Project: Saving Mount Everest

The Mount Everest region has become a major tourism destination. The enormous growth in visitors has brought great strains on the natural environment and produced mountains of rubbish – from base camp and up to the high ‘death zone’.

In Sherpa villages along the trekking routes there is no responsible waste disposal system in place. The consequences are an eyesore and a threat to the fragile environment.

Saving Mount Everest aims to change this. Coordinated by EcoHimal, the project brings together a multifaceted body of people, governments and organisations working for improving the Himalayan environment in the vicinity of Nepal’s greatest natural wonder. If successful, it will establish a model for waste management to counter the stream of visitors to the region which has grown exponentially throughout the last decades.

Silva is contributing with outdoor equipment to Martin Edström, official photographer for the project. Martin will produce a documentary from A – Z throughout 2011 and 2012; following both the clean-up of the mountain and the establishment of a new system for keeping waste in check. A portrait of the summit as well as it’s summiteers, it will bring perspective to what was once the Sherpas’ but now hosts the world; and the global efforts undertaken to save it.

Read more about this project at http://martinedstrom.com/projects/saving-mount-everest/

We are happy to be a small contributor to this great project that will make a big change for the Mount Everest area in the future!