UNEP: With litter piling up, mountain tourism reaches a crossroad

Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja has spent years scaling the world’s highest peaks. During a seven-month stretch in 2019, he climbed all 14 of the world’s 8000m-plus mountains. The fastest anyone had ever accomplished the feat.

But during a recent visit to Nepal’s Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, Purja wasn’t going for the summit. He was there to clean up piles of rubbish, including ropes and oxygen canisters, left behind by other climbers.

Purja, the star of a new Netflix documentary 14 Peaks, and his team would haul away 500kg of trash. They are now planning to climb another infamously messy peak, Mount Everest.

“I have seen first-hand the effect of climate change and waste in the Himalayas,” said Purja, who was recently named a Mountain Advocate for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “We want to protect and restore these sacred mountains for all those who call them home.”

A mountaineer surrounded by rubbish.
Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja and his team recently cleared 500kg of trash from the slopes of Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest peak. Photo: Nimsdai / Sandro
In recent years, and in particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, tourists have flocked to the world’s mountains, leaving behind piles of trash. A recent survey of 1,750 mountain enthusiasts from 74 countries found that 99.7 per cent of them saw litter and waste during a typical mountain trip. Most of this was plastics, organic waste and paper or cardboard, especially on or beside trails, near carparks or at resting places.

According to the survey, 60 per cent observed an increase in waste over the past five years, while over 75 per cent have spotted COVID-19-related litter, such as masks or hand-sanitizer bottles. The survey was carried out by GRID-Arendal, a non-profit environmental group, UNEP, the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm anti-pollution conventions and partners.

We all need to act together to make a change (to) protect these beautiful mountains.
While they appear imposing, mountain ecosystems are fragile, say experts. Rubbish is a threat to wildlife and pollutes water, posing a health risk to downstream communities. Most plastic and other waste is moved by wind, melting glaciers and rain, and eventually ends up in rivers and in the oceans. This is especially worrying as the mountain ranges with their glaciers, snowpacks, lakes and streams act as water towers of the world, providing freshwater to 1.9 billion people.

“The COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity to rethink mountain tourism and its impacts on natural resources,” says UNEP mountain ecosystem expert Matthias Jurek. “We need to promote more sustainable tourism in mountain regions to prevent, halt and reverse their degradation. Done properly, mountain tourism can support mountain communities to lead more sustainable lives.”

Rubbish strewn across Mount Manaslu, Nepal
A joint analysis by UNEP, the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions, and GRID-Arendal examined visitor activity in mountain areas. It found tourists generate significant amounts of solid waste and wastewater, which can pollute groundwater, streams, lakes and soil. Certain types of waste, including pharmaceuticals, batteries and hygiene products, may, in addition, contain dangerous chemicals, says the analysis. The summary is part of a just-released publication by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the UN World Tourism Organization (WTO), titled Sustainable Development of Mountain Tourism.

“While there are undoubted economic benefits for local communities from mountaineering, the right balance has to be struck to ensure that the impact of mass mountain tourism is properly managed,” says Jurek.

Solutions

Experts say raising awareness about the consequences of mountain pollution is crucial to cleaning up the world’s slopes. To this end, the International Olympic Committee, working with UNEP and mountain sports federations, has released 10 steps to be a Mountain Hero, a practical guide on how mountain visitors can reduce their environmental footprint.

UNEP-led campaigns and related initiatives, such as Beat Plastic Pollution, Clean Seas, Adopt a River and the Tide Turners Challenge, seek to reduce plastic waste in the environment and raise awareness of the threats plastic pollution poses to ecosystems. Globally, there are many such campaigns, as well as legislation in a growing number of countries to ban certain single-use plastics, including bags.

While these may have had some success locally, according to UNEP data, plastic pollution is on course to double by 2030, a potentially perilous development for sensitive mountain ecosystems, say experts.

“The solution is a ban on single-use plastics, reduced consumption of plastic products, the financing and development of innovative replacement products, recycling and, ultimately, a circular economy in which everything gets either reused or recycled,” says Jurek.

We need to… promote more sustainable tourism in mountain regions to prevent, halt and reverse their degradation.

Matthias Jurek, UNEP
On the mountains themselves, part of the solution is helping to preserve the wilderness by also creating protected areas along trails as well as huts and shelters that take into account local practices and culture.

“Visiting mountainous areas is a great way to live and experience the sense of awe that these grand landscapes undoubtedly inspire,” says Carolina Adler, President of the UIAA Mountain Protection Commission. “As stewards of the mountains, the mountaineering community is, of course, also expected to play its part in ensuring we not only leave no trace but also lead by example and inspire others to protect these environments with us – now and for future generations.”

Climbers cleaning up Mount Manaslu, Nepal
Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja and his team removed trash this summer from Mount Manaslu and will move on to three other iconic peaks: Everest, K2 and Ama Dablam. Photo: Nimsdai / Elite Exped
The first detailed draft of the new post-2020 global biodiversity framework calls for urgent action to reduce pollution to levels that are not harmful to biodiversity, ecosystem functions and human health. “Pollution, alongside climate change and biodiversity loss, cannot be tackled in isolation,” says Jurek. “We need innovative and imaginative incentives and solutions to better manage mountain waste.”

International Mountain Day, which falls on 11 December, focuses on sustainable mountain tourism this year. Its goal is to raise awareness about the value of mountain ecosystems to humanity and drive action and awareness to protect them from pollution.

That is something Purja says is key to preserving pristine mountain ecosystems. In 2019, he snapped a now-infamous picture of a traffic jam atop Mount Everest and said littering was becoming so prevalent, it was overwhelming the mountain. It is part of the reason Purja launched what he calls the Big Mountain Cleanup. Starting this summer, he and his team began removing trash from Manaslu and will move on to Everest, K2 and Ama Dablam. Purja says the average mountaineer leaves behind 8kg of rubbish, including tents, oxygen tanks, ropes and human waste. Ultimately, he is hoping to raise awareness about the damage unsustainable tourism is doing to the world’s peaks.

“We all need to act together to make a change, to effect behavioural change, and protect these beautiful mountains,” he says.