Vegan Everest climber Kuntal Joisher promoting Vegan festival

Kathmandu, 29 March (2022) - Record-breaking trailblazer: the First Vegan Everest Summiteer Kuntal Joisher is here in Nepal for Nepal's history-making plant-based festival: Himalayan Vegan Festival.

Himalayan Vegan Festival is the biggest landmark event in the Himalayas which will be held in Kathmandu, Nepal September 15^th-17^th, 2022, and Thimphu, Bhutan from September 18^th-20^th, 2022 dedicated solely to introducing, educating, and promoting a plant-based lifestyle and its benefits to the general public by hosting over 100 international, regional and local delegates, celebrities and speakers from more than 32 countries.

This non-profit event will be open to the general public for free. However, due to limited seats, you can also book passes to reserve seats. It is a family-friendly, educational and entertaining event that will have local musical and dance performances; a fantastic vegan food court; vegan product bazaar;  free cooking classes; free movie screenings; free interactive workshops and classes; a kids activities corner; a 5k mini-marathon; short movies competition; health, fitness, and fashion features; a hands-on youth education area including youth-oriented yoga and fitness activities; an organic gardening seminar; animal welfare and nature conservation education, and much more!

Kuntal Joisher who is one of the key speakers at the festival is an international athlete, the first-ever vegan to summit Mount Everest. He has summitted Mount Everest twice and attributes his endurance and strength to plant-based food and training. Through his trekking and climbing, he works to dispel myths about nutrition related to a plant-based diet. Kuntal defines himself as an ethical vegan but he is equally passionate about raising awareness about the health benefits of veganism for both people and the planet. As a respected photographer, Joisher’s work has been published in National Geographic, BBC Earth, The Outdoor Journal, Himalayan Journal, and many other magazines globally. He is the winner of the prestigious Kutch Shakti, Kutch Ratna, and Kutch Kohinoor Awards in India.

Kuntal Joisher in this Press Meet (March 28 organized at Utpala Cafe) has shared his experience of climbing Everest on a plant-based diet and stated that out of so many difficulties he faced during his summit, his diet wasn't one. He shared that climate change is causing the melting of glaciers, and how it's going to impact nations differently, Nepal is one of the countries that is going to get impacted the most. The urgency to address animal agriculture and the destruction it lays whether it is biodiversity loss, deforestation, carbon emissions, pollution, etc.  

Kuntal also shared that peace starts from our plate and the notion that we need dairy or meat simply means we need calcium and protein, which is abundant in the plant kingdom. Kuntal encouraged to join the festival so that we all could make informed choices and reap the benefits of plant-based diet.

The chairperson Suresh Prasad Sharma highlighted that the event is family-friendly, interactive, and informative where different animal welfare institutions and organizations that promote plant-based diet are included.  He concluded that Nepal being the birthplace of Buddha, should follow the first principle of pancha shila which gives the message of Ahimsa. He also emphasized that the Himalayan Vegan Festival could give the message of Nepal as an ecofriendly and vegan-friendly nation and welcomed everyone to Himalayan Vegan Festival.