Slave Wages on the Trails

The trekking industry exploits the hill porter, little realising that short-term greed invites long-term disaster. A minimum portering wage must be fixed. There should be more, not less, intervention by government in the trekking marketplace.

Thirty years ago, the first of those Westerners to have fallen under the spell of walking in the Himalaya remained behind to organise journeys for others. Among those who stayed back to make a living from providing such a service was Col. Jimmy Roberts, followed a few years later by Mike Cheney. Both men set standards which have been observed since by the better trekking companies.

There are now more than 200 trekking agencies in Kathmandu that sell treks throughout the Himalaya and Karakoram, and the number is growing. In the West, new agencies continue to set shop and they vie with each other in trying to attract Himalaya-bound mountain walkers. It has become a big business with few constraints. While there seem to be no bounds on the growth of the trekking indus­try, there is very little interest in regulating it.

But the alarms bells can be heard, all the way from the European Alps, where "Alp Action" is swinging into gear to curb the gross commercialisation and overcrowding, which has led to pollution, acid rain and decaying forests; every other slope is strung with ski tows and lifts. In the free-for-all market economy of the Swiss cantons, greed on grand and institutional scale is ruining the things which all tourists want. It has been said that tourism destroys tourism, and this seems especially true with mountain tourism.

In the Himalaya, added to the spectre of a despoiled environment is the economic exploitation of the porter class —the carriers of loads who struggle at the bottom of the trekking business hierarchy. If trekking is to live up to its promise of bringing income directly to the villages of the Himalaya (and thereby helping relieve the environmental stress in these mountainsides), it is imperative that the porters of the Himalaya make more money for their labours. And the tourists, certainly, can afford the small extra cost this entails.

The High Mountain Tourist

The visitors once trickled quietly into Nepal. Now the climbers, trekkers and tourists move in with armies of porters; the floodgates are opened and mass tourism has arrived.

Overcrowding on the popular 8000m peaks worries mainly those who knew the Himalaya when there were restrictions on access, and to those newcomers who are more discerning. The majority seem content just to be there, albeit some with as many as 50 other people plodding on the same route as themselves. Nowadays, on a good day during season, there can be more than a hundred people strung out on the South Col route on Everest.

Many of these people will not be mountaineers in the true sense of the word, for they have hired others to make decisions for them, to pass judgement as to whether it is right to continue or to retreat, to pick a route, to select a safe camp site, and more often than not to carry most of the load and complete the majority of the camp chores. This is the modem breed of high mountain tourist, who has bought his way on to the mountain rather than having earned his place by dint of serving a long apprenticeship.

This facet of tourism is set to expand rapidly as size of the financial gain becomes better known. More and more climbers will drop out of climbing for themselves in order to capitalise on the need of others to be guided up, what the Sherpas call, "the yak route" of Everest. This is only an extension of guiding in the Alps, which has a long and honourable tradition. But there are significant differences.

Everest i s not in a resource-rich European country it is in Nepal, which does not have the infrastructure to cope with the influx of visitors. Also, the Himalayan peaks are a lot higher than Mont Blanc, and potentially more dangerous. Climbers are often lured into a false sense of security by the large number of other people around, but when the storm comes, it is every group for itself. Still, it is less of an adventure when so many other people are on the same massif.

The golden age is always in the past, unfortunately. We were so lucky, those of us who were climbing ten years ago, to have had the joyful experience of a whole mountain to ourselves. Regular non-commercial amateur climbers have expressed resentment at being there with so many others. They would prefer a return to the days of restriction and are prepared to wait their turn if it means peace and quite.

A Diminished Experience

The same observations must apply to those trekking along the Himalayan valleys, who will obviously much prefer not to have distraction of so many other trekking groups on their heels, or to be sharing campsites like the one in front of Tengboche Gumba with anything up to 150 others. They will resent going off into the surrounding woodland to find that so many others have already relieved themselves there. Mass trekking makes it difficult to enter into the spirit of the mountains and to appreciate the local people.

