"A Drop of Tear: Nyenpo Yutse's Cry for Help"

This is a translation and re-creation of a Tibetan language blog post by Kunga Tsayang, also known by his pen name Gangnyi (གངས་ཉི་ or "Sun of the Snow"). The original post is not available, as are all other posts on the major Tibetan language blog site, tibetabc.cn, at least since the Janurary of 2010. Thanks to High Peaks Pure Earth, which had saved a copy of the original post on 26 March 2009, Tibetan Plateau blog and Tesi Environmental Awareness Movement are able to present the following translation.

The author, Kunga Tsayang or Gangnyi, was arrested by Chinese authorities on 17 March 2009 and sentenced to 5 years of prison on 17 November 2009 on various charges including posting articles online. Gangnyi is one of the many Tibetan writers, artists and educators who are being arrested or punished by the Chinese government in the recent years, as reported on the blog of Lungrig Gyal, editor of Tibet Times (བོད་ཀྱི་དུས་བབ༑). The following post is an evidence that Gangnyi was an environmental activist and reporter.


The first page of the saved original blog post

མིག་ཆུ་རྡོག་གཅིག༑ གཉེན་པོ་གཡུ་རྩེའི་འོ་དོད༑
A Drop of Tear: Nyenpo Yutse's Cry for Help


Purely beautiful


The mountains, waters and forests of my country are scarred with these unhealable wounds.





Despite forty years of mining, from the beginning of eighties till now, one cay say that no benefits to the locals are seen or heard.




Effects of coal mining: The holy mountain in the ancestral land of the three tribes of Golok people has been scarred with unhealable wounds. The glacier of the upper valley is visibly melting; the lakes and the streams are dwindling and the trees and plants of the lower valleys are dying out silently. All these have happening for years, yet nobody in the area seems to pay attention. So after two years of studying the situation we on behalf of the local people urged local authority to stop these mining activities.







As par the written decision of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which states that "The sources of resource depletion and environmental pollution are backward modes of production. The local authorities should decisively enforce the necessary national laws, guidelines and policy to quickly stop such activities." Accordingly, these non-beneficial and polluting activities should be stopped immediately. [The written decision of the Party also states that] "Whoever develops a region should also preserve it; whoever destroys the environment should restore it and whoever receive benefits should also compensate." So according to this principle, it is high time that those who caused this destruction and received benefits take responsibility for their actions.
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India poorly informed about Chinese dam project

In recent days, Indian media has been running a story that China has "admitted" that it is building a dam (Zangmu) project on the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra River). It is strange that this "news" is presented as some some shocking new information. There is a lot of misinformation being spread around in the media.

China acknowledging that it is building the Zangmu hydropower project should not be "news" because the project has long been openly advertised on official Chinese websites. There should not be any question of admission about things that are open public knowledge. Tibetan Plateau blog reported on the construction of Zangmu dam more than a year ago, in English!

New reports say that India came to know about construction of Zangmu project after its "intelligence agencies" received satellite images of construction work going on for the Zangmu project last fall. This was widely (mis)reported in Indian media late October 2009. I suppose the Indian External Affairs Minister, the person who brought the "news" from his Chinese counterpart, raised Indian concerns about the Zangmu project based on these satellite images. Indian reliance on vague satellite images as some kind of evidence is embarrassing because chinese official websites have been carrying clear photos of Zangmu construction work (see below) and models of completed project for a long time.





Then there is the issue of serious misinformation. In my previous post on misinformation about Zangmu project, I identified confusions about Zangmu project's location and use as a water diversion project. The same confusion continues, here and here are a couple of examples.

Indian media and online writers cannot be blamed too harshly for treating this as "news" and being confused about location of the project, even Hong Kong based South China Morning Post is in the same boat. Zangmu project is located in the middle reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo on the Tibetan Plateau in dZam (རྫམ་) township of Lhokha (Shannan) Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region, about 140 km southeast from Lhasa, between Zangs-Ri (Sangri) and rGya-Tsha (Jiacha) counties.

Here is a high resolution image of Zangmu project under progress from GeoEye that is annotated by one of Tibetan Plateau blog's consultants. Tibetan Plateau blog is responsible for the annotation.


Tibetan Plateau blog will soon be posting a map of planned hydropower projects on the Yarlung Tsangpo river. There are more than the five projects "admitted" by China that are planned on the river. Stay tuned.

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Thrangu dam: safe for now

According to reports, a dam near Thrangu (ཁྲ་འགུ་དགོན་ or "Changu" in Chinese media) monastery has been damaged. Many people, including nomads, had fled higher up into the mountains out of fear that the dam might collapse and the water in its reservoir will destroy the town of Jyekundo (སྐྱེ་རྒུ་མདོ) or Yushu (ཡུལ་ཤུལ / ཡུས་ཧྲུའུ).

