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Training Tibetans in Environmental Policy and Advocacy
at the 2004 World Conservation Congress
Tibet advocates at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, South Africa, 2002
Delegates Lhadon Tethong, Tashi Tsering, and D'Arcy Richardson at the Second World Conservation Congress, Jordan, October 2000
I. The Need to Focus on Tibet's Environment The Tibetan Plateau is the source of the world’s 10 greatest watersheds upon which 47% of the world’s population depends. The headwaters of Asia's major river systems are now threatened with an increasing number of water control projects, including hundreds of dams and several major water transfer projects, all designed to meet Chinese demands for water and energy. Similarly, the farming and grazing lands are being driven to support more settlers and more food exports than those fragile, high-altitude lands can sustain. Wildlife and native plants are being threatened because the markets for them remain uncontrolled and because preservation of their habitats conflicts with the government’s ambitions in areas capable of human settlement. When they are allowed to do so, even China’s own resource experts are writing of the irrationality of such intense, short-term abuse of the land and of the desertification and permanently reduced fertility that are becoming widespread in the wake of the abuse. The situation constitutes a direct denial of the Tibetan people’s
right to determine the course of their development and the use of
their resources. What is more, these rights could be impaired for
generations if more efforts are not made to alter the current policies. |
| II. History of Tibet Justice Center's
involvement in the IUCN IUCN, The World Conservation Union (formerly, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is a global environmental organization whose mission is “to influence, encourage and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.” IUCN is comprised of members from 140 countries that include over 70 States, 100 government agencies, and 750-plus non-governmental organizations. Tibet Justice Center is the sole voice for Tibetan environmental concerns among more than 900 governmental and non-governmental IUCN members and has been an active member since 1990. The World Conservation Congress is the general assembly of IUCN members. Every four years, the Congress brings together governments and members of civil society groups in order to shape the future agenda for conservation and sustainable development. IUCN is thus one of the most important forums to document and publicize Tibetan environmental concerns which have been omitted from China’s development policies in Tibet. At IUCN’s First World Conservation Congress in Montreal in 1996, Tibet Justice Center and an international coalition of co-sponsors succeeded in having the first-ever resolution on Tibet’s environment adopted by an international body. After eight days of intense negotiations between the sponsors and the Chinese delegation, an agreement was hammered out to broaden the resolution but to retain the specific concerns of the Tibetan people about a hydroelectric project at Yamdrok Tso, a sacred lake near Lhasa in south-central Tibet. Tibet Justice Center built upon this progress at the Second World Conservation Congress in Jordan in October 2000. We introduced a new resolution on protection of the major river systems in Asia that flow from the Tibetan Plateau, and used this strategy to begin building a regional coalition of non-governmental organizations with a stake in Tibet’s environment. At the Congress, we succeeded in passing a resolution that emphasizes the rights of local people to control the use of their own resources and the necessity of including their representatives in any discussions of water management. This resolution calls upon IUCN to coordinate a collaborative effort between affected nations and peoples to address the issues related to these critical water systems. In each of these international forums we have sought to bring China into a dialogue with the Tibetans and the downstream peoples where other initiatives of this nature have failed (e.g., the Mekong River Commission). The significance of our success lies not only in the potential
benefits for the environment, but also in the process through which
it was achieved. In Jordan, two Tibetan delegates representing Tibet
Justice Center sat face-to-face with Chinese government representatives
and came to an agreement on an issue of mutual concern. This
is perhaps the first time such an agreement has been reached since
1959, keeping hope alive that a Tibetan-Chinese dialogue on broader
issues is possible. |
| III. What We Hope to Accomplish
at the World Conservation Congress in Thailand, November 2004 a) Training Tibetans in Environmental
Policy Tibet Justice Center Environment & Development Program Coordinator
Tashi Tsering is himself a product of this training. Through the
IUCN experience, Tashi worked hard to learn the IUCN process, to
understand the politics of water in Asia, and to draft resolutions
addressing the concerns of all our regional partners. As a result,
he went on to pursue a Master’s degree in International Politics
with special emphasis on the environment, and is now back at Tibet
Justice Center as a full time employee. He has taken on increasing
levels of responsibility within the organization and the Tibet support
movement, and is now recognized as the “go-to” person
for Tibetan environment and development issues by other NGOs, Voice
of America, Radio Free Asia as well as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile.
