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TRIN-GYI-PHO-NYA: Tibet's Environment & Development
Digest
September 13, 2005, Vol. 3, No. 4
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Trin-Gyi-Pho-Nya
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| Western banks finance China Exim
Bank: A Case of Environmental Money Laundering By Peter Bosshard* Six large international banks recently arranged a bond of $1 billion for the state-owned China Exim Bank. China Exim Bank is the world’s third largest export credit agency. It is financing several environmentally and socially destructive projects in countries with abysmal human rights records. Given China Exim Bank’s track record, the bond issue undermines the environmental standards of private banks and amounts to environmental money laundering. China Exim Bank plays an important role in China’s aggressive foreign economic policy. While China Development Bank finances controversial dam projects with serious environmental and human rights impacts (such as the Three Gorges and Zipingpu Dams) in China, China Exim Bank supports similar projects around the world. It does not refrain from supporting projects in countries with abysmal human rights records. The projects it finances include the Merowe Dam in Sudan, the Yeywa Dam in Burma, and the Nam Mang 3 Dam in Laos. China Exim Bank has not adopted any international environmental or human rights standards. Its environmental policy is confidential. Five large Western banks – BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Merrill Lynch – and Bank of China International arranged a $1 billion bond issue for China Exim Bank in July 2005. The large bond issue raises questions regarding the responsibility of Western banks. In the last two years, many private banks have significantly strengthened their environmental standards in the area of project finance. However, they have so far exempted their more indirect lending activities such as bond issues from their stricter standards. The Chinese government has also strengthened its environmental legislation in recent years. This legislation does however not cover China’s aggressive international economic policy. The failure of Western banks to apply social and environmental standards when arranging bonds allows institutions such as China Exim Bank to finance projects for which they could not raise capital directly. Until China Exim Bank has adopted international environmental and human rights standards, banks should not provide any finance to this institution. By arranging China Exim Bank’s bonds on the international capital market, banks will help finance projects that violate their own standards. In July 2005, International Rivers Network and Friends of the Earth/US prepared a brief report in which they warned banks of the social and environmental problems of lending to China Exim Bank. Michelle Chan-Fishel, Manager of the Green Investments Program Friends of the Earth/US, comments: “It is disingenuous for the banks to claim to be meeting environmental standards when what they’re really doing is environmental money laundering through China Exim Bank to finance projects that would never meet the banks’ own environmental standards.” (The new IRN/FoE report on China Exim Bank is available here.) [*Peter Bosshard is the Policy Director of the International
Rivers Network, an environmental NGO that supports local communities
around the world in protecting their rivers and watersheds. He may
be contacted via email.] - top of page -
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| A Public Request to All Attendants of Amravati
Kalachakra from TEAM Tesi Environmental Awareness Movement* The 30th Kalachakra Initiation by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama will be held from 3-15 January 2005 at Amravati, a small village with a population of 20,000 people on the bank of River Krishna. To accommodate over one lakh Buddhist devotees who are expected to visit Amravati for the Kalachakra initiation, more than 200 acres of mostly agricultural land will be used. Amravati is fairly remote and unpolluted by modern consumerism, so it is important that we do not destroy Amravati’s sanctity in just a few days. Here are some tips to ensure that our presence has the minimum toll on the local environment and resources: 1. Do not litter. Collect your own garbage and dispose them carefully
and selectively into the special bins provided by the Kalachakra
organizers and TEAM. Recyclable and bio-degradable garbage will
be re-used. Even the non-recyclable and non-degradable wastes will
be disposed carefully so as to minimize the toll on Amravati’s
local people and the environment. [*Tesi
Environmental Awareness Movement is a registered Tibetan
environmental NGO based in Dharamsala, India. The above request
was submitted by TEAM Program Director, Mr. Thinley Norbu. Mr. Norbu
can be contacted via email] - top of page -
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Australian mining company Orchid learns