This report from The Independent indicates that the dam is sitting like a time bomb that might cause another tragedy: "Emergency officials said the dam could burst at any time, putting 100,000 people in danger".

Thankfully it seems like the water in the reservoir of the dam has been drained and Jyekundo is safe for now.

Imagine what would have happened if the dam had bursted and its water swept the town of Yushu, minutes after the earthquake? Such concerns should be a wake up call for Chinese authorities to reconsider their dam building plans on the Tibetan Plateau, much of which is affected by seismic zones. See here, here and here for China's plans for hydropower development on the Tibetan Plateau.

Below are three Google Earth satellite images (click for larger view) of the dam and the town of Yushu. According to Google Earth, Yushu or Jyekundo is at an altitude of 3,685m and the upstream dam, located South, is at an altitude of 3,800m.






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Earthquake in Yushu

See the last section for ways you can donate to help with the relief work

A nice Tibetan song dedicated to the earthquake victims


Google has added some useful tools to support earthquake disaster relief in Yushu. And for regular real time updates (even better than tweeter), check this link. Here are some informative satellite images from google. Click to make images bigger.

GeoEye GE-1 high resolution satellite imagery of Yushu after the earthquake


USGS Shake Map showing different colors for different intensity levels of tremor


Surface acceleration


Damage intensity




Click on this link to see Kyegu Monastery relief work album. Lots of pictures.

Xinhua reports China is carrying out a geological reconnaissance for the rebuilding of the quake-hit township of Jyekundo, to be turned into "a plateau ecological tourist city."

Tibetan language map the region



Websites specifically dedicated to providing information on the ongoing situation and relief work:

Special website of local consortium of NGO's, now active in
Jiegu, Xining and Chengdu.

Plateau Perspectives is one the best sources of updates on the situation on the ground. See this special website.

University of Virginia also has a special website.



This photo of a girl reading her book in front of earthquake ruins is really something. Photo from pourmecoffee.com.



Al Jazeera report on cremations for the dead:



Here are three Google Earth images (Thanks Nima-la!) of the damaged dam near Thrangu (ཁྲ་འགུ་དགོན་ or "Changu" in Chinese media) monastery. The first two images show the town of Yushu (ཡུལ་ཤུལ / ཡུས་ཧྲུའུ) or Jyekundo (སྐྱེ་རྒུ་མདོ) at an altitude of 3,685m and the dam located South, upstream at an altitude of 3,800m. The second is a close image of the dam. This report from The Independent says that "Emergency officials said the dam could burst at any time, putting 100,000 people in danger". This dam is like a time bomb that might cause another tragedy. I urge governments, groups and citizens of China to urge China to use its resources to gradually empty the reservoir, secure the dam and take people living downstream away to safer areas.








The following images are from a Chinese language blog.







For more images from the same source (warning: disturbing images of dead victims), click here

lhatseri tweets: "Tibetan language blogs sites from PRC have been blocked. No posts about the earthquakes."

Death toll rises to 589, according to China Daily

A "Letter from China" in the New Yorker talks about China's news censorship about the earthquake

The International Rivers has raised timely concerns about dam safety and questioned the sensibility of proposed dam projects in the region.

A set of still images from the Telegraph also shows aid work going to the region.

This New York Times video shows a different set of clips.

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated Tibetan netizen reactions to the earthquake. More here.

Chinese language CCTV report


Two English language news reports available on youtube:





For more information, see these stories from Xinhua and BBC. For technical information about the tremors, see this US Geological Survey site.


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SUPPORT RELIEF WORK BY DONATING TO ORGANIZATIONS THAT WORK IN THE REGION

1. Donate to Tibetan Village Project's earthquake relief fund by clicking here

2. Another NGO working locally is Machik. You can donate to Machik's earthquake relief fund by clicking here

3. Tibet Foundation



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Update on big dam (Shuangjiangkou) in Ngawa Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

Tibetan Plateau blog reader-contributor James Trevor has compiled a brief informative report on the status and impacts of Shuangjiangkou dam. The main source of information for the report is from the (Chinese language) Journal of the Southwest Minority University, Vol. 2009 / 07, pages 16 to 19.

The Shuangjiangkou dam will be located in Ngawa Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, approximately two kilometers from the point where Barkham county’s Kyomkyo River (Jiao-Muzu in Chinese) and Chuchen county’s Trokyab River (Chuosi-Jia in Chinese) merge into a single river. Shuangjiangkou is “confluence of two rivers” in Chinese. The dam will serve as an upstream regulatory dam for a series of dams downstream on the Dadu River (Gyalrong Gyamo Ngulchu in Tibetan). Several of these dams will be built in Tibetan areas of Trokyab, Tsodun, Drakpar, Kyomkyo, and Dampa in Chuchen and Barkham counties.