So a visit to the Himalaya is now a somewhat diminished experience due to the sheer volume of visitors that have been tempted to take a holiday there. To suggest restrictions risks igniting a cry of elitism. Any Himalayan experience is preferred to none at all, is a valid argument. Yet, amongst Nepalis themselves and the foreigners resident in Nepal, there are calls for regulation of tourism and the market forces which drive it. The two things obviously threatened are, of course, the land itself and the culture and heritage of the people who work the land. What is less often remarked, but extremely urgent, is the continuing mistreatment of porters through low, discriminatory wages.

The visitor to the Himalaya is now aware that he must not pollute —he must burn, bash, bury or remove his garbage. The Himalayan Tourist Code is on everyone's lips, and there =declarations made every year at prestigious conferences about environmental cons­ciousness. But these conferences never mention the one thing that every labourer in the trekking business really wants, and that is a fair payment for his labours. The porters of Nepal, including those that join trekking and climbing parties, represent a land that has been impoverished by increasing population, degraded environment and stagnant economy. More income in portering will have a significant impact on the economy and environment of large areas of Nepal's midhills.

After all, the only sure way to upgrade the environment is to improve the wealth of the average Nepali villager. Only then will households be able to afford fossil fuel, energy-efficient stoves, and desist from slash and burn on marginal lands. Only then will there be any chance at all of reducing the number of goats and sheep tearing up young saplings from the degraded hillside.

Porter as Underdog

It would be of good for the sake equity as well as environmental conservation if some of the sizeable profits from the tourism were to find its way down to the lowly porter. This, at the moment, hardly happens. Of the money the Western client pays his trekking agent, only 10 percent, at most, will go on the wages of the sirdar, cookboys, naike and porters. Usually, the percentage is much lower.

Unlike in Pakistan, trekking tourism in Nepal is almost completely unregulated. Here, we find market economy in the raw, manned by the Western agent shopping around for the lowest quotation, and the 200-plus agencies in Kathmandu so desperate for business that they will promise the earth and try to deliver as best they can (and maybe they will to the Western agent, but not to their own). The sirdar will be given little to pay his staff, and only a small portion goes to the naike and the porters who work under him. The sirdars are not immune to ripping off the less fortunate, and it is very difficult to make an arrangement whereby he will pay the full amount allowed to the porters; he and the naike invariably collude to cream off a large percentage.

Two proposals would see us around the whole problem: fix a minimum wage for the porter, in excess of the wretched wages currently offered, and set a lower limit beneath which a trekking agency cannot quote.

The porter wages vary from place to place in Nepal, and is as little as NRs 110 per day in the Annapurna region. It is all a matter of supply and demand, unless there is group bargaining. The village porters of Beding in the Rolwaling Valley now organise themselves, so there is not the big clamour for work. Trekking agents have to pay more reasonable amounts —or take another trail which bypasses Beding. But this leads to antagonisms, and even tights. It would be much better if a rate were fixed nationwide, while at the same time allowing for variations according to area.

Such a system would solve a lot of problems, and Pakistan is the best proof of that. In the past, there were frequent arguments and porter strikes, but now every porter and Westerner knows that if he is going to Mount K2, for example, it is going to cost £80 to get a load up to Base Camp (at about £5 per day, half-pay during return, and allowances for food and equipment). The payment for the porters is thus engraved in stone, just as it is when you pay for your airline ticket, equipment, hotel, trekking agent's fees, and bus to roadhead.

Why should the agents and foreign visitors think things should be different when it comes to paying a porter? He is the most deserving of a concession, he who struggles with large, and uncomfortable loads, day-in and day-out, over awful terrain. Why should there be room for manoeuvre in saving money here, but not with airlines, Western companies and Kathmandu agencies? If trekkers and mountaineers cannot afford to pay the small extra percentage required for humane porter rates, they should resist the urge to travel in the Himalaya until they have raised sufficient finance for this.

It is a pathetic excuse — one that has actually been used— to suggest that the porters will spend the extra money they receive on alcohol or drugs, or that paying a basic wage of say £2. Pounds per day will lead to inflation in the hinterland. This is the sort of argument put about by local agents.

There must be a lower limit below which trekking agencies cannot quote. Under prevailing market conditions, that limit should be about U$ 35 per trekker client per day. Only by charging the Western trekking company that much can the Kathmandu agent hope to provide proper service and still pay the workforce adequately. Presently there is, in effect, a down-limit of U$ 20 per day because each trekker has to show that he spends that amount each day before he can get his trekking permit. Thus, a regulation meant to ensure that tourist spends enough hard currency while in Nepal has actually rebounded against the portering class.

