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TRIN-GYI-PHO-NYA: Tibet's Environment & Development
Digest
May 15, 2006, Vol. 4, No. 2.
Guest Editor Namgyal*
About
Trin-Gyi-Pho-Nya
Index
of Past Issues
*Namgyal, our Guest Editor for this issue, has an MA in Sustainable International Development from the Brandeis University and has been researching and writing on Tibetan environmental issues for the past five years.
The plight of India’s Tiger:
Tibetan connection and beyond The recent fur burnings in Tibet generated much excitement and gave some hope to the beleaguered tiger campaign, but it was a short lived moment. Chinese authorities have given the burnings an unwanted political angle; It first began with people being detained by the authorities over fur burnings and orders to desist from public burning of furs. On April 28, 2006 Radio Free Asia reported that the Chinese authorities in Qinghai province had instructed the Tibetan language broadcasters to wear fur. Qinghai, a region with more than 2 million Tibetans, was where the recent fur burnings have been most prominent. The ominous silence of Chinese wildlife organizations on the fur burnings in Tibet is glaring, particularly WWF China, whose recent report blames Tibetan high-fashion style for threatening the survival of tigers, and asserted that public education is needed to change Tibetans’ like for animal skins. London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) posted an unusual alert on its website on February 23, 2006 asking people to write to the Chinese Ambassador London to show support to the Tibetans burning fur. The tiger campaign: missing the bigger picture A report, Following The Tiger Trail, by TIN (TibetInfoNet) posted
January 31 this year on its website points to a larger sinister
angle on the whole illegal trade in Tibet and beyond. The report
also berates a dramatic EIA report based on anecdotal evidence and
the subsequent media reception as too simplistic and inaccurate
particularly with regard to their depiction of Tibetan culture and
so-called new found economic boom in Tibetan region as fuelling
the tiger trade. The report goes on to say how two or three syndicates
in Tibet, enjoying high political connections, control the whole
wildlife trade passing through Tibet, and the connection of these
syndicates to a larger international crime network with links to
south Asian mafias. The report says, “TibetInfoNet is in possession
of a list of ten traders involved in illegal wildlife trafficking,
all of whom are associated with at least one of the two syndicates
mentioned above.…These traders are wealthy businessmen and
have clear links to south Asian mafias.” Did the international campaign to save tigers make a huge tactical mistake when they decided to focus on the Tibetan community and openly sought to use the influence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama? The campaign to save the tiger certainly cannot afford to get involved in political quagmires, particularly with China, whose support is critical to the tiger campaign. In addition to the problem of illegal cross-border trade in tiger parts between India and China, the black hole that is our understanding of the extent of the market for tiger medicines is one area for which China’s political support is crucial for an effective public education campaign. At present, effective and targeted enforcement action is urgently needed to combat the criminal networks operating between India, Nepal, Tibet and China that are responsible for the trafficking of tiger and leopard skins. India and China have a wealth of information on the criminal networks involved, and it is essential that these countries share information and work together. The fur burning in Tibet certainly gave a glimmer of hope to the tiger campaign, but the fate of remaining tigers in India will ultimately depend on the political wills of India and China to treat the trade in tiger parts as a serious international crime and to take concrete actions to stop this trade. [also see newsbrief item # 8 below: A letter to
the editor of The Independent: re: Indian tigers]
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| Tourism and Tradition in Jiuzhaigou
and Songpan Counties By Jack Hayes* Tourism and travel in the Jiuzhaigou region (Zitsa Degu) is a clear example of the conflicts and accommodations between tradition and modernity in Tibetan areas of northern Sichuan. Local Tibetans regularly make pilgrimages to and around the holy mountains of the region, and domestic Chinese and foreign tourists visit Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong Nature Reserves for their “fairy-tale” scenic beauty and local culture. The recent market reform and political developments saw the region explode into the consciousness of both Tibetans and Chinese. Since 1980, tourism has been promoted in Jiuzhaigou and Songpan Counties, and its development has generated two significant strands of cultural and economic practices. The first is directly related to the rapid expansion of tourism and environmental projects in the late 1980s and early ‘90s when many local Tibetans were drawn into the eco-tourism industry. Tibetan religious and pastoral culture, at least a carefully constructed and duly administered version, was commodified and packaged for visiting tour buses in and around the nature reserves as early as 1987. In addition to the cultural elements of local tourism, the environment, specifically the colorful pools, grass-covered plateaus, and seasonal foliage were targeted for tourist consumption. In 1995 over 150,000 tourists visited Jiuzhaigou alone, and by 2003 this number grew to over 700,000 tourists for the region as a whole. In contrast to a detachment from the “modern” felt by tourists visiting the region, local Tibetan cultural revival and participation in the development of tourism has served as a means