Whenever Westerners visit another country, we ask ourselves — or at least, we should ask ourselves — if our visit is doing harm or good. This is because in some place, tourism has been poorly managed, resulting in damage to the local economy, culture, and environment.

For example, Nepal has seen widespread deforestation since the advent of Himalayan trekking. That’s why we read with great satisfaction a story from Reuters called Village Management Turns Around Nepal’s Forests.

The gist of it is this: Back in the 1980s, some non-governmental organizations set up “community forest user groups” to manage the country’s forests. Today, there are 20,000 of those groups managing about a quarter of the country’s forests. The story goes on to say that one-third of Nepal’s population is now engaged in managing 2.7 million acres of public land.

One official is quoted in the story thusly:

“A common outcome of strengthening local organisations … is that they help empower local communities, build up a sense of ownership of natural resources, and open up new channels of communication between local people and decision makers.”

We  can easily see  why this is a wonderful thing. For the Nepalis quoted in the article, there is also a spiritual side of it — something we could use more of. They  see themselves as giving back to the gods of the forests, who give them life.

We just want to say “keep it up!” We want to keep trekking in Nepal, but we don’t want to contribute to the trashing of the Himalayan forests.