1,125,148 views
In a small Nepalese village near Mount Everest, smoke rises between the trees. Surrounded by beautiful nature, snow-capped peaks and waterfalls, garbage is being burned - plastic bottles together with beer cans, paper and metal. The highest mountain in the world and its surroundings - a dream destination and place of longing for individual tourists and hiking enthusiasts - is also a garbage dump: the national park on Mount Everest has around 75 open garbage dumps. "We have around 400 tons of garbage here every year," says Tommy Gustafsson, head of a garbage project in the region. There is still no suitable garbage management system. The garbage is burned or it rots, polluting the air and water in the national park. And more and more tourists are coming to the remote region in Nepal and causing even more garbage. Last year so many mountaineers tried to climb the "roof of the world" that there was a real traffic jam on Mount Everest. The story "Critical Travel: Trekking on Mount Everest" accompanies a German trekking group on their eventful and exhausting journey to Mount Everest base camp. As for almost all trekking tourists, the journey into the area starts at Lukla airport, one of the most dangerous airports in the world. From here on there are no more cars and no more roads, but all the more people who carry food, building materials and luxury goods up the mountains to over 5,000 meters on foot so that the tourists lack nothing. The porters benefit from the increasing number of visitors. But they also suffer from the downsides, the heavy loads, the difficult working conditions. __ A film for the story by Lisa Seemann and Fritz Fechner This film was produced in 2020. All statements and facts correspond to the status at the time and have not been updated since then. Other documentaries on the subject: • Rush on Everest - A natural paradise...