Islamabad, July 28: The majesty and beauty of the Karakorams may prove its own enemy before long unless focused measures are taken to conserve their habitat against the depredations inflicted on them especially since the improvement of communications.

This was the lesson one came away with after viewing a documentary and a photographic exhibition that was held here on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the first ever conquest of K-2, the second highest mountain in the world, by an Italian expedition, led by Prof Ardito Desio.

The Killer mountain was conquered by renowned Italian mountaineer Lino Lacedelli in 1954 when he was 29 years old. The programme had been organized jointly by the Italian embassy, Government of Pakistan and the IUCN.

Minister of State for Tourism, Sports and Minorities Rais Munir Ahmad presided over the proceedings and inaugurated the exhibition. Lured by the grandeur of the ice-capped mountains defying the sky, mountaineers and adventurists have flocked there from all over the world for nearly a hundred years.

The fame that followed their victories and tragedies attracted the common run of tourists. The resultant influx of visitors to the land of lofty peaks, glaciers, alpine pastures, forests, lakes, plateaus and valley should have served the people of the area as a way of delivery from poverty and destitution as is the experience of many countries and cities that see tourism as the mainstay of their socio-economic well-being.