to experience the modern. On one hand, Tibetans face the penetration of tourism into their daily life and how it has reshaped their outlook and way of life. On the other hand, however, tourism, with its focus on the local landscape and Tibetan culture has created a space to revive cultural traditions marginalized in the 1950s and ‘60s and create a new, and even “pop culture.” In effect, this has led to two layers of Tibetan culture in the region, with both negative and positive implications. The first layer, the revival of traditional forms both religious and cultural, began in the early ‘80s with the revival of religious activities, including pilgrimage and reconstruction of local monasteries. Popular pilgrimage practices expanded after 1982 when the government offered guidelines to reestablish state religious affairs bureaus, compensated monasteries ruined since the ‘50s, and redressed some cases of persecution during previous political campaigns. Tibetan participation in subsidiary tourist industry and pilgrimage practices expanded as well—including services run by local villagers ranging from horse trekking, handicraft and souvenir trade, folklore entertainment, and inn-keeping brought in income beyond agricultural and pastoral production. On the more negative side, this led to greater social and economic disparity between local Tibetans more or less involved in the tourist industry, and increasing generational differences over proper practice of traditional cultural forms. More positively, it led to increasing interactions between locals and tourists of diverse ethnic backgrounds and served to highlight local Tibetan self-identity vis a vis others. Since mid-1990s a second layer of Tibetan culture came to the foreground. The 1990s saw a decline in overall numbers of pilgrims visiting local holy mountains as administrative and economic diversification allowed for a slow but steady spread of traditional practices from select sites to other venues. There are diverse views regarding the decline of both traditional cultural and pilgrimage practices, including larger numbers of tourists and pilgrims headed to the TAR with increasingly open policies by the national government. Yet while many village elders express their concern over the decline of traditional Tibetan values and practices, other venues to express Tibetan-ness have come to the fore. These include the popularization of Tibetan-run trekking companies and businesses in the area where Tibetans channel tourists and visitors (including other Tibetans) to Tibetan venues. Furthermore, Tibetan guide books and literary production have expanded and led to the collection and publishing of a variety of cultural materials by concerned local and regional scholars. There has also been increasing interest in local and regional Tibetan music—and a massive increase in production and sales of Tibetan music (both traditional and pop music). The local areas were and are primary venues for filming and recording as they are identified as “authentic” sites of Tibetan traditional culture. From the perspective of tourists, tourism may seem to produce “pseudo-communities”,
especially when “authentic” Tibetan communities and
areas are offered as part of the attraction. As seen from the local
perspective, however, tourism may rather heighten senses of community,
and identity, as new meanings of culture are negotiated and new
notions of place made real. On the other hand, tourism may also
heighten tensions between and within communities as people compete
for profits and recognition. There is, then, a tension between modern
economic needs and traditional practices, between generations, and
between the need to reaffirm identity and the need to make money
in these counties. Yet despite the influx of domestic and foreign
tourists and the Chinese promotion of the region as primarily a
tourist and conservation site, there has been a strengthening and
reaffirmation of Tibetan identity in the process. - top of page -
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| Resettled Tibetans “can’t live
on charity forever” By Matt Perrment (Source: China Development Brief, May 01, 2006. The following is an abridged version) Five minutes drive beyond the town of Banma, some 650 kilometres south of Xining, rows of identical, one-storey buildings sit against a backdrop of brown mountains. If the buildings were longer and the enclosure walls slightly higher, visitors might think they had stumbled across a detention centre. In fact, this is a settlement project for Tibetans whose ancestors led a nomadic existence for thousands of years. Resettlement in this south-eastern corner of Qinghai Province began late last year as part of official efforts to slow desertification and reduce chronic rural poverty. Local Tibetan leaders say that as many as 20% of herding families in the area are slated to leave their pastoral livelihoods, but families taking part in the first round of relocations, which began just five months ago, are facing unemployment and even food shortages, leaving other herders reluctant to give up the relative stability of nomadic life. …[T]he local economy, which draws almost exclusively on Han migrants to staff schools, hospitals and other government posts, offers few opportunities to the Tibetan families who have traded their community assets for an uncertain future. “I don’t know anyone who has found a job. My husband and I stay home everyday and do nothing. Life is very boring now,” according to Zhou Qiong another “ecological migrant” to the area. “The government money is not enough to buy fuel or food for a year,” she continues. “I cannot speak or read Chinese so it is impossible to find work. I am afraid that we will starve.” Wealthier neighbours and relatives have been able to make up for shortfalls until now, but all recognise that this is unsustainable. “We can’t live on charity forever,” says