"Are the police allowed to fish?"

A Tibetan blogger by the name "Ling Se Jur Tha" (གླིང་སྲས་བྱུར་མཐའ) reports fishing in the Zoege (Ch: Ruo’ergai) grasslands at the source of Machu (Yellow) River. The blog was posted on July 26, 2009. The blogger is reporting this incident because on the one hand the government claims protection of the Zoege Wetland as a nature reserve, while its own policemen, on the ground, are breaking the same law "with pride".

When independent media is absent, such citizen journalism deserves our close attention. If you read Tibetan, read the comments by readers on the original post . One of them suggests noting the vehicle number and reporting to higher authorities. Tibetans bloggers engaging in citizen journalism was first publicly identified by High Peaks Pure Earth.


A quick note on the importance of wetlands: Wetlands perform key roles in a river's hydrological cycle. During wet seasons when there is risk of flooding and high erosive activity due to increased flow in rivers, wetlands help reduce these risks by absorbing water like a sponge. The excess water is slowly released during dry season. Wetlands also filter sediments, chemicals and nutrients in groundwater.

I don't know what kind and quantity of fish are in the Zoege Wetlands but this area is known to bird lovers as a prime site for viewing migratory birds such as Black-necked Crane and Mongolian Plover.

Here is the translated post (in italics) with pictures.

Are the police allowed to fish?



This policeman is fishing in the vast Zoege grassland region (read the Tibetan language post for precise description of the location). I asked the policeman, "Can the police fish in the river?" He replied, "Of course," with pride.



Here he is, fishing. The laws and regulations of China are a joke.




This is his [police] car.

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"Medicinal Herbs"

I was browsing through Tibetan language blogs, and I came across this brief post by sKar Mig (སྐར་མིག་གི་ཟིན་བྲིས་) expressing concern about the ecological implications of excessive digging of medicinal herbs on the Tibetan Plateau. Over the years, the number of Tibetan families depending on the harvest of herbs, mainlyYartsa Gunbu (དབྱར་རྩ་དགུན་འབུ་ / also known as caterpillar fungus or Cordyceps sinensis), has been growing throughout the TIbetan Plateau, mainly in the south and the east. Daniel Winkler's website has lots of useful information and pictures related to mushrooms of the Tibetan Plateau. I met Daniel Winkler last year at UBC, where he did a presentation on "The Mushrooming Fungi Market on the Tibetan Plateau". I asked him about the ecological sustainability of Yartsa Gumbu, and he did not seem too worried about it because data available to him show that so far both the harvest and growth of cordiceps around the plateau have been favorable.

While there seems to be no systematic study that looks at the question of the ecological sustainability of livelihood based on yartsa gunbu, informed people like Professor Emily Yeh are concerned about the long term social and economic risks associated with excessive reliance on the yartsa gunbu trade. Today a significant proportion of the Tibetan population depend on collection and sale of cordyceps. What if this livelihood becomes impossible for whatever reason (legal bans/ecological/etc/)?

Here are the Image of the original Tibetan blog post and its English translation:



This year again people are digging the ground everywhere on the Tibetan Plateau . Since numerous Tibetans, Chinese as well as Muslims (harvesters) have been digging out the earth to gain medical herbs for decades. If this continues, severe damage in the ecosystem of the region will occur. It is urgent that the Government and the informed people do something to avert such a situation.

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A Call for Help to Stop Logging in Khyung mChu

Here is an English translation of another Tibetan language blog post related to Tibet's environment. This post is a letter providing news and calling for help to stop the deforestation, which, according to the letter, has been secretly going on for over a decade in Khyung mChu township area of Hongyuan county in North-Western Sichuan's Ngawa Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (see map below). Although posted on the blog of Tibetan writer and singer Jamyang Kyi, the letter is written by a person named Mindruk. Jamyang Kyi says she is merely posting it on her blog as per the author's request.




[begin translation]

Dear Readers:

As everybody knows, protecting the environment is protecting one's own life and prolonging the future livelihood base for humanity. Therefore, we ask how can we protect the earth and how can we ensure future security and benefit existing livelihoods.

