People in the Mountains - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 490

FIGURE 10.6 Construction projects, especially roads, have attracted large numbers of local and
migratory workers such as these seasonal workers on NH 21, Pir Panjal Himalaya, Himachal
Pradesh, India. (Photo by J. S. Gardner.)
Seasonal economic migrants also seek employment opportunities in tourism, agri-
culture, industry, and construction. In the European Alps and the North American Cor-
dillera, many young people move to the summer tourist and winter ski resorts for sea-
sonal employment. These might be considered amenity migrants seeking alternative
lifestyles. They contrast to the hundreds of thousands of Nepalese, Biharis, and other
poverty-stricken South Asians who migrate seasonally to construction projects and tour-
ist sites at high altitude in the Himalaya. Such people are usually the primary source
of manual labor in road building and maintenance and on construction projects (Fig.
10.6). A similar pattern has been more recently found in western China, where poor and
usually landless peasants (from nonmountain areas) are employed in the construction of
roads, railroads, and hydroelectric projects in the mountains. Seasonal or limited-term
economic migrants are also found at construction sites in the Alps and the Cordilleras
of the Americas. Other forms of seasonal economic migration into mountain areas in-
clude people engaged in reforestation or tree planting on a large scale, a very common
occurrence in western North America, and those engaged to harvest cash crops. Many
Sherpa people of the Everest region have become so wealthy through tourism that sea-
sonal Rai laborers now perform the bulk of the agricultural, portering, lodge operation,
and yak-herding work.
Seasonal economic migration that is persistent over time produces a form of semi-
permanent residency in the mountains. Although more common now than in the past,
it was not unknown in the past. Trade across mountain ranges between people from
different sides of the mountains often took place at well-established sites within the