Trekking routes in Ladakh face garbage menace
16/10/07 03:00 Filed in:Ladakh news
By The Magpie
Leh, Saturday, October 13, 2007
Overland Escape, a travel company based in Ladakh, organized a cleaning drive collecting tons of garbage along the trekking routes between Lamayuru and Padum in Zanskar with a dual purpose of reducing the ever growing garbage menace along this popular route and creating awareness among the general public about the environmental hazards of piles and piles of rubbish trekking groups leave behind them.
The 10-member team found that Silver foil used to carry packed lunch, fruity packets, coca cola and pepsi bottles, mushroom, tuna tins were mainly found everywhere along the route. Tsering Namgyal, a staff of Overland Escape who led the group with another staff Kunga and a German lady Nana, observed that the main stockpiles of garbage were found around the stalls and camping site put up at different points and the worst situation was at Fanjila, which forms the junction for three trekking routes leading to Chilling, Alchi and Zanskar.
Namgyal said, it was sad to see that villagers everywhere were least bothered about the garbage lying at their places for many years. Expressing his concern he further said, if this growing garbage menace along the trekking routes is not dealt with these areas would be left with nothing but rubbish all over.
The team left the garbage bags at Tourism Office compound in Padum, where the Tourist Officer Mr. Namgyal wrote an appreciation letter for their effort. The Director of Overland Escape Tundup Dorjey said, by organizing such cleaning campaigns we want to repay our debts to nature, environment of Ladakh, that provide us with a tremendous resource to earn our livelihood and we feel greatly obliged. Through our such constant cleaning drives we have now come to realize that it would need more than just cleaning, so we have set up a plan to try and convince the local government to have strict regulations issued to travel agencies to bring the garbage back along with them in future. For this purpose our travel company has already produced “Green Bags” to be issued to different trekking groups for at least bringing their rubbish back with and not leave it to cause further depredation of nature.
One of our members of the campaign team, Nana Ziesche from Germany wrote her experience about the latest cleaning campaign that we carried out along the routes between Lamayuru and Zanskar:
Since 1993 I’m traveling to Ladakh, first as a backpacker, after a while as a group leader and since 2000 I have an own travel agency called Ladakh Travel, based in Hamburg/Germany. I’m working together with the ladakhi Travel Agency Overland Escape since some years. Feedback of clients is usually positive; just there is a constant complaint about the rubbish in Ladakh, not only on the trekking routes but also in the villages. So we thought it a good idea to do a cleaning trek like it was done several times before. We chose the Lamayuru-Padum-Trek as we heard that the last clean-up was already some years ago. Apart from that I was doing this trek in 1996 and I was curious what changes had taken place.
So we set off on 15th September with a troupe of 7 Ladakhi boys, 3 Nepalese Cooks and a helper, 3 horsemen from Himachal with 15 horses and myself as the only westerner and a woman.
The cleaning was so organized that we put the plastic bottles and crushed tins in bags and burnt the other rubbish like food packets, old clothes etc. We started in Lamayuru, but found out very quickly that we could spend days and fill more then the bags we brought as it was very dirty. It was not only our aim to clean up, but also involve the villagers and create some awareness about environmental issues and the problem that if no-one cares about the rubbish, Ladakh will be in 10 years just one big garbage pit. But villagers said that they had other impending works to do at that time. Quite obviously, it was their harvesting time, however, the usual bunch of boys hanging around didn’t show any enthusiasm in helping. So we just cleaned the camping area and around, put the filled bags on the truck and set off for Wanla.
The trekking route, apart from Bonbon-paper and some empty Frooties, was quite clean. About Wanla I can’t say much as I unfortunately caught fever, vomited and remained lying down in the tent. But I saw next day the truck leaving with 20 bags of rubbish to be disposed in Leh.
We started slowly only as far as Fanjilla filling up 2 bags on the roadsides with 2/3 burnable items. At Fanjilla, we were surprised to find lots of dirt strewn around such as at Lamayuru, but maybe with some shops and tent restaurants selling soft drinks and other items it was just “unavoidable”. After talking to a couple of women they agreed to help in the afternoon, but no one turned up when we started. A single lady who showed up rather late simply ignored the garbage we had collected by saying that that there was no rubbish around her place. We burnt a big rubbish pile and things such as plastic bottles were packed in some five bags to be carried on horses. We moved on further into Hanupatta gorge for some four kilometers collecting rubbish including plastics. On the way we came across a tent restaurant owned by a 15-years-old boy called Nyima. His stall had soft drinks and some food items brought in on his motorbike for exhausted trekkers. It was bit disappointing to know from him that he threw most of the empty bottles, cans etc. into the river, while some he was using as a decorative items in his stall. As we proceeded further we finally got to the village with some 15 houses, however we could hardly find any men, there were some children and women who we could assemble for our usual briefing on garbage menace and thereby seeking their participation in collecting the rubbish strewn around. They asked for money in return, however, we refused saying that it was their village and they should keep their place clean. Finally, some boys were spared to join us. Fortunately, there were not many plastic bottles so we could burn the other rubbish at the next camping site.
The next day when we were crossing Sirsir-la to get to Photoksar, enroute we found tins of mushroom, tuna, paneer, fruit cocktail – some so old and rusted that it was difficult to recognize the label. We filled bags with these tins crushed making our load quite heavy. At the camping site we were pleased to find a garbage pit with piles of rubbish, but not separated and burnt. So we added our load pile into the pit and did our job.
The worst scene we came across was at the second camping site at Photoksar, where it seemed that open ground was being used as toilet as a result it was not pleasant to pick rubbish there. Some villagers even complained that their animals bear the brunt of such unmindful garbage including broken glasses and tins.
The Singge-la Base Camp had relatively less garbage perhaps due to the less number of trekkers using this route. The campling at Gongma Yulchung was very clean as villagers themselves cared to keep the surroundings clean.
Finally, we got some appreciation from some other trekkers at Lingshed, who were concerned about the garbage problem on trekking routes. Some Americans joined us in our cleaning drive that was quite encouraging. They told us that at some camping sites they refused to pay the fees unless the owners promised to keep the site clean.
The next, we moved further on collecting plastic bottles on the way towards the road. It was disgusting to see age old garbage lying strewn all over including along the river in Hanamur and Pishu villages and cleaning was almost impossible for us. A bad pungent smell of rubbish prevailed in the area. There was an abandoned restaurant at Pishu, where only an old lady helped us in cleaning the area while as a bunch of men did not care at all and were rather busy playing cards.
By the time we were in Padum (headquarter Zanskar) after 10 days of rigorous garbage collection all along the trek routes we had some 13 bags filled with plastic bottles, crushed tins that we showed to the Tourist Officer, Mr. Namgyal, who hesitantly agreed to give a space to keep the garbage, but he did not give us the clue about the proper disposal. Nevertheless, he appreciated our work and hoped that such campaign would help create awareness among people in Padum, where problem was a serious concern. Until now people would just throw garbage anywhere least bothered about environmental hazard it causes. Having a stroll around town myself I could see the obvious and was in a way speechless that it is possible that in a modern country as India is in many aspects, there are still these awful environmental conditions.
Just to add my observations about 11 years ago trekking, I felt a big change with the tent restaurants and their offer of soft drinks and other rubbish-arising items. In earlier years it was only possible to buy something up to Wanla and after Pishu. But rubbish was already there as I remember us being quite early at one camping and collecting every burnable item to have a nice little fire and getting it much cleaner.
As long as Ladakhis want to get money by selling items to trekkers, I feel that it should be also their responsibility to care about the rubbish afterwards. But tourists also could help with a bigger demand for local products and avoid the rubbish arising items.