bitter lessons in "China's Tibet" Following collapses in its share prices, Orchid’s decision came after the company learned, via an unofficial source at the last moment, that its local partner was secretly planning to award the project to a Chinese bidder. Ironically, Orchid was once touted as the "Partner of Choice for Future Deals in Region” by local authorities. “In terms of doing business in China, there are many issues that are not straight forward," said the managing director of Orchid Resources, Alvin Tan. "We felt the local company would be the ultimate winner and it would be pointless for us to pursue it.” Mr Tan is also quoted as saying that the Tibetan officials had not told the company there was a competing bid and had no intention of doing so. The company has now abandoned all its Tibetan ventures, apart from a revised 10 percent interest in Qu Long and Jia Ma, suffering an estimated loss of $3.3 million. "The Orchid experience in Tibet has really highlighted the financial risks of Western companies getting involved in resource extraction there," said Australia Tibet Council co-ordinator Liam Phelan. Welcoming Orchid’s withdrawal from the Nagarze gold prospect in Tibet, Tibetan rights groups – Australia Tibet Council and Free Tibet Campaign – called on the company to abandon fully its failed ambitions for the Qu Long copper site. "Orchid's investors have seen their shares almost halve in value last month on the back of Orchid's Tibet adventure - and this is Chairman Dr Tyrwhitt's second aborted run-up at Qu Long. With the company's Tibet plans in tatters, the prudent financial move for Orchid is to stem the losses and walk away." The Tibetan rights groups are essentially demanding the company to hold off on investing in the region until the Tibet-China situation is resolved and the Tibetan people are able to choose freely if and how their resources are used. On January 20, 2005, the Tibetan Government-in-Exile expressed concerns about foreign mining companies' intent and plans to explore gold and copper in Tibet, including specifically that of Orchid Capital Limited. The press statement urged Orchid and other foreign mining companies “to reconsider their involvement in these projects on moral and environmental grounds as World Bank, BP Amoco and SinoGold did after a careful study of the current reality inside Tibet." However, Orchid’s decision to withdraw from Nagarze project is based on “commercial considerations,” according to Alvin Tan. Orchid's official announcement is
available here. - top of page -
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| A brief environmental history of the Lhalu
wetland By Emily T. Yeh* A 6.2 square kilometer marsh on the northwest edge of Lhasa, the Lhalu wetland has become a prominent symbol of environmental protection in the TAR, and has been featured as a prime candidate for enticing foreign investment into Tibet’s "ecological construction." The government itself has purportedly spent 12 million US dollars on conservation measures. The recent flurry of activities around Lhalu raises a series of questions: What kind of land use history has necessitated such expensive restoration and protection? Why has investing in improving Lhalu become so important at this particular moment in time? And what form does this protection actually take? This brief report addresses the first and last of these questions. In the early part of the twentieth century, Lhalu covered dozens of square kilometers. Water was waist-level or deeper in many spots, and the marsh was dotted by ponds. Black-necked cranes used the wetland as nesting grounds, as did white and yellow swans, wild geese, and other birds. In addition to providing habitat, the wetland plays a role in microclimate regulation, floodwater storage, and maintaining underground water levels. Embedded in current environmental policies is the assumption that there was historically no management of the wetland. In reality, however, it was actively managed, both for protection and production. The name Lhalu comes from the Lhalu aristocratic family and village, one of several around the marsh. Historically, only a small part of the wetland was owned by the Lhalu family. The vast majority belonged to the Tibetan government, and was known as the "outdoor treasury" because it was the highly valued source of fodder for government horses. Overall management of the government marsh was the responsibility of one monk and one lay government official, known as "grass managers" or rtsa-gnyer, who worked on 3 year terms. Under these rtsa-gnyer were the officials’ estate managers, who in turn hired families from Lhalu village, who were responsible for overseeing all marsh-related work done by Lhalu villagers. In addition, four other "marsh protectors" or 'dam-srung lived around the perimeter of the wetland. These families received no salary, but instead, were allowed to harvest marsh grasses in return for their work. Water levels