The Nepalese government will be implementing stricter rules and will closely monitor expeditions in Mt. Everest by assigning a team at the base camp.
The team will be responsible for observing and helping expedition teams, organizing rescues and looking after the environment. This change was brought after embarrassing incidents reported to happen during expeditions which also include fight between the sherpas and the mountaineers. The government wanted to make sure that the activities in the mountain are regulated.
"A need for a permanent government mechanism at the Everest base camp... [will] regulate mountaineering activities," Purna Chandra Bhattarai, chief of the tourism industry division that oversees mountaineering, told BBC.
The Integrated Service Center team can also provide communication and safety related services to climbers. They will be assigned in the area beginning spring climbing season of next year to represent the government although some critics say that it is difficult to regulate activities in Mt. Everest.
The government wants to strengthen their visibility in the area to show everyone that they are serious about punishing anyone who will violate the law. “When there is the presence of the government on the ground, the message 'violating the law is punishable' becomes clearer," Bhattarai said in BBC.
The Integrated Service Center will replace the liaison officers frequenting the mountain. They will be the one to check the validity of the permits the mountaineers have and to attest that the visitors has really reached the summit. This will change the way people know who had reached the summit wherein media knows it first before the government.
The new rule requires the climbers to declare if they intend to reach the summit to minimize confusions about records.
"We have had many examples in the past when climbers did not share their plan to set a record beforehand and they made the record claims only after they reached the summit," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, the immediate past president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, in an interview with BBC.
