Geographical Magazine October 2023 Back Issue

More than 2,000 years of ice formation on Mount Everest’s South Col glacier has been lost in the past 30 years. This year, 17 people died attempting to climb the world’s highest peak – four times the average. Experienced climber and writer Natalie Berry interviewed
90-year-old Kanchha Sherpa, the last surviving member of the team that first reached the summit in 1953, and his grandson, Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa,
a glaciologist who’s working to conserve the high Himalaya (Page 28). She recounts their fears and hopes for the mountain’s future as it faces dramatic climate change and the problems of an ever-growing number of people willing to spend tens of thousands of pounds to scale its heights.
Our cover story is a report from Cambodia’s Tonlé Sap lake, which is also facing a host of modern pressures. The Mekong River, when replete with monsoon water, used to flow into it, creating one of the world’s most bountiful lakes, the largest in Southeast Asia. Today, as Tommy Trenchard reports (Page 42), upstream dams, changing weather patterns, population growth and overfishing are leaving those who live on and around Tonlé Sap impoverished, with little option but to go deeper in debt or migrate to city slums.