Overview I Project Area I Goal and Objectives
Downloadable Brochure (PDF)

Overview

Sagarmatha National Park (SNP), gazetted in July 1976, is Nepal’s second most visited national park in the mountain region and is also of global, cultural, and environmental importance.  SNP is one of the world’s premier mountain tourism regions, containing four of the world’s mountain peaks over 8,000 meters.  There are 3,500 Sherpas who have lived in the SNP area for over four centuries.  They continue to use traditional planting methods and indigenous natural resource management techniques.

SNP has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of visitors; 3,600 tourists visited the park in 1979, compared to 21,570 in 2001.  Trekking, a form of tourism, has helped boost the local economy and standard of living with better health care, education and building structure, but it has also degraded the region’s fragile ecology and cultural traditions.  Moreover, the benefits of trekking are not distributed equally throughout the park and many areas remain culturally and economically isolated.

The Sacred Sites Trail Project was proposed to create a new circular tourism trail, to encourage tourists to visit less known sacred sites and villages.  Working through local communities, the project aspires to help restore and enhance local cultural skills and traditions and distribute tourism benefits more widely by encouraging tourists to visit villages off the established tourist route.

The Sacred Sites Trail offers unexplored and significant cultural sites with beautiful mountain scenery and green valleys.  Unlike the most popular trail, the circular route takes trekkers to the uncharted and less known villages in the Khumbu where the turmoil of tourism is nonexistent and they can enjoy the serenity of the surroundings.  Along the trail, ancient monasteries, Mani stones, Chortens and Kanis add a spiritual element to the trail’s pristine mountain environment.

Project Area

The Sacred Sites Trail Project lies in Sagarmatha National Park and Buffer Zone and includes Namche Bazaar and six other major settlements within the park. 

The project’s circular trail passes clockwise through monasteries, caves, hermitages and nunneries, starting from Namche Bazaar, passing through several sites in the Thame valley, and ending at the Tengboche Monastery.  The project’s target populations are the local communities that live in the above areas. 

The Sacred Sites Trail follows existing trekking routes, encouraging visitors to extend their stay in the region and explore additional cultural and natural sites.

In order to conserve the world’s highest ecology, Sacred Sites Trail Project also initiated Community-based conservation and restoration of the Mount Everest Alpine zone to tackle the rising problem of degradation of the fragile alpine landscape as a result of years of contemporary, unsustainable uses that include burning, overgrazing, and increased livestock pressure.

Goal and Objectives

The project’s goal is to promote indigenous culture and traditions through restoration of a circular route, linking natural sacred and cultural sites in Sagarmatha National Park, improving livelihoods through mountain-based tourism and conservation.

The Objectives are to:

• Promote the cultural traditions of lesser known sacred sites in the Khumbu region
• Strengthen local management skills in conserving and protecting cultural heritage and natural resources
• Conserve and restore fragile forests and alpine landscapes of the Mount Everest Region

For more information on the specific monasteries and the community affected by this project, along with the implications for conservation, download the brochure (pdf).