in the marsh were too high for livestock to graze, but government taxpayers from 18 counties and estates around Tibet were required to harvest marsh reeds to be used as fodder for government livestock, during a set period of time each year. Most significant, however, was the yearly manipulation of water levels in the marsh. Every spring, the "grass managers" ordered Lhalu residents to build turf and stone embankments to block water from flowing out of the low-lying reaches of the wetlands into the nearby Kyichu River. The explicit purpose of building these embankments was to flood the marsh so that the marsh reeds would grow better. Once the rain started in the summer, the Lhalu residents were once again hired to take down the embankments, this time to facilitate marsh grass harvesting in the late summer and early fall. In the 1960s, a new vision of the wetland as "waste" led the army to attempt to drain the marsh for agricultural reclamation. This was largely unsuccessful, however, and was abandoned in the late 1960s. Also during the collective period, much of the northern half of the marsh was divvied up to city construction teams and residential committees, which sent workers to harvest marsh turf. Although turf harvesting was practiced prior to 1959, the scale of activity increased significantly, because of increased demand for fuel. The granite walls along the north side of the marsh were also divided to different teams for quarrying. A third major change occurred in 1975, when the Nyangbran and Dogbde rivers were re-directed into the back of the marsh. Historically, the two sediment-laden rivers brought their sand and silt into Lhasa and formed a sand-lined channel through the city. Because of plans for urban construction, this sand channel was entirely dismantled in 1975 and the two rivers were redirected into the wetland. Although sand-holding pits were dug, they were too shallow, and remained unexcavated. As a result, the back of the marsh was buried by sand. When the 1980s brought economic reform and urbanization, new roads and buildings encroached on the wetlands. By the early 1990s, more than half of the wetlands had been drained and built over. The most dramatic environmental transformation came in 1992, when, as part of a UN World Food Program agricultural development project (#3357), the city constructed a channel called the "middle trunk canal" (zhong gan qu), to flow along Lhalu’s southern boundary. Workers around the city participated in mandatory labor on the canal, which was designed for flood control and drainage for wastewater, as well as for "city beautification." Unfortunately, residents began to dump garbage into the canal, and despite periodic clean-up campaigns, water in the canal became smelly and plagued by eutrophication. Even worse, the level of the canal is lower than the marsh and thus had a very significant draining effect, drawing 70% of the wetland’s water into the Kyichu. It was into this land use history that environmental protection began in the 1990s. In 1997, the Lhasa Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) prohibited further farmland reclamation, the digging of marsh turf for urban lawns, clothes washing in the marsh, and the excavation of fish ponds. Measures for environmental protection focused on limiting local residents' access to Lhalu wetland and its marsh grasses, even though the impact of fodder harvesting is minimal compared to the dessication of the marsh caused by the canal. Many nearby residents had become somewhat dependent on livestock for their livelihoods since most of their farmland has been expropriated for urban construction. Thus, they were and are resentful of the rules and fearful of further restrictions. The latest phase in protection, which began in 2002, has finally begun to address some of the root causes of wetland dessication. This phase included the construction of a visible and expensive gate around the entire wetland, the construction of deeper sand-and gravel-holding pits, and the re-lining of the zhong gan qu canal to prevent further drainage. Though the government announced bans on grazing within the wetland at one point, these have not been enforced and seem now to have been at least temporarily withdrawn. In the summer of 2004, many of the pieces of the metal gate had gone missing, stolen for re-sale in the local market, but in 2005, new bars were put in place to prevent further damage. [*Emily T. Yeh is an Assistant Professor at University
of Colorado's Geography department. She may be contacted via
email.] - top of page -
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| Nu River Dams: Approval Expected in Coming
