Tourism is one of the major backbone industries for different countries and one of the major sources of revenue. Number of different industries such hotel, food manufacturers, transportation, etc. are strongly connected with it and depend upon the tourism and tourist activities. The growth of these industries largely depends upon the growth of new tourism sites as well. Due to climate change and environmental factors, tourism in the non-polar alpine glaciers is getting its last breath. Melting glaciers in Pakistan are significantly impacting the alpine tourism and related industries. The weather conditions and natural environment play important role in the development and growth of tourism site. The effects of climate change and environmental changes have largely impact the tourism industry in different countries especially in Pakistan. The rise of temperature due to global warming in different areas of world reduce the number of tourists in those effected areas.
Tourism industry is a backbone of Pakistan Economy
Tourism has also declared as an industry in Pakistan due to large potential of tourism in these Alpine glaciers including historical places, hill stations, recreational and sports activities, etc. In the economy of Pakistan, tourism is considered as a backbone industry linked with other sub-industries. Non-polar or Alpine glaciers region is the major source of tourism in Pakistan due to number of attractions for tourists such as hill stations, fresh water lakes, glaciers, and mountainous adventure activities. Thousands of visitors in each year visit these areas to enjoy the fresh and healthy atmosphere and to perform trekking and hiking on the world’s highest altitude treks and mountains. There are five peaks, including K2, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II, having altitude of more than eight thousand meters. These non-polar glaciers are also the main source of water and irrigation in the entire country.
Alpine / non-polar glaciers are retreating
The climate change and environmental factor have greatly impacted the situation of the non-polar glaciers and these glaciers are retreating at a high rate. Different alpine glaciers have retreated significantly in last few years and reduced in size critically. It also affects the life of various species in different regions. Siachen glacier, the largest glacier in the region, is reducing in size at the rate of 50 to 60 meters per year. Biafo glacier, in the Karakoram Range, is shrinking at the rate of 30 meters per year. The significant changes are also observed in the Baltoro glacier in Karakorm Range in the Shigar district. Darkoot Glacier in Yaseen valley has retreated more than a kilometer from its original position. Number of other glaciers in the non-polar region have reduced significantly as compare to their original size in the past. These melting glaciers are at alarming stage to be vanish within few next years. These negative changes impact the growth of tourism travels due to rise in temperature, unexpected weather conditions, sudden natural disaster in the form of flood, landslide, or avalanche. In last few years, number of deaths are reported in these areas due to different natural and unexpected disasters. All of these alarming changes are not due to nature, rather these are happening due to extra-ordinary unmanaged and undesirable human activities.
Unmanaged and undesirable human activities
Unmanaged and undesirable human activities play the vital role in the impairment of tourism in these non-polar glaciers in Pakistan. Visiting of large number of tourists than the capacity of area significantly impacts the tourism site. It becomes difficult to control the huge size of garbage and sanitary facilities in that area. All of these have to dump in the same area that ultimate pollute the fresh water streams and lakes as well as weather condition in the form of rise in temperature and pollution in air. The construction of roads and jeep treks provide easy access to different remote tourist sites, so it encourages everyone to use own vehicle to visit the area. The rising number of vehicles cause huge amount of smoke and carbon emission that results in reduction of air quality in the area as well as melting of glaciers.
Unplanned site development is another major reason of extra-ordinary cutting of trees and reduction of lush green meadows. Construction of hotels and restaurants to accommodate the visiting tourists in area results in damaging the natural beauty and environment. Some construction even disturbs the natural infrastructure by disturbing the natural flow of rivers or streams. So, blocking the flow of stream or turn the path of a river to construct hotels to attract the tourists must be prohibited to avoid natural disasters. Sanitation facilities in these hotels ultimately pollute the fresh water which results in various health issues and unhygienic the fresh drinking water. Waste and trash are clearly seen at the back sides of the hotels and drainage of sanitary waste directly into rivers, all of these continuously spoil the natural environment and beauty of the landscape. The sole objective of hotel owners is only to earn profit without caring about the nature and hygienic environment.
Climate changes in non-polar glaciers region
The significant weather impact and climate changes result in melting of glaciers and retreating of major glaciers from their original size. All of these becomes the cause of heavy flow in streams and rivers and severe glacial lake outburst floods, known as GLOF, which results in heavy flooding. The heavy floods in the streams ultimately damage the vast area in the form of crops destruction, roads and infrastructure, and human causalities. It also takes number of months to clear the area to make it accessible for tourists again. To reduce the reasons of climate change, it would be necessary to manage the overall tourism and related activities in the Alpine glaciers.
