This video was submitted in November 2022 by Vinita Srivastava.

Mt. Everest regularly features in global media. Together with the resident indigenous Sherpa people, it forms the main attraction of the Sagarmatha National Park (SNP), a UNESCO World Heritage site. Decades of visitor growth have caused wide-ranging societal change, transforming community well-being to the point where it is likely one of the World’s best examples of community well-being and development through tourism.

The Himalayan Trust has been working for 60 years to enable community engagement in SNP and World Heritage management. Today we have 4 strategic programs in education, health, culture and livelihoods, management and governance.

Recognizing that sustainable tourism policy advocates the imperative for tourism development to strengthen the host community's well-being, the Himalayan Trust partnered with Planet Happiness to enter the Our World Heritage “Transformational Impacts of Technology” competition. We were delighted to finish second. A project report highlights well-being outcomes and their relevance to World Heritage sites worldwide, especially those that are home to indigenous communities. This is emphasized as, in the words of the World Bank,

“While Indigenous Peoples own, occupy, or use a quarter of the world’s surface area, they safeguard 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. They hold vital ancestral knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate, and reduce climate and disaster risks.”

Keywords:

Heritage, Railway, World Heritage site, Cultural, Colonial