Months Open letter sent to Chinese government urging public disclosure of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) International Rivers Network,* September 7, 2005 On August 31, a broad coalition of Chinese groups sent an open letter to the government urging public disclosure of environmental studies for the Nu River Hydropower Development Plan before the government decides to approve a series of at least four dams for the now free-flowing river. The letter reveals that Central Government agencies have reviewed the EIA of the revised Nu River Hydropower Development Plan and are planning to approve it in the coming months. The Nu River is one of only two undammed rivers in China and has been at the center of an unprecedented campaign by Chinese environmentalists, journalists and the general public to protect the river from massive hydropower development. Ever since Premier Wen Jiabao suspended plans for 13 dams on the Nu River in April 2004, the Yunnan Provincial Government has been trying to push through a scaled-back version of the plan. [Editor’s note: The highest and the northern-most of the 13 dams, the 307 meter tall Song Ta Dam, that is expected to displace more than 3,600 people is planned in Tibetan inhabited areas.] The local media reports that Central Government approval is being sought for four dams for the first phase of the plan. This includes the largest dam in the proposed cascade, the Maji Dam, which at 300 meters would be one of the highest dams in the world. The open letter - signed by 61 organizations and 99 individuals - points to several Chinese laws which require public disclosure of EIAs and public hearings in cases where stakeholders may be adversely affected. Yet NGOs in China are concerned that the revised EIA for the four proposed dams on the Nu River is already making its way through the government approval process without any opportunity for public scrutiny or input. The letter states: "There is still no way for the public to learn how the developers and local government plan to avoid environmental damage, or to arrange proper relocation, or to assure the safety and economic feasibility of the dams. We believe that it does not fulfill the legal requirements for such a major plan if it bypasses the public participation requirements in Chinese law. The decision-making under such circumstances lacks public support and cannot tolerate history's scrutiny." The Nu River (known as the Salween in downstream Burma and Thailand) runs through an area of rich cultural and biological diversity, and has been recognized as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Area. In July, the World Heritage Committee expressed its "grave concern on the impacts that the proposed construction of dams could have" on the Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Area and downstream communities and stated that any dam construction within the World Heritage property "would provide a case for inclusion of the property in the List of World Heritage in Danger." The Committee will send a monitoring mission to the site in 2006 to evaluate the situation. The proposed dam projects would forcibly displace some 50,000 ethnic minority people. In addition, the dams would affect the livelihoods of millions of people living downstream who depend on the river for fisheries, agriculture and many other aspects of their livelihoods. [For more information, contact Aviva Imhof, Campaigns
Director, International Rivers Network. - top of page -
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| Decision of World Heritage Committee on
Salween River Dams and the Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Area (Courtesy: International Rivers Network) Environmentalists have long pointed that China’s planned 13 dams project on the Salween River (Nu Jiang) also adversely affects the integrity of the UN World Heritage Area of the Three Parallel Rivers. The World Heritage Committee recently expressed concerns about the impacts on World Heritage property and issued the following statement: Decision 29 COM 7B.7 […] [a] Having examined Document WHC-05/29.COM/7B.Rev, |
| Kathmandu-Lhasa bus service to resume (Source: Kantipur online, August 12. Courtesy: World Tibet News The direct bus service between the capital cities of Tibet and Nepal – Lhasa and Kathmandu – operated jointly by Sanjha Yatayat, a Nepalese bus operator and a Chinese bus operator, which was suppose to run a weekly round-trip service since May 2005 has been stalled for over two months. According to reports, “the Chinese government's arbitrary decision to not issue individual visas” is responsible for warding off a number of passengers that the 1,044 km trans-Himalayan bus service has been able to run only seven trips in more than three months. In an effort to resume the bus service, the Nepalese bus operator, Sanjha Yatayat, has handed over the task of processing travel permits to a private travel agent in Kathmandu called the Sunshine Lhasa Kathmandu Travels, which promises to finish the “complicated” visa process in less than ten days. Tickets for a seat are priced at 70 US dollars, permitting five kilograms of personal effects and 15-kilograms of consignment free of charge, according to earlier Chinese reports. Extra baggage is charged at one US dollar per kilogram.
