A surge in “helicopter tourism” at Sagarmatha, the Nepali name for Mount Everest, is adversely affecting the local community and wildlife, reports Mongabay contributor Shashwat Pant.
Helicopters have previously only been used for medical emergencies or high-profile visitors at Sagarmatha. But with choppers now regularly transporting tourists to Sagarmatha’s base camp, their noise plagues the local Sherpas, a Tibetan ethnic group who reside in the world’s tallest mountains, on a daily basis.
Pasang Nuru Sherpa tells Mongabay that loud helicopter sounds start at 6 a.m. and continue all day long until sunset. In 2024 alone, there were 5,600 recorded helicopter rides, according to the Sagarmatha National Park information officer Bibek Baiju. During the peak months, almost a hundred flights were recorded between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. on some days.
Climate scientist Sudeep Thakuri warns this helicopter tourism might disrupt the fragile ecosystem of the Himalayas.
“While there is no research on the ecological damage caused by helicopters in the region, the number of helicopters flying in the region obviously has an impact as they emit a lot of CO2 and disturb the wildlife in the region,” Thakuri says.
Pant reports that residents have told him that frequent flights are driving away wildlife such as snow leopards (Panthera uncia), Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus) and musk deer (Moschus leucogaster) from their natural habitats. Thakuri says the very narrow Khumbu Valley amplifies the noise. “This does have an impact on both the wildlife in the area and the livestock,” he tells Pant.
Researcher Bikram Shrestha, who has studied snow leopard behavior, says that while the big cat is nocturnal, its prime prey, the Himalayan tahr, has been shown to run away due to helicopter noise.
“This could have an impact on their reproductive success and, in turn, the availability of food for snow leopards, the apex predators of the mountains,” Shrestha says.
Traditional herders in the region tell Mongabay that their domestic yaks (Bos grunniens), which the local communities rely on to transport goods and provide milk, get more agitated around helicopter noise.
While it usually takes at least 14 days to reach just the base camp of Sagarmantha, deep-pocketed tourists can now just pay $1,500 to $2,000 to take a chopper ride for a few hours, Pant writes.
It’s not just the noise. With increased helicopter tourism, porters earn much less and fewer tourists visit the iconic trekking routes featuring monasteries and Sherpa women-managed lodges and gift shops. Moreover, the income from “helicopter tourism” doesn’t fully trickle down to the locals.
Pant reports that youth groups are now protesting helicopter tourism and calling for stricter regulations. Some municipal officials are also advocating for policies to limit and reroute flights, and to have tourism profits shared fairly with the local communities.
This is a summary of “Helicopters slash the trek to Earth’s highest peak, but leave Sherpas grounded” by Shashwat Pant.
Banner image of a snow leopard in snow by In India travel via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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