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| b) Building Partnerships with Chinese
Activists Tibet Justice Center’s strategy is unique in that it is the only NGO actively building partnerships between Tibetan and Chinese environmental activists for the protection of Tibet’s environment. In the past year, we have intensified our contacts with Chinese civil society leaders who are doing environmental monitoring work on the ground in Tibet, providing strategic input and distributing their reports to the Tibetan support network in the U.S., India, and Europe. More recently, we have been experimenting with innovative approaches with our Chinese partners to create a favorable political environment for Chinese leaders to withdraw a controversial dam project on eastern Tibet’s most sacred lake–Megoe Tso– and to follow their own laws on “ethnic minorities” and environmental protection. In this spirit, we will continue to build relationships with Chinese NGO and government representatives at this year's WCC. - top of page - |
c) Specific Objectives
S pecific objectives for the 2004 World Conservation Congress include the following: • Each Tibetan member of our delegation will represent Tibet Justice Center at the negotiations table for WCC resolutions we are co-sponsoring. • Each delegate/trainee will be paired with a veteran international environmental campaigner as a mentor during the conference, including representatives from some of the most active environmental NGOs (e.g., Wilderness Society Australia, Sierra Club). • We will organize a roundtable discussion on "Water for Human Development," to look at Tibet’s water crisis in the broader context of the privatization and exploitation of water around the world. Panelists will include representatives of diverse backgrounds, including the IUCN Secretariat and China. Chaired by Tashi Tsering, the panel will also include a talk on Tibetan perspectives on lakes, rivers, and other water bodies by a TJC delegate/trainee. • TJC delegation trainees will lobby the IUCN Secretariat to report on the implementation of past resolutions for the protection of Tibet’s environment, drawing attention through briefs and press releases to areas where there has been no action. • Delegation Chair Tashi Tsering will present the following three Tibet Justice Center white papers at pertinent official forums and events: a) Tibetan People’s Right to Control the Use of Local Resources; b) Water for Sustainable Human Development; and c) Tibet Justice Center: IUCN Member Position on the On-going Dialogue Between the Union and the International Council of Mining and Metals. All of these papers are being prepared or updated by Tibet Justice Center’s team of international law experts, and will be made available in print and online for other activists to cite from and use. • Delegation trainees will create networking and advocacy links with regional and like-minded organizations and peoples and establish a minimum of 100 professional links to participating delegates and their organizations. • Delegation trainees will make use of every opportunity to educate summit delegates about Tibet, its unique environmental issues, and the role that the Tibetan Plateau plays in key environmental issues regionally and worldwide. • To facilitate dissemination of project information and reports from the conference, we will: 1. Prepare press releases and articles for newspaper and radio throughout the course of the project—reporting on the project progress and successes at the World Conservation Congress 2004. 2. Set up a special section on Tibet Justice Center’s website for information about Tibetan participation at the conference and information on Tibet’s environment. 3. Post information to Internet newsgroups and email lists about participation in the conference, including: environmental groups, Tibet support groups, human rights groups, etc. - top of page -
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| Project Personnel
Tashi Tsering, Project Manager and Head of Delegation: As the Director of the Center’s Environment and Development Program and the lead trainer of Tibetan environmental interns, Tashi Tsering will lead the Center’s delegation to the Congress. Tashi has been involved with TJC’s environmental initiatives since 1998 and was a key leader in the creation and passage of the landmark IUCN 2000 resolution on Tibetan transboundary rivers. Tashi also represented TJC at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, authoring two reports for the Summit, Globalization To Tibet and Hydro Logic: Water for Human Development . Tashi has a B.A. from Bangalore University (through a Government of India merit scholarship), and received an M.A. in international environmental politics at the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government of Portland State University. Tashi has taught classes relating to Tibet’s geography and politics at the university, authored and delivered papers at various academic conferences, worked as an assistant editor for Asian Perspective, a journal of international studies and served on the Board of Directors of Students for a Free Tibet. Currently, Tashi also serves as the elected North American representative to the Steering Committee of the International Tibet Support Network, a network of 135+ Tibet support groups around the world, and on the Board of Directors of Tibetan Environment Awareness Movement, the first Tibetan environmental NGO in exile, dedicated to reviving the ecological consciousness of their people as an “ecological ethnicity.” Tashi is a recipient of the Sasakawa International Trade and Development Fellowship, a Global Greengrant, and a Galen Rowell Fund for Tibet Award. Dolkar Tenzing, team member, has been working as an intern with Tibet Justice Center’s Environment and Development Program since February 2004, during which time she translated various Chinese documents, researched Tibetan environmental issues, met with Chinese and other environmentalists, helped draft an e-newsletter, and consulted on various project initiatives. Born and educated in Lhasa, Tibet, Ms. Tenzing also holds a B.A. in English from the prestigious Central University of Nationalities in Beijing, China. Ms. Tenzing brings extensive experience in working on environment and development issues in Tibet, China, Nepal and the US. Ms. Tenzing is fluent in English, Tibetan and Chinese languages. Ngawang Legshe, team member, is an intern at Tibet Justice Center, working on the translation of “Citizen’s Guide to the World Commission on Dams,” Tibet Brief newsletter, and environmental research. Ngawang is a student of law and environmental science at Hampshire College, Massachusetts. He graduated from Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Varanasi with distinction position. He is currently a Kahn Fellow at Kahn Institute, Smith College. He teaches Buddhism and Tibetan language to Tibetan students in Pioneer Valley, Western Massachusetts. He served as a reporter and editorial assistant to various publications of the Tibetan parliament in exile and the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Thinley Norbu, team member, is the Project
Director and a founding member of the Tibetan Environment Awareness
Movement (T.E.A.M). Before starting this project, Mr. Norbu served
the Department of Information and International Relations of the
Tibetan Government in Exile for 8 years as a Project Officer, Program
Coordinator, and the Tibet Support Group Liaison Officer. Mr. Norbu
has a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. - top of page -
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