Here are some photos of the site posted by Kou Lihang on Google Earth. The first photo shows construction work on the project.







Here is James' full report:

At present the Shuangjiangkou dam is under construction and the local people have to move out of the area of the future reservoir. The only descriptions of the project I could find on the internet written in English is an article by Tashi Tsering from 2004, see pages 9 and 10. He has also reported about the dam in this short news release:

At that time in 2004 and 2005 it was just a plan for another dam. While there were concerns concerning “local Tibetans who have been ordered to move away” and “historical Buddhist shrines in the area … likely to be submerged… ” no details were available. Using various sources published since then and the internet I was able to get a much more detailed view of what happens in Gyarong in 2010. On Google Earth a photo of construction activity at the construction site has been posted by Kou Lihang at position 31° 47´ 54” N and 101° 54´ 50” E [posted above]. This is more or less where the dam is built. The exact position is 2 kilometers downstream from where the two rivers meet.

Shuangjiangkou Dam Impact Data

Technical project description
The dam is 314m high. The reservoir storage capacity is 2.732 billion cubic meters of water. Installed generating capacity is 2000 MW with four turbines rated at 500 MW each. The average water flow at the dam site was measured at 524 cubic meters per second as the year round average. The average generated electricity is expected at 8.128 billion kw/h per year. The minimum expected generated electricity is 4.86 billion kw/h per year. The dam is expected to be filled with water by November 2014 and the first turbine is to run in 2015. The building cost is estimated to be 20 billion RMB or 3 billion US Dollars.

By regulating the water flow of the Dadu River with such a big reservoir the generating capacity of the dams planed or in operation further downstream will also increase by an estimated 1782 MW per year. The reservoir is also intended to hold back as much as possible of the sand that currently flows down the Dadu. Each cubic meter of water contains at present on average of between 225 grams to 298 grams of sand and silt. The total amount expected to arrive at the reservoir per year is around 4 million tons. Holding back such a large amount of sand has a positive effect on all dams downstream, as all dam reservoirs remain working at full capacity for longer and turbines are not damaged by sand. The foundation of the dam is at 2196 m above sea level and the top of the dam at 2510 m. The water level is planned to reach a maximum level of 2500 m or 10 meters below the top of the dam. At the top the dam will be 16 meters wide.

Impact on nature, population and culture
The reservoir size, once the level of 2500 meters above sea level is achieved, is from the dam about 33 kilometers along the river in direction west or Guanyin. In direction east the water will reach just below the town of Songgang which is 35 kilometers from the dam. Travelling for example from east to west with a visit to the dam it is a 68 kilometers long trip.

Impact on population
A total of 5925 persons have to move out of the flooded area. Nearly all of them are Gyarong Tibetans. The areas to be flooded are part of Ma’erkang (Barkham) and Jinchuan (Chuchen) county. Only one small township (Xiang) named Baiwan (Pagbar, meaning “White Bend”) with a population of 2390 persons is inside the reservoir area. The main village of Baiwan Xiang is called Jiada (Kyodag) with a population of 300 persons. All other people are from other small villages along the rivers. The dam is designed to fill up to a level of a maximum of 2500 meters above sea level as the towns of Songgang (Zonggag) and Guanyin would be under water too, if a higher level would have been decided. It looks like the reservoir size is designed to minimize the impact on the local population. Any other site along the Dadu River for a similar sized dam would result in much more people resettled.

Impact on culture
The two counties have a total of 82 Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples with 2252 monks in 2009. There are 7 monasteries or village temples which will be under water. The number of monks in the 7 monasteries is 137 in 2009. The 7 monasteries have 1787 followers (persons supporting and visiting frequently) in the surrounding villages which are 4.8% of the population of the two counties. This means the majority of the 5925 persons who will be resettled will be able to visit their traditional monastery. The resettlement as planed in 2009 is to move people in the same township to higher ground and not far away to new locations. An archeological survey of the reservoir area was completed during 20 days in June 2005. The archeologists from Chengdu were searching for new underground sites. Indeed 12 sites, mostly from the New Stone Age, were discovered in such a short time. The details are published in “Sichuan Wenwu” (Sichuan Cultural Relics) 6 / 2005 pages 17 to 20.

The main source for the data: Journal of the Southwest Minority University, Vol. 2009 / 07, pages 16 to 19. Chengdu, China. No abstract in English. For the technical data the most up to date sources from the internet were used. Older articles are still available but the most recent figures were used for this update.