The rising temperature and global warming also makes it undesirable for different types of flora and fauna. It becomes unfeasible for the growth of different types of plants and herbs, which again becomes cause of more rise in temperature. Due to extra-ordinary involvement of human, less space is left for various animals and birds and it becomes a reason of their migration and extinction. This disturbance of life chain will further damage the region and make it unhealthy and unfeasible for tourism sites.
The global warming results in rise in temperature, disturbance of natural infrastructure, and unexpected natural disasters and finally it becomes the major cause of reduction of tourism growth. Number of tourist sites are become hot as compare to past. The natural beauty of lakes, meadows, and peaks is greatly damaged due to vanishing glaciers. It becomes difficult to see the white shining peaks, vast and dense forests, and lush green meadows.
Tourists must contact Pakistan Meteorological Department(PMD), National Disaster Management Authority(NDMA), or Provincial Disaster Management Authority(PDMA) for any emergency in these alphine tourism sites including Gilgit-Baltistan, Kaghan, Swat, and Azad Kashmir areas.
Lack of tourism education and training
The lack of tourism education and training also results in damaging the infrastructure and climate of the area. Tourists have no sense to protect the natural beauty of the tourist sites. They freely throw garbage and trash everywhere without releasing its damaging impact on the natural environment. Due to zero tourism education, they have no sense to protect historical and recreational sites. They also do not care about natural infrastructure while throwing their waste in lakes and streams as well as spoiling the treks. The impact of these wastes in area is damaging the beauty of the area as well as becoming the reason of the climate change. There is no natural mechanism to transform plastic, glass, and steel cans thrown by tourists. It will reduce the tourism attractions for new tourists due to spoiled passages and polluted water in lakes and streams.
Negative impact of unmanaged activities on alpine glaciers
All of above will damage the tourism as well as the alpine glaciers in Pakistan. Now these alpine glaciers are getting their last breaths and near to die forever if all unplanned and undesirable activities are occurring continuously as before. If nothing is performed to protect these tourism sites, then there will be nothing left to see for our coming generations in this region. It becomes a barren desert without any lush green meadows and dense forests. Lakes and streams become dry with shining stones under the hot sunrays. All of the peaks looking attracting now-a-days, will become hot rocky structure without any icy glaciers. There will be storms of dust and falling rocks everywhere due to high temperature. Hill stations will be just showing the graves of historical events of glorious past beauty. Tourism will be ended forever in this non-polar region of glaciers. It will not be destruction of tourism in these Northern Areas of Pakistan, rather it will also destroy the overall economic infrastructure of Pakistan.
Steps to reduce transitional impact on alpine glaciers
To protect the tourism in Pakistan in the Northern Area, we have to protect these alpine glaciers and natural environment of the area. To provide the relaxing breaths to these glaciers and to save them to die, it will be an overall responsibility to avoid all of the unplanned and undesirable human activities. Without glaciers protection, we will not able to protect the water and the natural beauty of the area. To protect the glaciers and water, it must be necessary to avoid all type of unplanned and undesirable activities such as spoilage of water and treks, drainage of sanitary facilities into streams and lakes, cutting of trees and plants, damaging of lush green meadows, unnecessary and unplanned construction, use of smoke emitting vehicles, and disturbing the natural environmental factors.
It would be necessary to provide proper education and training to tourists as well as the worker in the hotels or restaurants. Tourist must show the proper responsibility to properly dispose of their waste at proper locations. The local authorities must install waste bin at various location, so travelers must have proper options to trash their wastes. There must be a proper system to dump the garbage and waste collected from the tourism site. In this way, we can manage to protect the natural infrastructure of the tourism site and reducing the temperature to protect the glaciers to have a longer life.
Artificial Intelligence is a solution
Controlling the incoming tourists is the critical element to protect the site. The use of proper Artificial Intelligence tools is the need of time to monitor the number of tourists in the area and to guide them to move toward another tourist site. There would be proper signboards over the roads to indicate the coming tourist to change their route to other tourist site instead of getting in trouble by accommodating at same tourist site. In this way, we can be able to manage the site properly without overloading it that will cause the overall system failure.
Conclusions
It is our inner responsibility for tourists to protect the tourism sites while visiting them. We have to dispose off our wastes properly in a waste bin while traveling. We have to avoid to pollute lake or stream water, or to throw garbage in it. If we still unable to protect these tourist sites, then you will be leaving nothing for your coming generations in future. Visiting any tourist site in the alpine glaciers of Pakistan, is not entertainment and enjoyment only, it must be responsibility to protect them for our coming generations. It is not only the matter of natural environment, it will be the concerns of future lives as there would be no life without water, without glaciers, and without non-polar glaciers in Pakistan.