A young man has single-handedly launched a campaign to collect garbage piled up on the 'Phoksundo Trail' within the Shey-Phoksundo National Park, Nepal's largest in terms of area.

Subarna Dangi, a youth from Thuliveri Municipality-8 in the district, has started a solo campaign to clean up the garbage piled up in the Phoksundo Trail area from Suligad to Phoksundo Lake.

Dangi, who has been active as a trekking guide for a decade, has collected more than a ton of garbage from the trail in a week. He informed that the garbage collected in collaboration with the Park and Buffer Zone Consumers Committee was handed over to the Shey-Phoksundo National Park in the presence of District Coordination Committee Chief Shyam Bahadur Rokaya.

In a week, he collected plastic, glass and textile garbage. Earlier, Dangi had been collecting garbage from major tourist areas of the country including Kanchenjunga, Annapurna, Upper Manang, Manaslu and other mountains and handing it over to the concerned bodies.

Dangi said that he had joined the campaign alone with the slogan ‘Let us keep our heritage clean ourselves’. He believes that Nepal is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and that these are the tourist assets that will introduce Nepal and Nepalese to the world. Therefore, he mentioned that all stakeholders should be responsible for keeping these areas clean and tidy.

Stating that the number of tourists has been increasing in tourist destinations including the beautiful Phoksundo Lake in Dolpa in the last few years, he urged tourists to manage the plastic waste they bring at the designated places.  

Dangi said that in the coming days, a cleanliness campaign will be launched at the famous Shaktipeeth Tripurasundari Temple, She-Gumba, Tatopani area and other tourist destinations in the district.

The collected waste was taken to the park office by mule. He informed that some financial support has been collected for the campaign and the account of it will be made public in a few days.