Zhou. Two government policies designed to achieve “ecological restoration” have turned Zhou and her neighbours into state dependents. Starting in 1999, a tuigeng huanlin (“return cropland to forest”) policy—devised in response to dramatic floods that were blamed on upstream deforestation—has given grain hand-outs to farmers who plant sloping land with trees. A tuimu huancao (“return pasture to grass”) variant was designed for grassland areas to ease pressure of over-grazing. According to the State Forestry Administration, responsible for implementing this policy, more than 50% of a target 14 million hectares of land hand been “returned” by the end of 2004. The following years have seen a wave of yimin fupin (“poverty alleviation through migration”) programmes in western provinces. …In ecologically fragile areas, where most of China’s remaining destitute live, these programmes are now also being described as shengtai yimin (“ecological migration”). People in the new community outside Banma are unclear about which policy has determined their fate, but it makes no material difference to them. With no rangeland and negligible job prospects their main concern is how long the compensation package will last. “We were promised barley” according to Yang Zhong, “But received nothing.” …Access to health care is not guaranteed either. “Doctors in the town will not treat us unless we have money,” says Danla, whereas “In the village they would still treat us and accept payment later.”…Some of the Tibetans have never set foot inside a school. In one semi-nomadic village near Banma, enrollment rates are still as low as 20%, and many local people do not read or write Tibetan, let alone Chinese. To make sure that minimum targets for school attendance are met the local authorities have, according to the Tibetans, introduced a bizarre lottery system whereby certain families are ordered to enroll their children or pay a hefty fine. Local people see this as an effort to guarantee jobs for Han teachers who face the sack if numbers dip. …But although the nomads see few benefits in government schemes to settle them, the environmental pressure on their traditional livelihoods is real enough. “The grass has become poorer over the last 20 years,” admits Yang Zhong, but he blames the Plateau Pica—a rodent whose burrows allegedly hamper the regeneration of grass—rather than overgrazing. “Nomadic families obey the laws of nature,” he claims. Yet large tracts of Qinghai’s grassland are turning to desert, and land pressures have already led to violent conflicts. Unrest has not yet reached the Banma area, but local sources say that land encroachments near the border with Sichuan, 200 kilometers away, left three dead several years ago… - top of page -
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Qinghai Bird flu caused by fish farms? Over the past year, the spread of the flu has not been correlated with the migratory routes and seasons of wild birds. Indeed, some global studies have found that migratory birds are not the cause of the current wave of bird flu outbreaks stalking large parts of the world. Rather, outbreaks have been concentrated in the factory farms of China, South East Asia and elsewhere in the world. In India, the epicenter of outbreak of bird flu took place in 18 poultry farms in and around Navapur in Maharashtra. Since the Qinghai Lake outbreak last year, outbreaks in other parts of world have occurred along major transport routes. However increasing evidence suggests that commercial poultry and its products, not migratory bird populations, are the likely vectors of avian flu. Fish farms and wild bird flu on Qinghai Lake According to Le Hoang Sang, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City's Pasteur Institute, “Chicken excrement is one of the main carriers of the H5N1 virus, which can survive in a cool and wet environment for a month and slightly less if in water.” In January, a 9-year-old boy died from bird flu in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh after he caught it while swimming in water in which the bodies of infected poultry had been thrown. BirdLife International, a global body for bird protection groups in more than 100 countries, is calling for an investigation into the possibility that the fish in these ponds, which are fed with chicken dung, may be the means by which the new strain of avian influenza, H5N1, is being spread. It says that outbreaks of H5N1 have occurred this year at locations in China, Romania and Croatia where there are fish farms. The above theory, if proven right, puts a serious question mark over this practice, which has been promoted actively by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). FAO have been active in the development of commercial aquaculture, particularly in Qinghai Lake, and is said to have helped establish an integrated livestock-fish farm near the lake in the early 1990s. Qinghai Lake is the largest inland lake on the Tibetan Plateau and its Bird Island attracts thousands of seasonal bird populations including cormorants, gulls and other species that feed upon the fingerlings and naked carp, a species endemic to the Lake and commercially fished. Commercial fishing was first carried out in 1958, and since the
late 1980s the agricultural potential of the Qinghai Lake area was
being recognized and development encouraged, resulting in a rapidly
growing livestock industry. Due to abundance and good quality of
water near Qinghai Lake, attempts at introduction of exotic fish
species are being made. Fish farming was encouraged, both in the
lake and in surrounding reservoirs, supported by local fish feed
manufacturing facilities. Only an independent investigation into
the cause of flu among wild birds will tell whether the increased
development of fisheries in and around the Qinghai Lake has caused
massive deaths in the wild birds of Qinghai Lake.
