Body set up to save Himalayas

Press, 24 January 1984, Page 5

Body set up to save Himalayas

NZPA-Reuter Katmandu

The Governments of three countries and U.N.E.S.C.O. have set up a body to save the Himalayan and Hindu Kush mountains from ecological ruin. Nepal, West Germany, Switzerland, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation are sponsoring the body, known as the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (1.C.1.M.0.D.). It was formally inaugurated in Katmandu at the end of a two-day seminar of the eight nations which share the mountains — Nepal, India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, and Bhutan. The mountains are home to 30 million people with another 350 million living in ' adjoining river basins and plains. The numbers are growing fast, threatening the oncepristine peaks and foothills with destruction of forest cover and over-grazing by sheep and cattle. The erosion has in turn brought the threat of floods and landslides to the largely impov-

erished mountain dwellers.

The Nepalese Prime Minister, Mr Lokendra Bahadur Chand, said at the inauguration that in many parts of the mountain region population had far exceeded the carrying capacity of the land, forcing people to leave home in search of work. New problems were created as traditional social structures broke down.

Veteran mountaineers have warned that the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, is fast becoming a high-altitude rubbish dump as thousands of trekkers and climbers discard refuse that does not decay in the low temperatures.

The U.N.E.S.C.O. Direc-tor-General, Dr AmadouMahtar M’Bow, said that 1.C.1.M.0.D.’s main object would be to ‘help improve the living conditions by encouraging resource development and striving to preserve the mountain ecosystems.” 1.C.1.M.0.D.’s first director, the British anthropologist and development scientist, Mr Colin Rosser, aged 57, will take office early next year.