An Untold Success Story from the Roof of the World – to the World
Thirty-seven years ago, a transformational trek through Nepal’s Khumbu region set me on an
unlikely path — not as a mountaineer, but as a tourism planner asking one question: can
tourism, over the long-term, measurably and demonstrably improve the wellbeing of the
communities and places it depends on?
Mt. Everest features constantly in world news, almost always for the wrong reasons — queues,
deaths, melting ice, waste management. Rarely reported is what lies beneath: a Beyul, a sacred
Himalayan landscape stewarded for centuries by its Indigenous Sherpa community. A
community thriving today in health, education, self-governance and livelihoods, whereas most
First Nations worldwide are marginalised. Indigenous Peoples are just 6% of humanity, yet as
stewards of 30-80% of Earth’s remaining biodiversity, their wellbeing is existential to us all.
At the request of the local government, the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality, I’ve just
led the design of their 2026–2040 Tourism Strategy, placing Beyul philosophy at the heart of a
“regenerative tourism” system in which every visitor actively strengthens community wellbeing,
ecosystem integrity and living heritage — not just the economy. To make this real, we’ve built
an AI-enabled wellbeing dashboard tracking resident happiness, tourism pressure and climate
risk. The Khumbu sits atop our “Third Pole”, which is losing ice 65% faster than a decade ago
and threatening food and water security for 160 million people downstream. You can’t manage
what you can’t measure — and Indigenous communities, the gatekeepers of critical natural
capital, deserve tools that put decision-making back in their own hands.
Three initiatives are underway to carry this further.
First, some 7,000 living Everest summiteers, from some 100 countries, are among the most
visible, credible people on Earth. Following this year’s Everest Summiteers Summit, I’ve been
requested by the Summit Board to host a dedicated 2027 panel – to mobilise this global
mountaineering community behind Indigenous-led climate action — alongside a proposed
World’s First Nations Tourism & Wellbeing Forum, to carry Indigenous voices directly into
UNFCCC COP31 and UNCBD COP18.
Second, we’re producing a short cinematic documentary, The Calling of Beyul, with German
cinematographer Markus Brandl — a portrait of the Khumbu’s sacred-landscape identity and its
Sherpa guardians, filming this year. It will live permanently on the Municipality’s website for
every visitor, enter international festivals, and — if finished in time — screen at the 2027
Summiteers Summit. It will also serve as a pilot for a larger film on Indigenous Peoples, the
wellbeing agenda and climate mitigation, which we’re now seeking sponsors to fund.
Third, the dashboard itself is becoming a business model. What began as bespoke work for the
Khumbu is evolving and being commissioned, commercially, for other World Heritage
destinations — starting with a pilot in Australia’s Victorian Goldfields — to give destinations
everywhere AI-powered, predictive tools to forecast wellbeing outcomes from policy and
investment choices. Commercial revenue from replicating this technology can help fund the
very Indigenous-led stewardship we all depend upon to balance and stabilise the Earth’s
climate.
The challenge now is bandwidth, not vision: a Nepali tourism strategy, a global summiteers’
movement, a truly global Indigenous People’s event, a short film carrying this story to the world,
and a scalable wellbeing-technology venture — each needing champions, funders and
collaborators willing to bet that Indigenous wellbeing and commercial sustainability aren’t
opposing forces, but the same solution.
Paul Rogers PhD
Paul Rogers PhD Consulting
Co-Founder, Planet Happiness
