-shaped toilets which is familiar in Nepal's rural areas commonly known as Sulav Charpi at household level. If Sottar Charpi could be improved to Sulav Charpi, it will provide compost for kitchen garden, household lawn and flower pots. The manure of the tourist hotels and lodges can freely be distributed to farmers so that the farmers can grow organic vegetable that is famous in Khumbu.

This practice will have multi-fold benefits because it reduces possible risk of epidemics due to improper management of toilet wastes, helps for forest management and avail compost for farming which is a good practice of night soil management, household sanitation and environment friendly tourism development. This will further reduce the dependency on imported chemical fertilizers. In addition, leaf collection from forests helps to keep forest productive, control fire hazard and enable forest to be diverse by allowing germination of forest undergrowth which ultimately helps to grow heterogeneous species in the forest biodiversity that is also indispensable for eco-tourism.

If a little effort is put on it and tied up with energy schemes e.g. high altitude biogas, wastes can be transformed into energy which is also known as resource recovery in terms of waste management. Indigenous knowledge and practices of people from the regions have opened up new avenues for environment friendly tourism, which will be beneficial to the locals in many ways.

http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=12735

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