Will the reopening of tourism in GB provide some relief or has the pandemic made the future of tourism more uncertain, questions Madeeha Syed in an essay published in Dawn Sunday issue.  As the country reels under a pandemic, tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan has been hit particularly hard. The prime minister announced the reopening of tourism, hoping it will provide some relief. But …

Scientists hope recent border clashes and the pandemic will not derail the limited progress made on research cooperation over the past decade In late April, environment ministers from eight countries of the Hindu-Kush-Himalayan region were supposed to gather for a rare meeting in the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu. They were due to discuss cooperation and science-based policymaking in the region. …

Tourism and climate change are transforming the fragile mountain ecosystems in the Karakorams, Himalaya-Hindu Kush and Pamirs. Ang Rita Sherpa, a native of Gokyo, in an article in Nepali Times, reflects on the increasing pressure of human activities on natural spaces and the lakes in the Solokhumbu district of Nepal. Chairman of Partners Nepal, a local nonprofit organisation that helps Himalayan …

Chinese surveyors summit the world’s highest mountain peak to remeasure its height and install machinery on the 60th anniversary of the country’s first ascent on the roof of the world  || Herald Special || While the mountaineering world celebrated on May 29 the first ascent of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal, China …

The team is there to re-measure the height of Everest, which is on the two countries’ border A team of Chinese surveyors have scaled Mount Everest, becoming the only climbers to summit the world’s highest peak during the coronavirus pandemic. Chinese media report the team is there to re-measure the height of Everest, which is on the two countries’ border. …

    M Ajmal K Masood   While travelling to the north, most of the youth make their travelling statuses as ‘mountains are calling’. This phrase is not merely a social media buzzword but resonates the social, cultural and spiritual relations between the people and the mountains. In the primitive age, human being living in mountainous regions such as High …

Globally over 75m jobs are at risk in tour and hospitality sectors, 48.7m in Asia-Pacific and 75,000 in Pakistan   High Asia Herald Report As adventure tourism season in Pakistan draws closer and the country reeling from the devastating impact of coronavirus pandemic, the tour operators in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral are still hoping against hope. Although Pakistan has eased lockdown and …

Herald Report An Italian hard rock ballad has penned a song to in memory of two young climbers who met a tragic death while pursuing their passion on one of the 14 high mountains in the Pakistani-administered Gilgit-Baltistan region. The tragic end of Italian climber Daniele Nardi and his British colleague Tom Ballard during an ascent on the most difficult …

The pandemic causes a 22% decline in tourist arrivals in Q1, or $80bn loss, says UNWTO reports   Herald Report The coronavirus pandemic has caused 22% fall in international tourist arrivals in the first quarter (Q1) of the financial year 2020 and could further drop by 60-80% over the whole year, says a report. The UN tourism watchdog says 67 …

In 1856, the Maharaja Gulab Singh ruled the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir, with the blessing of the British. Lieutenant Thomas George Montgomerie, the commissioner of the Great British Trigonometric Survey of India, was trying to ascertain the heights of the peaks in northwestern Kashmir, but he couldn’t actually get close to ones he wanted to measure: He was …