Case for Intervention

There are precedents which prove that organised pressure can force organisations and groups to modify behaviour and control the market economy. Take for instance, the use of child workers in carpet manufacturing in India, which is being curbed due to the fear of Western boycott. Similarly, raising public opinion and awareness against ivory purchase has benefited the Asian and African elephants. Global ostracism and boycotts forced a power as strong as racist South Africa to ultimately dismantle the structure of the apartheid state.

In much the same way, it is necessary for individuals and groups to come together to ensure that the porters of the Himalaya stop being exploited, and that they get their fair share from the trekking trade. It is only correct to help these men and women who are engaged in the most back-breaking profession in the world, for so little gain.

One way would be for prestigious and reputable bodies in North America and Europe (such as "Tourism Concern" in Britain) to come together and endorse trekking companies that do not allow their agents in the Himalaya to exploit their labour. Similarly, in the Himalaya, creditable bodies must take matters into their hands and provide the stamp of approval to agents who do well by their porters. This idea might appeal to the hard­working people at the Annapurna Area Conservation Project (ACAP) or the Kathmandu Environmental Education Programme (KEEP).

There is urgent need for trekking agencies to acknowledge that the greatest assets of the areas they exploit are the mount­ains and their inhabitants. To be disrespectful of this fact will ultimately create a barren and exploited wilderness which will offer little reward for the traveller or the profiteer. If this point is grasped and acted on, there will be some hope for improving the situation of Nepal's environment and of its porters.

It is not that the porters themselves are unaware of the Dickerisanian conditions under which they labour. When political and market conditions have allowed, they have given vent to their frustrations. Several trekking unions sprang up during the first year of democracy in Nepal, in 1990, to protect the interests of those working in the trekking industry. Some of these porter unions, giving vent to years of silence and deprivation, spoke radically. The Trekking Workers' Association of Nepal put 77 demands in front of the Minister of Tourism soon after democracy was achieved.

Whilst not all of these recommendations would appeal to Westerners, and indeed not to every Nepali, some of them were sensible and had in fact been voiced many times before. One suggestion was that foreign group leaders be discouraged from operating in Nepal so that there was more work for local trek leaders. Another demand was that porters and staff be supplied with adequate food, clothing and shelter by the local trekking agents. Porters should be trained in specialist activities such as using crampons as well as ascending and descending ropes. The majority of demands were to safeguard the welfare of the labourers in the trekking business.

Unfortunately, the past three years have seen little change in the conditions of the labourers. Those agencies that have the welfare of the porter at heart are few.

The first president of the Trekking Worker's Association, Norbu Ongchu, died on Dhaulagiri in the winter of 1989, when he was the sirdar of an American expedition. News of his death came back to the Sherpa Cooperative agency in Kathmandu, but it was many days before his wife, Shanti, big with child, knew of his death, even though they lived in Kathmandu. It was many months before compensation was paid. None would have been paid had not the widow's cause been taken up by interested foreign parties.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The emotional response of the union was to picket the Everest trail at Jiri. The tragedy of Ongchu's death had brought to a head mounting discontent from the years of exploitation of the labourers in the trekking industry. For several days in 1990, therefore, trekking on this trail ground to a halt. As things are, the only avenue for the porter is to withdraw his labour, or suffer in resigned silence. The latter is invariably what happens.

This interventionist policy will not immediately appeal to everyone. But one will do well to remember that even at the height of Thatcher years, the economy in Britain was regulated. There can never be a total free-for-all approach. Freedom requires that we accept responsibilities, and there should be eternal vigilance, otherwise the unscrupulous will take advantage and monopolise that freedom.

Scott has been climbing in the high mountains of Asia since 1966, in 35 expeditions which have brought him to Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan and India. In 1990, at the request of some Sherpas, Scott helped start the Specialist Trekking Cooperative, which seeks to provide its staff and porters with adequate remuneration for their hard work. "There cannot be quality service on slave wages," maintains Scott, who says he takes his lead from the late Mike Cheney.