However, at the present time, in some places, pristine areas with beautiful hills and forest are being extensively destroyed and harmed for economic benefits. Major environmental pollution and destruction are taking place in the name of regional development and construction of suburbs. For example, in Zangkar [Zangs dKar] area of Kyungchu [Khyung mChu] (Hongyuan) county, tremendous destruction is being done to the land by gold mining activities. The residents of the area repeatedly complained to the government and made every effort to stop the mining. Some local monks even left the area in protest. Their efforts were able to stop the mining activities but only for a brief time.

I wanted to write about this issue for a long time, but I was unable to do so for some time due to other reasons. Zangs dKar is a beautiful region, blessed with ten natural qualities of soil, pristine natural forest with streams flowing down from the rocky mountain, with all kinds of life forms making the place their habitat. One third of the region used to be covered by forests. However, today, mining and logging activities have inflicted irrecoverable environmental damage upon the region. In this region there is a place called Thang Lung, which is rich in natural forests. Though some of the forests are under national level protection, the majority of the forests are under regional level protection. However, local authorities and offices do not have the power to independently cut down the forests.

According to the State Forest Protection Law, logging and other activities in the forests are not allowed unless one obtains necessary permits from the provincial, prefectural and city (local) level offices of the Department of Forest. The law also clearly outlines that consumption of forest resources must be lower than the natural growth rate of the forest. The State Forest Protection Law of the People's Republic of China clearly states that one must undertake verification with concerned local authorities and obtain the permit from the State authority for any kind of activities in the forests. In the last twelve years, large scale deforestation and widespread grassland degradation have taken place. Today, this area is so barren and horrific that people do not dare to catch a glimpse of the site.

According to the testimony of local people, these irrecoverable environmental damages are caused by the local and regional Forest Department offices. Every year, between Spring and Summer seasons, the local forest department undertakes extensive logging activities. They undertake these activities deep in the forest so that the public will not notice their actions. During the festive seasons when many people travel through the area, they halt the logging activities so that public will not know. Moreover, to fool the public, they have intentionally kept the forests near highway and bridges in its natural form. It is clear from their actions they are not in accordance with the law.

The local people and their representatives have repeatedly lodged complaints about the destruction of forests, and requested the authorities to stop these activities. However, authorities have never heeded these calls. This area is rich in old growth forest, it has all kinds of trees like pine, Juniper, fir and so on. Some of the old growth are believed to be over one thousand years old.

Just like scavenging vultures driven by an insatiable desire to eat flesh, they have been destroying the region's ancient forests without the slightest concern for many years. This is a very tragic scene. The place looks like a man without any clothes, standing naked to be humiliated. People believe it is because of this destruction and the resultant imbalance of the four elements that there were disasters like earthquake and landslides in the region. In order to protect Zangs dKar from this kind of continued disaster, I request my kind brothers and sisters, officials and journalists to help save the region from destruction.

Thank you.

From Mindruk, 2009/01/16.

Note: As requested by the writer of the article, I have put it as blog on this site.

[end translation]

Translated by Thinley Norbu of www.ecotibet.org
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Village headman's home attacked

Following is translation of a Tibetan language blog entry about "An incident near Kokonor Lake (News)" that was posted on January 22, 2009. Lake Kokonor is called མཚོ་སྔོན་ (Tso Ngon) in Tibetan. Tso Ngon means Blue Lake. The Chinese also has the same name in their language, which is Qinghai for Blue Lake. Lake Kokonor is the largest lake on the Tibetan Plateau (and in China). Reports indicate that the lake is shrinking due to climate warming, desertification and human encroachment.

[Photo courtesy of Wikipedia]

"An incident near Kokonor Lake (news)"
by Samten la



In recent years, an increasing number of fishermen around Amdo's Lake Kokonor have been catching a lot of fish and occupying pastures around the lake which belong to the region's nomads. So recently, the headman of Mogra village told the fishermen that they cannot fish here anymore and must immediately go away from the region. That night around seven to eight men, carrying different weapons with their faces covered in black cloth, came to the headman's house. Luckily the headman was not home that night. But the masked men severely assaulted the whole family and damaged their motorcycle and car and ran away. Next day on hearing the news, more than a thousand local people gathered and called for the fishing activity to stop immediately and asked them to go back. When a fight was about to break, the police came and arrested the suspects who came to kill the headman and the local nomads went home.

[end]
Translated by Yungdung Nyima of www.ecotibet.org
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