They trekked through the Himalayas for weeks at a time, gathering local lore, surveying the landscape and wildlife and harvesting ornamental touches for their village from artisans in the Kathmandu Valley.
After five trips to China and Nepal, their world started to come alive in the form of Serka Zong, a mythical Nepalese mountain village in the heart of Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom theme park in Florida.
Serka Zong is the "preamble" to Animal Kingdom's newest attraction, Expedition Everest, which officially opens on April 7, according to Joe Rohde, the creative executive for Walt Disney Imagineering who helped bring the village to life.
Festooned with vibrant red, green, yellow, blue and white prayer flags that line the approach to the snow-capped peak of Everest, the village is nestled in the foothills of the majestic mountain. Brass bells hang like antique pendants in an arcade running along the outside of one of the buildings.
Visitors stroll through Serka Zong, with its real museum and make-believe Internet cafe and trekking supply store, on their way to a roller coaster ride through the mountain and an encounter with a creature known as the Yeti, the mountain's legendary protector.
The settlement is much like a village in Nepal, surrounded by lush greenery, with buildings adorned with the same authentic wood carvings one would see in the Himalayas -- and for good reason: Nearly 2,000 pieces of wood used in the structures were made by Newari woodcarvers in the Kathmandu Valley. And some 8,000 props -- including furniture and wall decorations -- were purchased in the Himalayas.
In addition to gathering information to create Expedition Everest, Disney also funded a real-life expedition involving scientists from Conservation International (CI), a US-based non-profit group devoted to protecting biodiversity.
The CI team travelled to China and Nepal to study native plants, insects and animals and to help locals develop skills and methods to better protect their environment.
The scientists documented 700 plant species in China and more than 200 in Nepal, and -- by observing tracks and sounds, using camera phototraps and through interviews with local people -- they documented 10 large mammal species in Nepal and 17 in China, though they believe there are about 39 large mammal species still surviving in the area.
"That's really good," said Leeanne Alonso, the lead scientist on CI's Rapid Assessment Program expedition, "because China has a lot of people and, comparatively, not that much habitat left."
Among the mammals the team of 20 scientists and field assistants found in late summer and fall of 2005 were four endangered species: the giant panda, the snow leopard, the Asian wild dog and the red panda, a rare creature with a raccoon-like face, pointed ears and a striped tail.
"It's good news that they're still around," Alonso told AFP.
She noted that despite serious threats such as overgrazing and wood gathering, many animals and plants are still thriving in some areas of south-western China because their lands are held sacred by Tibetan people, who are duty-bound to protect them.
"Integrating culture into conservation is very important, and that's what we found in this region in China," Alonso said. Community groups also played an integral role in protecting Nepal's Makalu-Barun National Park, though they did not yet have a management plan in place.
To that end, the information that CI gathered on its expedition will be used to help bolster conservation efforts in the region and improve education for locals who do not hold the lands sacred and therefore may not realise the importance of protecting them.
According to their preliminary findings, Alonso and her team also believe they found several species that were not previously known to science, and they plan to share those and other findings with the scientific community after a peer review later this year.
"The premise of an a priori respect for nature that you see in these cultures is at the heart of the story we're trying to tell," Rohde said, "this idea that, beyond the rational reasons for conservation, beyond the economic and materialistic reasons for the conservation of wild places, there are reasons that transcend all of that."
Serka Zong features carved mani stones, stone stupas and a three-tiered temple inspired by the mandirs that populate the mountain villages of the Himalayas.
The queue line also snakes through a museum highlighting the legend of the Yeti, details from the CI expedition and information on biodiversity.
"There are details within details within details to anchor you in the fact that we are talking about the real world, not an illustrated children's book fantasy world," Rohde said, pointing to the trekking supply store, with its parkas, climbing rope, sleeping bags, crampons and oxygen bottles.
"It's just exactly the kind of little shop you would see along the trail if you were on your way up to Everest," he told AFP.
But the tight, enclosed space -- and the hints that the imaginary owner, Tashi, also lives in the tiny shop -- bear another hidden lesson about the Himalayan region, according to Rohde.
"It's just a reminder that all of this action takes place in a world where it's difficult for these people who live in these places to make decisions about their lives that do respect the environment and respect the conservation of wild places, because they have no money and no stuff," he said.
"You just have to look for these details, but if you look for them, they're absolutely there."
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