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| Stop Tibet's gold rush in the international
market By Tashi Tsering* Tibet is virgin territory for western mining companies. So far mostly small private mining activities have been able to operate on the Tibetan Plateau. This has been mainly due to lack of capital, technology, transportation infrastructure and political confidence to open Tibet to western companies. However, circumstances have now changed. China has become a booming economic power, western companies are issued business contracts to bring in their capital and technical expertise, and there is the ideal transportation medium - the recently completed Golmud-Lhasa railway. These changing circumstances are creating a rush among Chinese and western companies to exploit Tibet’s minerals, threatening to cause large-scale environmental destruction reminiscent of the indiscriminate logging of Tibet’s forests from the 1960s-1990s. Unfortunately, there is no stopping the Chinese government or its companies from executing their resource extraction plans inside Tibet. Local community leaders must fast educate themselves about this impending challenge and protect their legitimate rights granted by the Chinese Constitution before it is too late. They must partner with concerned authorities and members of civil society and the media to raise public awareness of the environmental and social costs of mining and to ensure compliance of Chinas domestic laws, such as the 2003 Environment Impact Assessment Law, in the implementation of these projects. Whether western companies must be encouraged or discouraged from
this gold rush is a hot topic these days as western companies are
beginning to operate mines inside Tibet. The Guidelines for International
Development Projects and Sustainable Investment in Tibet articulated
by the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, suggests that
Modern gold mining that western companies are introducing in Tibet, for example, is a machine-, chemical- and water-intensive endeavor in which hundreds of tons of rock are moved and processed for every ounce of gold extracted. An estimated 200 tons of rock yield 1 ounce of gold, 80% of which are used for nonessential applications such as jewelry. Since cyanide is the chemical of choice for gold mining industry -- one tablespoon of a 2% cyanide solution is enough to kill a human being -- the downstream environmental risks cannot be overemphasized especially because mines of interest to western companies are all situated near rivers. Additionally, the nature of mining activity is such that it will provide absolutely nothing to the local Tibetan communities other than maybe some unskilled job opportunities, often in risky and toxic environments. And as larger areas of Tibet are mined, more communities will be forcefully relocated. If western companies are to be discouraged from making profit by plundering and fueling Tibet’s problems, the time to act is now. Currently, there are only a few companies involved. They are mostly Canadian companies and they are all in the beginning phases of operation. If unopposed, these projects will become fully operational and expand in size, attracting many more companies into the gold rush. The Vancouver based Continental Minerals, for example, is currently on a roll to raise more money to fully exploit its 12 square kilometer Shenthongmon gold mine near Shigatse in central Tibet, and acquire interest in another 109 square kilometers of land nearby. Although the fate of the Shenthongmon mountains are doomed, since Chinese companies will take over operation even if Continental leaves Tibet, a campaign against Continental and other western companies operating in Tibet is still worthwhile to stop them from expanding their operations and to discourage other companies from entering a politically disputed territory that is Tibet. [*Tashi Tsering is the editor of Trin-Gyi-Pho-Nya] - top of page -
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| 1. Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor, The Independent Online Edition (Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article362549.ece May 7, 2006) Global warming is rapidly melting the ice-bound roof of the world, and turning it into desert, leading scientists have revealed. The Chinese Academy of Sciences - the country's top scientific body - has announced that the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be reduced by 50 per cent every decade. Each year enough water permanently melts from them to fill the entire Yellow River. They added that the vast environmental changes brought about by the process will increase droughts and sandstorms over the rest of the country, and devastate many of the world's greatest rivers, in what experts warn will be an "ecological catastrophe". The plateau, says the academy, has a staggering 46,298 glaciers, covering almost 60,000 square miles. At an average height of 13,000 feet above sea level, they make up the largest area of ice outside the polar regions, nearly a sixth of the world's total. The glaciers have been receding over the past four decades, as the world has gradually warmed up, but the process has now accelerated alarmingly. Average temperatures in Tibet have risen by 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years, causing the glaciers to shrink by 7 per cent a year. Professor Dong Guangrong, speaking for the academy - after a study analysing data from 680 weather stations scattered across the country - said that the rising temperatures would thaw out the tundra of the plateau, turning it into desert. He added: "The melting glaciers will ultimately trigger more droughts, expand desertification and increase sand storms." The water running off the plateau is increasing soil erosion and so allowing the deserts to spread. Sandstorms, blowing in from the degraded land, are already plaguing the country. So far this year, 13 of them have hit northern China, including Beijing. Three weeks ago one storm swept across an eighth of the vast country and even reached Korea and Japan. On the way, it dumped a mind-boggling 336,000 tons of dust on the capital, causing dangerous air pollution. The rising temperatures are also endangering the newly built world's highest railway, which is due to go into operation this summer. They threaten to melt the permafrost under the tracks of the £1.7bn Tibetan railway, constructed to link the area with China's northwestern Qinghai province. Perhaps worst of all, the melting threatens to disrupt water supplies over much of Asia. Many of the continent's greatest rivers - including the Yangtze, the Indus, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong and the Yellow River - rise on the plateau. In China alone, 300 million people depend on water from the glaciers for their survival. Yet the plateau is drying up, threatening to escalate an already dire situation across the country. Already 400 cities are short of water; in 100 of them - including Beijing - the shortages are becoming critical. Even hopes that the melting glaciers might provide a temporary respite, by increasing the amount of water flowing off the plateau - have been dashed. For most of the water is evaporating before it reaches the people that need it - again because of the rising temperatures brought by global warning. Yao Tandong, head of the academy's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Research Institute, summed it up. "The full-scale glacier shrinkage in the plateau regions will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe," he said. [Highly recommended: View striking
images from Greenpeace China’s expedition to the sources of
Machu (Yellow River) to study the impacts of climate change: http://activism.greenpeace.org/yellowriver/en.html]
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| Saving the Tibetan Antelope On March 29, 2006, US Fish and Wildlife Service (US FWS) announced the listing of Tibetan antelope as endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. The process began first on October 6, 1999 with a petition by two US-based wildlife conservations organizations. International trade in shahtoosh, the fine hair derived from the mature antelope’s underbelly and used to make shawls and scarves that fetch upwards of US$10,000 per scarf in the West, is prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) with Tibetan Antelope listed under Appendix I (highest level of protection). But interdiction of shahtoosh imports to the US has been hampered because the antelope is not listed as endangered species under the US law. The listing takes effect from April 28, 2006 and could reinforce the US FWS’s efforts to stop trade in shahtoosh across State lines in the US. Further the US FWS will have an obligation to help the antelope range states in the enforcement and conservation measures to protection the Tibetan Antelope. A National Geographic co-produced movie Kekexili: Mountain Patrol was screened from April 17 to 23 in different cities in the US, as part of a film festival on modern Chinese movies to mark the recent visit of Chinese president to the US. The film is based on the true story of Wild Yak Brigade, an armed patrol of Tibetans that worked to save the Tibetan Antelope from poachers in Kekexili. The Brigade lost its first leader Sonam Dorjee in a gun battle with 15 poachers in 1994, and his successor, Dawa Dorjee died of gun shot at home in 1998 under mysterious circumstances. In 1997, the Brigade found the birthing ground of Tibetan antelope, a discovery crucial to the fight against poaching and protecting the lives of young orphaned antelopes. The same year Kekexili was designated as nature reserve. The group was disbanded by China in 2001, and today a state-run Kekexili District Protection Administration patrols the Kekexili nature reserve. On March 13, 2006 Xinhua quoted Abdulla Abbas, a member of China’s
National People’s Congress from Xinjiang as saying the number
of Tibetan antelope has fallen from about one million at the turn
of century to just 70,000 to 100,000 today. He has called for strict
protection of a new base of Tibetan Antelope breeding in the western
part of Kunlun Mountains in Xinjiang where a few thousand female
antelope are known to give birth to lambs.
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| Train service to Lhasa to be launched July
01 (Source: Xinhua, May 05, 2006) China announced that it will launch train service to Lhasa on July 01, 2006, unmanned trail operations will be carried in May to prepare for the July launch. Cargo transport has been operational since March 01 this year. Provisional prices for passenger and cargo transport have been released and bookings for train journey to Lhasa have opened. The schedule has been set for the first five trains to Lhasa, which will depart from Beijing, Chengdu, Xining, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The trains to Lhasa will depart daily from Beijing, Chengdu, Xining, and departures from Shanghai and Guangzhou every other day. Tickets for the first trains are sold out. A March 14, 2006 Xinhua news reported China’s plan to expand the railway from Lhasa to the second biggest city in TAR, Shigatse. TAR Chairman Jampa Phuntsok said an extension is due to be completed during the period of the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2011). His comments were made at the 10th National People’s Congress in March. Click here for two recent online reports on the Gormo-Lhasa railway: April 27, 2006 BBC News, Beijing: Railway raises fears for Tibet’s
future
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| Declining health of women in China, worse
in Tibet and Xinjiang (Source: Xinhua, March 17, 2006) A study by Jiangsu-based Chinese Women Research Institute shows that the health of Chinese women has declined in the past decade. The report titled China Gender Equality and Women Development: 1995-2005, hailed by Xinhua as the first comprehensive report on gender equality and women development, says the decline in the women health “is caused by the growing gender imbalance among newborns, the high death rate of baby girls, and high death toll among pregnant women in some areas.” The report quotes regional disparity within the overall
decline in health of women in China particularly “alarming”
maternal death rates in Tibet and Xinjiang. Across China, the average
death rate among pregnant women declined from an average of 61.9
per 100,000 in 1995 to 48.3 per 100,000 in 2004. In remote ethnic
minority areas, such as the Tibet Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province (traditionally Amdo region
having around 2 million Tibetans today), the maternity death rates
all exceed 100 per 100,000, with the highest being 310.4 per 100,000.
The number of health centers for women and children has dropped
sharply in the past decade. The report said such centers amounted
to 3,179 in 1995, but 2,998 in 2004. "The decline will unavoidably
weaken the health services provided for women," the report
said.
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| India ready for Nathu La trade to resume
in June (Source: IANS April 21, 2006) On April 21 India staged a mock trading exercise ahead
of scheduled opening of Nathu La June this year. The mock run took
place at Sherathang market five kilometers to Nathu La Pass. The
purpose of the mock run, attended by Indian officials and traders,
was to review and test the level or preparedness to handle business.
Officials from various departments including ministry of home, external
affairs, commerce and industries beside intelligence visited the
small village of Sherathang, which would be the main trade mart
for the formal border trade. For the trade mart at Sherathang in
Nathu-La, 13 new sheds to accommodate banks, customs and telecom
offices have been built in the first phase within a record time.
Security fencing for a stretch of 14 km to the international border
point is also complete. Formal trading was to start October 2 last
year but was postponed after China informed Indian authorities that
infrastructure required for trading on its side of the border was
not complete, a reason many see as ‘more than meet the eyes’
and cite India’s recent tilt toward US than for China’s
abrupt change of heart. Traders are pinning great hopes on reopening
of this historic pass after 44 years after relations between the
world’s two most populous nations nosedived after a brief
but brutal border war in 1962. Even though the Sino-Indian bilateral
ties have improved since then, largely due to burgeoning economic
ties, the border dispute still remains a sticky issue. - top of page -
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| China to spend $1 billion to kill grassland
rats (Source: China Daily, March 03 2006) China will target a 7.5 billion yuan ($934million)
fund at repelling an invasion of rats eating their way across fragile
wetlands on the Tibetan plateau, the China Daily has reported. Over
the past decade, rats had chewed through one third of the grasslands
in the massive Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve in Qinghai province,
exacerbating erosion around the world's highest and largest wetlands,
the report said. "The rat disaster in the Sanjiangyuan region
is huge, with the population of rodents increasing sharply".
Sanzhi Caidan, from the Qinghai Provincial Grassland Protection
Station, was quoted as saying. - top of page -
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| Two Earthquakes hit Tibet (Source: Xinhua) An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale has hit Geermu in the western Chinese province of Qinghai at about 7:38 a.m. on March 30, 2006 according to data from the Chinese seismological station network. The epicenter is located at 35.5 north latitude, 95.4 east longitude. There have been no immediate reports of casualty or damage. Another earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale on April 15 rocked Kekexili area between Zhidoi (Dritoe) County of Qinghai Province and Bangoin (Palgon) County of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the State Seismological Bureau said. The quake struck at 5:27 p.m on April 15 with the epicenter at 35.4 north latitude and 89.7 east longitude.