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| China will mine copper in “protected”
source of the of Yangtze River (Source: People’s Daily, Xinhua: August 15) Two years ago, Tibet Information Network reported incidents of forced relocation of nearly a thousand Tibetan families from Jomda, Markham and Gonjo counties of Chamdo prefecture by the Chinese government to protect the environment along Drichu, the headwaters of Yangtze River (Tibet Information Network News Update: July 29, 2003. Also see Trin-Gyi-Pho-Nya, Vol. 1, No. 2, August 29, 2003.). As suspected by certain unhappy victims of the forced relocation drive, the government has indeed announced their mining plans in the area. In mid-August this year, China’s official news agencies, Xinhua and People’s Daily announced that a copper mine capable of producing between 150,000 and 200,000 tons of electrolytic copper in three years is being constructed in Jomda County of Chamdo prefecture, in a township called Yulong. According the official news agency of China, the mining site has at least 6.5 million tons of proved copper ore reserves, making it the largest in the whole of China and the second largest in Asia. A “special corporate entity,” Yulong Copper Industry Co. Ltd. of Tibet, with a registered capital of 625 million yuan (about 77 million US dollars) was set up this May and the project has already “entered a stage of substantial exploitation.”
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| NGO Forum on International Environmental
Cooperation in China (Source: Nujiang e-mail listserve) The fourth Chinese environmental NGO forum will be held in Yunnan Province’s city of Kunming from November 7-11, 2005. “Developing New Strategies for Biodiversity Conservation,” the Forum aims “to strengthen communication and cooperation between Chinese and international NGOs, and thereby to promote public participation in China’s biodiversity conservation and environmental protection.” Jointly organized by International Fund for China’s Environment (based in Washington, DC), Renmin University of China (Beijing) and the Green Earth Volunteers (of China), the Forum will, amongst other things, “address issues concerning biodiversity conservation and economic development in southwestern China” (including Tibetan areas) and “conduct training workshops for NGO management and capacity building.” Therefore, the Forum could be an ideal platform for Tibetan environmental NGOs to get broader exposure and connections with like-minded groups. The Forum is expected to further environmental NGOs’ role in the formation of civil society in China. Registration deadline for international participants is August 30, 2005, and for China is September 30, 2005. For more information, contact Samuel Sage in the U.S. by e-mail: ifce-adm@cox.net or call (315)-475-1170. Or in China, contact Ang Zhao by e-mail: mksdyL1@yahoo.com or call 10-65916102.
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| Illegal logging goes on in Yunnan (Source: Rivers Watch East and South Asia, September 9) Logging was officially banned in the source areas of river Yangtze (drichu) in the fall of 1998, when a central Chinese leadership, Jiang Zemin, openly acknowledged decades of rampant indiscriminate logging in the headwater areas as the cause of the devastating flood that year. Now reports are emerging as "illegal logging supported by local officials" are still widely practiced in Yunnan Province. A Singapore-based company, Asia Pulp and Paper, has been accused of illegal logging of natural forest in the region, in Simao County. The project area covers almost two million hectares, most of which is currently primary tropical forest, Huang Xu of the environmental group Greenpeace told Asia Times Online. Despite the announcement by China's State Forestry Administration (SFA) this March that it had stopped illegal logging by APP, sources in Yunnan this month confirmed that the logging goes on uninterrupted. In protest, a coalition of environmental organizations and student groups has initiated a boycott of APP's products. Analysts believe that the logging ban is stricter in the sources
of Yangtze (Tib: Drichu, Chi: Chiang Jiang) and Yellow (Tib: Machu,
Chin: Huang He) rivers, that flow from Tibet into China, where as
"illegal logging" is still going on in the upper watersheds
of Mekong (Tib: Zachu, Chi: Lancang Jiang), Salween (Tib: Gyalmo
Ngulchu, Chi: Nu Jiang) as well as the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo),
rivers that flow into other countries. APP is a case in point, as
part of the project area is located close to the upper Mekong River.
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| Tibet: “arguably the world’s
largest wildlife blackmarket” (Source: Indian Express, September 7) According to Indian Express, London-based Environmental Investigative
Agency and the India-based Wildlife Protection Society of India
are currently conducting a survey of trade in wildlife products,
such as skins of tiger, leopard and otter. Following are some of
the key findings of the survey that was conducted last month:
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