I have always admired the community spirit of the Sherpa people in Pharak and Khumbu. It greatly saddens me to see the rift in the community that the issue of flights to Syangboche is again creating in Ramyata Limbu's "Air war over Lukla" (#96). The communities affected extend to the less prosperous settlements in the southern parts of Solu-Khumbu district whose inhabitants depend largely on portering from Lukla for income to supplement their subsistence agriculture. If people from lower Solu-Khumbu and from neighbouring districts lose employment as a result of an airport at Syangboche, what will they do to subsist? The economic effects on the livelihoods of people living below Khumbu have another implication: peace. It does not matter how many airports and up-market hotels are built-the tourists will not come in great numbers unless there is peace. If the politicians spend the development budget of the district on yet another airport instead of on water systems, bridges, and basic development works in the poorer VDCs, couldn't it exacerbate the frustrations that can potentially lead disadvantaged people to rebel either in this insurgency or a future one? Without development that brings equity and helps the poor, how can there be any lasting peace?

Without peace and hence, without tourism, what will happen to existing teashops, lodges, trekking companies, and (for the very rich) airlines? Every insurgent attack in Solu-Khumbu makes world headlines as having happened at the "foot of Everest". How can all of us work to make Solu-Khumbu, a zone of peace with the hope that it will influence the rest of Nepal? What is really more important to our livelihoods from tourism than promoting a resolution that can lead to lasting peace?

Frances Klatzel,
Kathmandu