- Accessibility of an environmentally fragile Tourist Region - Case of Himalaya   31 kb by Rosciszewski, Michal & null, null & null, null | null    Short Outline Case Study sent in by mail and inserted by ISoCaRP Solving the contradiction between the improvement of accessibility and conservation in natural values of especially attractive tourist regions makes difficulties for comprehensive regional planning. From the point of view of ''hard environmentalists'' the best solution in defending the nature would be: limiting the access and let go the events their way. Unfortunately such approach is justified probably when applied to completely unpopulated areas only. At present the majority of regions with touristic potential are more or less densely populated and advancing growth in number of inhabitants results in most serious endangering of natural conditions. Evident expansion of deserts, floods, land-slides, polluted water and air appear everywhere so in technically advanced, as well as in developing countries. For impoverished communities stopping the negative changes in their environment is so more difficult because of lack, so in financial resources, as well as in conscience of the problem. Benefits from tourism and foreign assistance are the sole way to get out of growing environmental troubles. Comparing my personal experience from Zermatt at the feet of the Matterhorn in the Alps and planning the Zakopane Region in Tatra, with the arrangement of tourist industry around Machu Picchu in the Andean Urubamba River Valley, I find lots of similarities. During one week of trekking from STOL (short-taking-off-and-landing) airport Lukla towards the feet of the Mont Everest in Kimbu Himalaya and back I was looking with a regional planner's eye on one of the most exciting surrounding, accessible by pedestrian path only. By the way, by every opportunity, I interviewed local tribemen on problems of their life. In my paper I would like to present some ideas on the development of tourism in this environmentally fragile area, in line with the permanent rising of life standards of the native population, and by not only protection, but also recovery of some lost natural values of unique Himalayan environment. The crucial factor, decisive to the all following policies is, according to my opinion, proper choice of transportation mode serving the access to the region not only for passengers but also for heavy loads. Proposed topic might be interesting for participants of the Open Platform. Abstract Contradiction between improvement of accessibility and conservation in natural values of especially attractive tourist region makes serious difficulties for comprehensive physical planning. Keywords - Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2001: Honey, I Shrunk the Space   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper