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Tibet's Environment and Development Issues
Introduction
Tibet, popularly known as the "Roof of the World", existed for over 2,000 years as a sovereign nation. It's three administrative region; Kham, Amdo and U-Tsang covers a huge area of 2.5 million sq. km. China invaded the country in 1949 and subsequently occupied the whole of Tibet in 1959. Today, Beijing refers only to the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region (1.2 million sq. km) created in 1965 as "Tibet"- which consists only of U-Tsang and some parts of Kham. Tibet is situated at the central part of Asia and this makes it one of the most environmentally strategic areas of the continent. Tibet stretches 2,500 kilometres from west to east and 1,500 kilometres from north to south. It has an average height of 4000 metres above sea level and many of the peaks reach beyond 8000 metres, such as Mount Everest (Mt. Chomolungma)-the world's tallest.
Prior to the Chinese occupation, Tibet was ecologically stable and environmental conservation was an essential component of the daily lives of its dwellers. With open grasslands that account for about 70 percent of the landmass of Tibet, it has sustained Tibetans and their pastoral herds for centuries. Despite its cold environment, for thousands of years the Tibetan people inhabited this plateau and created cultural landscapes based on the principles of simplicity and non-violence that are in harmony with the nature.
After the invasion of Tibet, the materialist productivist Chinese ideology that insisted on making the fragile alpine environment produce more than what is sustainable trampled upon this nature-friendly way of life. The invasion was followed by widespread environmental destruction in Tibet, resulting in deforestation, overgrazing, uncontrolled mining, nuclear waste dumping and more recently resettlement of nomads and herders along with heavy industrialisation and widespread urbanisation. China is also investing huge amounts in the exploration of mineral deposits all over Tibet to supply its own demand for raw materials and hydropower.
Natural Resources and biodiversity in Tibet
Tibet is one of the few regions of the world where limited scientific research has been conducted on the biological aspects of its many species. Tibet has one of the world's richest biodiversity of plant and animal species, with some rare and endangered species that are endemic only to the Tibetan plateau.
Plants: Over 5,000 species of higher plants grow in Tibet; many of them are rare and endemic. These plants include about 2,000 varieties of medicinal herbs used in the traditional medicinal systems of Tibet, China and India. Rhododendron, saffron, bottle-brush tree, high mountain rhubarb, Himalayan alpine serratula, falconer tree, hellebonne, etc. are among the many plants found in Tibet. There are 400 species of rhododendron on the Tibetan Plateau, which make up about 50 percent of the world's total species. According to scientists, the Tibetan Plateau consists of over 12,000 species from 1,500 genera of vascular plants, which accounts for over half of the total genera found in China.
Birds: In Tibet, there are over 532 different species, 57 families of birds, which is about 70 percent of the total families found in China. Some of the birds include: storks, wild swans, Blyth's kingfisher, geese, ducks, shorebirds, raptors, brown-chested jungle flycatchers, redstarts, finches, grey-sided thrushes, Przewalski's parrotbills, wagtails, chickadees, large-billed bush warblers, bearded vultures, woodpeckers and nuthatches. The most famous being the black-necked crane called trung trung kaynak in Tibetan. Unfortunately, several of these birds are threatened with extinction as a result of continuous human intrusion into their lives.
Animals: The mountains and forests of Tibet are home to a vast range of animal life found only in Tibet. Many rare and endangered animals face an uncertain future unless their habitats begin to change positively. These rare and threatened animals include: the snow leopard, Tibetan takin, Himalayan black bear, wild yak (Tib: drong), blue sheep, musk deer, golden monkey, wild ass (Tib.: kyang), Tibetan gazelle, Himalayan mouse hare, Tibetan antelope, giant panda and red panda.
Forest: Tibet's forests covered 25.2 million hectares. Most forests in Tibet grow on steep, isolated slopes in the river valleys of Tibet's low-lying southeastern region. The principal types are tropical montane and subtropical montane coniferous forest, with evergreen spruce, fir, pine larch, cypress, bamboo, rhododendron, birch and oak among the main species. Tibet's forests are primarily old growth, with trees over 200 years old. The average stock density is 272 cubic metres per hectare, but U-Tsang's old growth areas reach 2,300 cubic metres per hectare - the world's highest stock density for conifers.
Minerals: Tibet also has a vast reserve of rich and unexplored mineral resources. Tibet has deposits of about 126 different minerals accounting for a significant share of the entire world's reserves of gold, chromite, copper, borax and iron. The largest uranium mine is in Thewo, part of Kanlho prefecture of Gansu province. Chinese geologists have discovered a whole province of minerals: copper, silver, lead, zinc and gold.
Waters: Tibet is the source of many of the Asia's principal rivers, which include: the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), Senge Khabab (the Indus), Langchen Khabab (the Sutlej), Macha Khabab (the Karnali), Gyalmo Ngulchu (the Salween), Zachu (the Mekong), Drichu (the Yangtse), Machu (the Huang ho or Yellow River) and the Irrawaddy. These rivers subsequently flow into ten countries; China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. These rivers and their tributaries are the life-blood of millions of people living in the downstream regions of Asia. More than 15,000 natural lakes are found in Tibet and some of the prominent lakes are Mansarovar (Mapham Yumtso), Namtso, Yamdrok Yumtso and the largest, Kokonor Lake (Tso Ngonpo).
WHY SAVE TIBET'S ENVIRONMENT?
The Tibetan plateau's continental and global significance is derived from the fact that it is a watershed for ten great river systems. Research figures have shown that rivers originating in Tibet sustain the lives of nearly 50 percent of the world's population and 85 percent of Asia's total population. Thus, the environmental issues of Tibet are not an inconsequential regional issue, but have an immense global significance to warrant international attention. Tibet is referred to by China as the "Number one water tower" but this water tower is now drying up: its ability to capture, hold and steadily release water for the downstream users is slowly diminishing. Its snow peaks and glaciers are all melting too fast. Tibet's rivers are threatened by China's plans for massive dams, hydropower and water diversion projects, which also jeopardize the lives of billions of downstream users. Many of such projects are often carried out without conducting any kind of impact assessment on its downstream users, which may have devastating regional and international ramifications.
According to a March 2007 report from World Wildlife Fund (WWF), four of the world's 10 most endangered rivers originates in Tibet: the Drichu. Gyalmo Ngulchu, Zachu, and Sengye Khabab. Downstream these rivers become some of the world's best known: the Yangtze, Salween, Mekong, and Indus, respectively. Water pollution caused by mining is extremely hazardous in Tibet, as are the many other ecological impacts of this industry. Therefore, the protection of Tibetan plateau should be a collective concern for many downstream countries.
Scientists have shown that the environment of the Tibetan Plateau affects the global jet streams that blow over it. This in turn causes Pacific typhoons and the El Nino (warm ocean current) phenomenon, which stirs up ocean water causing disruption to marine food chains, affecting the weather patterns and the economy of Peru, Ecuador and the Californian coastline of USA, while New Zealand, Australia, India and Southern Africa reel under dreadful drought. It also has an important influence on the monsoon, which provides essential rainfall for the breadbaskets of South Asia.
Due to its high altitude and frigid climate, Tibet's environment once destroyed, will be very difficult to regenerate. More than ever before, the need to save the Tibetan Plateau from ecological devastation is urgent not only for Tibet, but also for the sake of our planet, which needs the many environmental services that Tibet provides. A sustainable and continuous provision of such services can only be guaranteed if the environment of the Tibetan plateau is saved and the development on the Tibetan plateau is sustainable.
ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION AS A RESULT OF CHINA'S DEVELOPMENTAL POLICIES IN TIBET
The serene and peaceful environment of Tibet has been undergoing great changes over the past 50 years. Many long-standing, worsening and chronic problems have been caused by excessive emphasis on making the plateau produce more for human consumptions than is sustainable. Today, Tibet and the Tibetan people face many serious environmental challenges as a result of Chinese occupation. Few of those are discussed below:
Wildlife decimation:
Prior to the Chinese invasion, there existed a strict ban on the hunting of wild animals in Tibet. The Chinese have not enforced such restrictions; rather the trophy hunting of endangered species has been actively encouraged these days. Rare Tibetan animals, such as the snow leopard are hunted for their fur and sold for large sums of money in the international market. Deer antlers, musk, bones and other parts of the wild animals are used in Chinese medicine. The world conservation union classified the Tibetan Antelope as endangered species in1996. A large number of antelope, gazelle, blue sheep and wild yak are being poached by hunters to supply meat to markets in China, Hongkong and Europe. China is monopolizing international attention and using the giant panda to earn hard cash as well as to gain political leverage from influential countries, even as the species is threatened with extinction. Evidence of the unrestricted hunting of endangered species for trophies continued to appear in official Chinese media until recently, which entirely contradicts China's stated conservation efforts. According to a Chinese researcher, there are eighty-one endangered species on the Tibetan Plateau, which includes 39 mammals, 37 birds, 4 amphibians and 1 reptile.
Deforestation:
Parts of southern and eastern Tibet consist of some of the best quality forest reserves in the world. Large fertile forest belts contain trees with an average height of 90 feet and average girth of 5 feet or more. Although they took hundreds of years to mature, they are now indiscriminately destroyed in the name of "development". Similar conditions prevail in other regions of Tibet such as Markham, Gyarong, Nyarong and other areas in the Eastern and Kongpo regions of Tibet. Tibet had 25.2 million hectares of forests in 1959, but only 13.57 million hectares in 1985; a 46 percent drop. Unfortunately, this figure grows each day. By China's own estimate, up to 80 percent of the forests in Tibet have been destroyed. The Chinese have removed over US$54 billion worth of timber from Tibet between 1959-1985 and, due to mismanagement, much of the wood has been simply left to rot on riverbanks or in logjams. Reforestation is minimal and is often unsuccessful. Massive deforestation, mining and intensified agricultural patterns in Tibet contribute to increased soil erosion. Deposition of silt in rivers that flow from the Plateau causes siltation downstream throughout the continent, raises riverbeds to cause major floods and increases the chances for landslides. According to Chinese estimates, approximately 120,000 square kilometres in China and Tibet have become desert as a result of human activity. In Amdo (Ch: Qinghai) province, areas undergoing desertification increase in size by 67,000 hectares annually. Additionally, scientists associate frequent floods that devastate Bangladesh as being directly associated with the deforestation in Tibet.
Urbanization and immigration:
Tibet is not undergoing a process of " natural" urbanization, driven by rural poor freely choosing to migrate to towns and cities in search of better income and work. Instead, this is top-down urbanization directed and financed with special incentives from central authorities. As such, one of the greatest threats to Tibetan people, culture and environment is the massive influx of Chinese civilians and military personnel into Tibet, especially through population transfer programmes. According to the statistics of China's 2000 Census, the population of the entire Tibetan Plateau was 10 million in 2000 - of whom 5.5 million were Tibetans - excluding the floating population. This rapid increase in the Chinese population in Tibet is exacerbating the already difficult employment situation for Tibetans. All of which, undermine the ability of the Tibetan people to hold on to their distinct cultural heritage. The Gormo- Lhasa Railway, which became operational from July 2006, has further accelerated the rate of Chinese migrants into Tibet, thereby causing further expansion of urban areas.
Damming Waters:
China owns and operates more than 80,000 dams, about 22,000 of which are large dams, mostly built after the communist takeover of 1949. Estimates are that 12 million people, equivalent to 650 everyday, have been evicted and not rehabilitated properly. About 180 water diversion projects under the title "Great Western Route" are to be undertaken in Tibet by 2010, but only few have been publicly named.
Resettlement of Nomads:
According to a BBC report in 2006, the Chinese government announced a relocation of 100,000 nomadic Tibetans to move from grasslands into towns and villages in a bid to protect the environment. This policy of settling the nomads and fencing their pastures greatly undermines the traditional Tibetan pastoral nomadism, which has historically been the primary and most suitable land use for the conditions on the Tibetan plateau. While the state increasingly blames the nomads for rangeland degradation and coerces them to vacate their land altogether, the land cleared are in turn used either for the exploration of minerals or for urbanization and industrialisation. Hence, China's policies towards pastoral nomadism are contradictory.
Nuclearisation and Militarisation:
Chinese official news agency, Xinhua reported on 19 July 1995 that there is a "20 square metre dump for radioactive pollutants" in Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture near the shores of lake Kokonor. The "Ninth Acadamy" or "North Nuclear Weapons Research and Design Acadamy" is China's top-secret nuclear city adjacent to the town of Haiyan in the Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Amdo (Ch: Qinghai Province). According to International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), the first nuclear weapon was brought on to the Tibetan Plateau in 1971 and stationed in the Tsaidam (Ch:Qaidam) Basin, north Amdo. Once a peaceful buffer state between India and China, Tibet has been militarized to the point of holding at least 300,000 Chinese troops and up to 1/4 of China's nuclear missile force. More recently, the arrival of transnational mining corporations has further exacerbated the mining and exploitation of natural resources of Tibet. The militarisation of the Tibetan Plateau profoundly affects the geopolitical stability of the region and is a cause of serious international tension.
The Chinese military presence includes:
- An estimated 300,000 to 500,000 troops of which 200,000 are permanently stationed in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region.
- 17 secret radar stations and 14 military airfields.
- 8 missiles bases (Nyingtri in Kongpo, Lhasa, Drotsang, Siling,Terlingkha, Small Tsaidam, Large Tsaidam, Golmud and Nagchuka)
- At least 81 ICBMs, 70 medium- range missiles and 20 intermediate range missiles
Exploitation in the name of "Development"
Although China has made significant advances in economic development, however, not all regions have seen this benefit. There are substantial disparities between the western and eastern regions of China, for both income and education. While China has undertaken rapid industrialisation and development practices in Tibet under the so-called banner of " Western Development," China remains either ignorant or lack sincere motivation to develop Tibet. China's actions in Tibet lag well behind the modern, advanced standards of human development in many ways. As a matter of fact, some of the most pressing issues in Tibet today are education, health, employment and the improvement in rural and nomadic areas. Affordable and adequate health care is not available to the majority of Tibetans. Systematic discrimination in the spheres of employment, health, housing, education and political representation continues to restrict Tibetan involvement and participation in the development of Tibet. China's development policies have consistently failed to pay attention to rural areas, where the majority of Tibetans live. Development in Tibet is mainly driven by China's preoccupation with security, stability, border control and the imposition of a "harmonious society." It does not take into consideration the needs of the Tibetan people and Tibet's fragile ecology. The emphasis has been on imposing large-scale, "hard infrastructure" from above, neglecting the "soft infrastructure" of human education, training, participation and engagement. The so called "development' and modernization of Tibet has been exclusively determined by the People's Republic of China with Tibetan people having had no say.
"The Tibetan people are powerless to prevent the Chinese officials from destroying the ecology of their homeland because of China's armed subjugation of Tibet for the last forty years."
-Al Gore, in his book Earth in the Balance.
GUIDELINES FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN TIBET
Development in Tibet is welcome and much-needed; and Tibetan should not be off-limits or beyond the reach of the global community of development and environment organizations. However, development is only welcome if it benefits the Tibetans themselves. All development projects in Tibet should incorporate the following crosscutting guidelines:
- Involve beneficiaries, from the identification of a project to formulation through the implementation cycle, by applying participatory tools and techniques such as participatory assessment (PRA) to ensure accountability and ownership.
- Insist always on small-scale interventions that suit the regions and populace rather than the capital intensive ones.
- To foster self-reliance and build local project management teams based on community based organizations (CBOs) through local capacity buildings.
- Conduct feasibility study and environmental impact assessments;
- Rely on age-old local knowledge and wisdom involving resource management and survival techniques;
- Respect and promote Tibetan culture, traditions, knowledge and wisdom about their landscape and risk management;
- Use Tibetan as the working language of the projects
- Neither provide incentives nor in any way facilitate direct or indirect migration and settlement of non-Tibetans in Tibetan regions.
- Neither provide incentives nor help facilitate the transfer of land and natural resources to non-Tibetans.
These Guidelines by their nature, are a checklist enabling development agencies to test the suitability of their plans for working in Tibet.
For a complete version of these guidelines, please contact our office or visit
/en/diir/pubs/edi/guide/
HOW YOU CAN HELP TIBET THROUGH ECO-FRIENDLY ACTIONS
- Write letters to your parliaments informing them the real situation in Tibet, expressing concern over Tibet's environment under China's colonial rule and its detrimental effect on the situation of your country.
- Write letters to the nearest Chinese Embassy asking them to stop ecocide in Tibet.
- Establish a Tibet Support Group in your community.
- Organize workshops, conferences, video & slide shows and seminars on the environment of Tibet.
- Participate in community meetings on environment and raise the issue of Tibet in such forum.
- Contribute pictures and footage on Tibet's environment and development activities to the Environment and Development Desk of DIIR.
- Impress upon your government to provide scholarship for environmental research on Tibet and other environmental projects.
- Tell your friends about the situation in Tibet. Email them our Website address (www.tibet.net/en/diir/enviro/) and bookmark our home page.
- If you are too busy, you can let your financial contributions work for Tibet.
Environment and Development Desk (EDD)
The Central Tibetan Administration established the Environment Desk in March1990, which later evolved into the present Environment and Development Desk. EDD operates under the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR), Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamsala. The primary goal of the desk is to monitor Chinese policies and practices related to environment and development in occupied-Tibet. Environment and Development Desk works in close coordination with various Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations all over the world, media, experts and advocates on environment to increase international pressure on China to halt environmental destructions in Tibet, which is undermining the long-term sustainability of Tibet's fragile ecology. The desk helps to increase global awareness on environment and development situations in Tibet, and campaign against the environmental degradation in Tibet as a result of China's developmental policies in Tibet. It also conducts research and publishes educational materials. The desk also imparts environmental education trainings, workshops and seminars to Tibetans in exile.
EDD's sphere of activities are mainly focused on Tibet, and its chief goals are:
- To monitor and research on environment and development issues inside Tibet.
- To disseminate information and carry out selective advocacy on promoting sustainable development inside Tibet.
- To create awareness and educate public on Tibet's environmental issues in the world in general and the exiled Tibetan community in particular
Contact Address:
Executive Head
Environment and Development Desk
DIIR, Central Tibetan Administration
Dharamshala,176215
H.P. India
Tel: +91-1892-222457, 222510
Fax: +91-1892-224957
E-mail: edd@gov.tibet.net or ecodesk@gov.tibet.net
Website: /en/diir/enviro/
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