Scaling K2: Italian organisation to sponsor expeditions

EvK2CNR, G-B govt sign agreement to promote tourism in region.

ISLAMABAD:

In 1954, two Italian climbers became the first people ever to scale K-2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

Now, 60 years later, an Italian mountain research organisation will be helping Pakistani climbers repeat the feat.

EvK2CNR, which has been working in Pakistan for decades, is sponsoring a summer expedition to K2 for climbers from Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), officials from the organisation said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

The Italian organisation has most notably worked with the G-B government on the social economic environment development (SEED) project for the Central Karakoram National Park. The project was part of a debt swap agreement between the Italian and Pakistani governments.

The 60th anniversary of the first-ever K2 ascent will also be celebrated through festivals in Lahore and Karachi as well as the Silk Route Festival in Gilgit and Hunza in May 2014, said SEED Project Director Raffaele Del Cima. The EvK2CNR and the G-B government also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at the press briefing for promotion of tourism in the region.

According to the MoU, the G-B government and EvK2CNR will work with the Pakistan Association of Tour Operators (PATO) to attract at least 3,000 foreign tourists to visit the region in 2014.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to get tourists back to the mountains of G-B,” said EvK2CNR President Agostino Da Polenza.

Polenza said he believed K2 was the most important object in the region to attract tourists and his organisation will support any efforts to revive tourism in the area.

G-B Environment Secretary Khadim Hussain thanked the Italian organisation and said he hoped the partnership will continue in the future.

G-B Tourism Secretary Akhtar Rizvi said that the G-B government was working to improve destination tourism, destination development and community-based tourism.

He said tourism in G-B was controlled through a two-tier system of governance in which the final authority rests with the federal government. Rizvi said that the G-B government has limited capacity in presenting its mountain tourism at international events. But he said the G-B authorities would appreciate organisations such as the EvK2CNR to be its ambassador around the world.

Del Cima said there were several challenges for the tourism industry including logistics, issuance of trekking permits and security conditions. He said that the EvK2CNR was trying to bring these issues to the discussion table with the government to sort them out.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2014.