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TVA opens the first vegetarian restaurant
in Mundgod For more information, visit TVA at:
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A letter to the editor of The Independent:
re: Indian tigers Little illegal trade in Tibet from the poaching of endangered tigers Published: 18 April 2006 Sir: I read with interest your excellent article on the poaching threat to Indian tigers (Report, 12 April). But I was surprised to see the emphasis placed on the Tibetan community as consumers of tiger goods. I organised a major investigation into illegal wildlife trade across the Himalayas (basically from India to China/Tibet, via Nepal) for the WWF, paid for by our Foreign Office. This included rhino horn, bear gall bladders etc, but a main focus was on tiger parts (possibly available on www. citesnepal.org, unless problems in Nepal have closed down the site again). I was also acting curator of Nepal national zoo at a time of concern that captive animal institutions would be used as tiger-smuggling conduits. The wildlife trade investigation included extensive visits to army, police, customs, border posts; discussion with religious groups (with a lot of emphasis on Tibetan Buddhists; (interviews of convicted and suspected smugglers; and undercover investigation (both as tourist buyer and as the smuggler side, in collaboration with the Nepal Forum for Environmental Journalists). We found very little evidence of illegal consumption by the Tibetan community. Tiger parts were certainly highly valued and recognised as such, but only a tiny number of community members could or would obtain them. By far the largest proportion of tiger parts went beyond Tibet for Chinese traditional medicine. Also the indications were that the primary driving force was the sale of traditional Chinese medicinal products in western expatriate Chinese communities (predominantly in US). Significantly, many of the identified buyers were from mainland China, not Tibet. My concern is that the photogenic nature of a few Tibetans wearing tiger-skins will lead to an undue and unproductive shift of focus of effort away from the real drivers of the trade. Anonymous-looking powders and dried bits are far more important as end uses of poached tigers, as indeed are a few hyper-wealthy purchasers of tiger floating bones (also highly unlikely to be Tibetan). Colin Pringle
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Action alert from the International
Rivers Network Your help is needed to keep the Nu (Salween) River in China flowing freely. The river is one of only two undammed rivers in China. The Yunnan Provincial government plans to construct a series of up to thirteen dams on the Nu River. The river forms part of the Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Site, which is known to be one of the ecologically richest temperate regions of the world. The area contains over 6,000 different plant species and is believed to support over 25% of the world’s and 50% of China’s animal species. The dams will threaten the rich biodiversity of the area, affecting many rare and endangered species. Despite concerns about the dam impacts, the Chinese government plans to approve construction of the projects without releasing the environmental impact assessment (EIA) to the public. We need your help to send a message to Zhou Wenshong, the Chinese
Ambassador to the US, asking him to relay the message to Premier
Wen Jiabao that the Nu River should be protected for future generations,
and that the EIA should be immediately released to the public.
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Third civilian airport in Central Tibet The third civilian airport in TAR is reported to be ready for operation after trial flights were carried out recently. The airport is located in Nyingtri county at 3,000 meters above sea level, an altitude lower than the other two airports in the region, in Lhasa and Chamdo. Construction began in October 2004. The airport has a 3,000 meter long runway, and is expected to have an annual passenger flow of 120,000. Authorities hope its lower altitude and pleasant climate with natural scenery would make it an ideal first stop for tourists. The airport is about 120 kilometres from the recently discovered Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, the world’s largest canyon.
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| Forest fire in Mili Tibetan County (Source: Xinhua April 16, 2006) In April this year, a forest fire in Mili (Muli) Tibetan county in Sichuan close to Yunnan border burned for five days, destroying 500 hectares of land. Some 2,000 people had to be mobilized to put out the fires. Last May and June, three forest fires in the same Tibetan county destroyed more than 2,700 hectares of forest. One fire that lasted 10 days was caused by an explosion detonated by local geological surveyors and destroyed 1,260 hectares of forest in Mili. Muli county has Sichuan’s largest forested area with 850,000 hectares of forest, 790,000 of which are virgin forests. Its wood reserve is 105 million cubic metres, one tenth of Sichuan’s total.
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