Qomolangma expedition features climate change

KATHMANDU, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Members of "Eco Everest Expedition 2008" Friday marked their start of climb at Everest Base Camp in Nepal, highlighting climate changes as theme.

"Climate change is affecting people around the globe, and this is especially evident at the top of the world, around Mount Everest and other great peaks of the Himalayas," said the 11 member climbing team in a press release from Nepal-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

Dr. Schild, Director General of ICIMOD, handed over the ICIMOD Silver Jubilee flag to Dawa Steven Sherpa, the leader of the climbing team, to take to the top of the world.

A premier of a photo exhibition, "50 Years of Change -- Glaciers, Landscapes, People and Residence in the Mount Everest Region, Nepal" was taking place at Base Camp at the same time. The exhibition includes a unique collection of repeat panoramas of mountains, valleys and glaciers taken in the 1950s, and retaken in the past few years.

These photographs demonstrate the changes in the climatic, cultural and physical landscape of the Khumbu, where south side of Mt. Qomolangma is located, over the past half century. The exhibition will then tour several European countries, after its unveiling at Qomolangma Base Camp.

The expedition will field test an eco-friendly approach to climbing, including a ten-point plan that could be used as a basis for international certification for environmentally friendly climbing expeditions. The expedition plans to bring down garbage left by other groups, and will encourage others to do the same.

The "Eco Everest Expedition" is the brainchild of Dawa Steven Sherpa of Asian Trekking, an institution providing mountaineering expeditions, treks and tours in Nepal, shocked by his own experience of ice collapse in the Khumbu ice fall, and the realization of the impacts of climate change.

Dawa Steven and Asian Trekking have joined with the ICIMOD and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in a plan to use the climb to draw the world's attention to the problems resulting from climate change and the need to help the people of the region, and the world. ICIMOD has been working for 25 years for the mountains and people of the Hindu Kush-Himalayas.