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Using Tibetan nomads for border claims

A couple of days ago, Press Trust of India reported about China pushing Tibetan nomads towards Ladakh region of India to strengthen territorial claims over disputed border areas. PTI had quoted an Indian Bhartiya Janata Party delegation visiting Ladakh about the phenomenon. Since the PTI report is a very brief, I quote here in full:

China pushing nomads into Ladakh region: BJP
STAFF WRITER 19:19 HRS IST

Leh, Apr 4 (PTI) Accusing China of pushing its nomads and grazers into Ladakh, a BJP delegation which visited the region today demanded that Government open the area to tourism to defeat the "Chinese design of grabbing the land by inches".

"We have come here to ascertain reports about the Chinese incursion and what we have found is shocking...," said party spokesperson Rajeev Pratap Rudy, who was part of the five-member delegation that visited Ladakh and bordering areas of Nyoma and Demchok, 300 kilometres from southeast of this Himalayan town.

This is the first national-level political delegation to visit the far flung areas of the Himalayan town. The team included former Uttrakhand Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari and former J and K unit chief Nirmal Singh.

I asked around for more information on this. My Ladakhi friend, Tashi Morup, who is also a local journalist, told me that this phenomenon has been happening for a long time.

Here are some pictures of Tashi Morup and I visiting this part of Indo-Tibetan border.

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"Flower power monk protects 'wild west'"

The following article, including photos, is from China Daily. Thanks to a reader for sharing this article. It's about a monk's research and public education work on flowers of the Tibetan Plateau. Normally I add articles of interest published elsewhere on a separate "Other Stories" page, but this one gets a special place on the Tibetan Plateau Blog. I hope Sonam Konchog la's story inspires more Tibetans to engage in environmental or other such research and education initiatives, and not be completely bogged down by religion or politics.




Flower power monk protects 'wild west'
By Guo Shuhan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-01 09:52

Sonam Konchog, 44, is obsessed with flowers. The lama of Serkhang Monastery in southwestern Qinghai province has spent a good part of his life observing the plants blanketing the holy Gadoiqowo Mountain in Chindu county, Yushu Tibetan prefecture.

"Have you ever gazed at a flower for more than a minute? If you have, you'll know you can communicate with them," he says.

This passionate man of flowers has compiled an illustrated pamphlet of the indigenous flora and distributed it to the villagers in this area. Sonam believes that only when they become aware of their natural environment, will they be motivated to stop tourists and pilgrims from picking the flowers at will.

In the 25 years that he has spent at the monastery, Sonam has traveled to the holy mountain every August, as dictated by his religion. The numerous flowers fascinated him and he began to set aside some money to buy himself a camera. He finally got one in 2004.

Flowers in full bloom always draw his full attention. His favorite is the red poppywort. The lama seems to share a special relationship with this tiny flower with bright red petals and a sweet fragrance. Sonam sets off on its trail between May and June, as the flower stays in bloom for just four short days.


Red poppywort is an endangered species. Courtesy of Sonam Konchog

A senior lama of the monastery, who specializes in traditional Tibetan medicine, told Sonam the flower is good for the liver and lungs. It was once common in the area, but is becoming harder to find, as are many other kinds of plants.

In 2005, Sonam decided to do something to protect these flowering plants. Every year, he along with 19 other monks and villagers, visits the mountain in August when the flowers are in bloom.

In 2008, he put together some 200 pictures of different flowers into a pamphlet titled Botany Archives of Holy Gadoiqowo Mountain. Each flower is carefully catalogued with its name in Tibetan, English, Latin and Chinese. The pamphlet also details the medicinal properties of the flowers, if any.

Thanks to help from the Shanshui Conservation Center, an organization for bio-diversity conservation founded by professor Lu Zhi of Peking University, and the Qinghai Forest Bureau, 1,500 copies of the pamphlet have been distributed to the locals for free.

"We have been looking for people like Sonam who are dedicated and capable in environment protection," Lu says. "These grass-root conservationists are actually the most powerful force in protecting China's wild west."

Sonam has included parts of the pamphlet in 1,000 textbooks, in Tibetan, for students, which he has helped edit. He has enlisted the support of herdsmen to ensure these flowers are not picked, and also made a short documentary about dandelions last year for a video project sponsored by the EU-China Biodiversity Program.

The project invited 10 amateur filmmakers to articulate the challenges for biological and cultural diversity. Eight documentaries were shown last December in Kunming, Yunnan province.

"We Tibetan Buddhists revere nature. The pamphlet tells people that plants cannot survive if torn from their roots.

"I trust the good nature of the locals. Their care of plants and animals will bring about a lasting harmonious relationship with the holy mountain, which has blessed us generation after generation," Sonam says. Read more on this article...