Tibetan Poppy Blues

Blue poppy..
Originally uploaded by jetbluestone

"It's worth dying after you've seen a blue poppy once."

Who doesn't like flowers? I have been wanting to write blog posts about flowers. This is my first post on the topic. I would like to post more entries on flowers, so let me know if any of you readers have information about any flowers or would like to read about any specific flower. I would like to make a collection of Tibetan names of different common flowers, for educational purposes. I think it is "cool" for Tibetans to be able to name flowers in their mother tongue.

So let's start with the Tibetan names. The coveted Blue Poppy is known to Tibetans as Utpal Ngonpo (ཨུཏྤལ་སྔོན་པོ༑), and also as Tser-Ngon Metog (ཚེར་སྔོན་མེ་ཏོག༑) as it is known in Bhutan, where it is the national flower. An Amdo Tibetan doctor once told me about this flower and I have been fascinated by it since. I also have a friend nicknamed Utpal and that added to the fascination with the beautiful name. So I got distracted this morning and started looking for information about the flower on the web.

And boy was I surprised to see all the information! There are tons of scientific papers and many books written about this "elusive" flower. There is a young Tibetan woman who is doing her PhD on Blue Poppy -- isn't that great!? Some of the books that have Blue Poppy in its title include Dreams of the Blue Poppy by Angela Lock, The Blue Poppy and the Mustard Seed: A Mother's Story of Loss and Hope by Kathleen Willis Morton, Blue Poppies by Jonathan Falla, and most notably, The Land of the Blue Poppy by Francis Kingdon Ward. I might write about Francis Kingdon Ward in another post. First, this question: if this flower is studied and grown so much in gardens around the world, what is so "elusive" about it?

There is a new book and a website specifically devoted to this flower/book, Blue Heaven: Encounters with the Blue Poppy. The site describes the flower as "the most alluring due to its sheer beauty, its perfect poise and the astonishing clarity of the blue. It is the most sought after because it is rarely seen and widely thought to be impossible to grow, listed even by as experts as a formidable challenge."

Blue Poppies belong to the genus Meconopsis, which is endemic to only two regions of the world: Western Europe (known as the Welsh Poppy) and the Himalayas (known as the Himalayan or the Tibetan Poppy). Welsh Poppies are yellow or orange in color and the Himalayan Poppies are blue. There are three species of Himalayan Poppy: Meconopsis simplicifolia (discovered around 1848 in central Nepal by Dr. Wallich's collectors); Meconopsis Betonicifolia (discovered in 1886 in the Kham region by the eccentric British officer/spy Frederick Marshman Bailey); and Meconopsis Grandis (discovered around the 1880's in east Nepal). Here are some of the differences among these species: M. simplicifolia is the least known of the three species, it grows up to 5 feet in height with each stem holding a single flower, which is smaller than flowers of the other two species. M. Betenoifolia is the most common of the three (easiest to grow, more suitable to drier climates), grows 3 to 5 feet high and gets stems that can hold up to 5 flowers each. M. Grandis is the shortest, usually growing to a height of 2 feet, but its stems can handle up to 5 flowers. And the flowers are much bigger than in M. Betonicifolia.

Interestingly, Poppies International classifies M. Betonicifolia as "Himalayan Blue Poppy" and M. Grandis as "Tibetan Blue Poppy." I wonder about the basis/origin of these two common names. I wonder if the two Tibetan names Tsher-sNgon and Utpal sNgon-po can be separated for Himalayan Blue Poppy and Tibetan Blue Poppy. I don't now.

So Blue Poppy is mostly found on south and eastern parts of the Tibetan Plateau. Clearly this flower of high Asia requires cooler and moist soil to grow. If you are interested in growing "the most alluring" Utpal Ngonpo, The Garden of Eden blog has a few posts which might be a good introduction. This post suggests ways of growing from seed, and this has information about planting and growing Blue Poppy. Here is an interesting tip from Garden of Eden, the depth or shade of blue color of Tibetan poppies depends on soil pH level, just like hydrangeas. For those interested in more factual information, this is the best site I found.

Some myth busters: Blue Poppies do not produce the drug, opium. Sorry guys! Not all poppies are narcotic. And although Blue Poppies are used in Tibetan medicine, they have no scientifically proven medicinal value. Apparently there are all kinds of products and services marketed around myths surrounding the flower, the Himalayas, and Tibet. This site has some hilarious stories about this topic.

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Soldiers open fire "indiscriminately" at Tibetan dam protestors

The Tibetan Government in Exile has reported at least 6 identified Tibetan women have sustained serious gunshot wounds for protesting against dam projects near their home. I have copy/pasted the entire story below. For some reason I didn't see the news until this afternoon. Here are some more information and photos about/from the region that might help contextualize the story.

Here is photo of Tawu County (རྟའུ་རྫོང༑) called Daofu Xian administrative seat. The two photos shared here are from Marshall and Cooke's landmark study, Tibet Outside TAR. I recommend reading a description of Tawu County by the same authors. The River Xianshui flows West to East on the South of Tawu county seat, after which it takes a sharp turn South to join Ngyagchu (ཉག་ཆུ༑) or Yalong River, near Nyagchuka (Ch: Yajiang) county. The thousands of protesters reported here are from areas situated between these two county seats: Tawu and Nyagchuka.


Here is an aerial (satellite) shot of the same area from Google Earth. Date photo taken and longtitude/latitude coordinates are visible if you click on the photos.


Here is a photo of Nyagchuka's Tibetan town, on the East side of the river. Again, this photo is from Marshall and Cooke's study, Tibet Outside TAR.


Since I first located the Indus River (Senge Tsangpo) dam on Google Earth, a friend and I have been searching other areas of the Tibetan Plateau for noticeable images. We found a lot of interesting stuff, including many dams and mining sites. And guess what, two of the dams we had marked are from this length of river where the dam is being built! Unfortunately the resolution of much of the region is not clear except for one patch (of image) which was taken nearly two years ago. These two dams are from that patch of image. If any of the readers have paid subscription to Google Earth and can help find other interesting stuff, that'd be much appreciated.

Note that the dams identified here are (most likely) not the one people are protesting. As the images show, these are relatively small run-off-river dams with no reservoirs. It is possible that of these are being submerged by the reservoir against which people are protesting. Notice that much of the surrounding area are forests and agricultural lands.





Also, I wonder why there were so many protestors against one dam. It must be a very big dam, with a huge reservoir that requires inundation of vast areas of land.

Yalong, or Nyagchu, is also the site for a planned 175-meter high dam, which will be connected with a 131 km long water diversion tunnel for the Western Route of the South-North Water Transfer Project.

OK, here's the news article from the Tibetan Government-in-Exile:

6 Tibetans Seriously Wounded in Protests Against China's Hydroelectric Dam Project

Tuesday, 26 May 2009, 10:00 a.m.
Dharamshala: At least 6 Tibetan women have sustained serious gunshot wounds after Chinese security forces opened fire at a group of Tibetans in Tawu County, who were venting their anger against China's forceful relocation of tens of thousands of local Tibetans, sources reported Monday.

The Public Security Bureau officials and People's Armed Police indiscriminately fired at Tibetan residents of Tawu and Nyagchu County in Karze Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, at around 11 a.m. (local time) on Sunday, 24 May.

The sources attributed the incident to China's construction of a major hydroelectric dam between Nyagchu and Tawu County, which is resulting in a large-scale displacement of local Tibetans. The government coerced local residents of Tawu County to sign a document as it begin to plan the construction work in early 2008.

This year the Chinese authorities again reinforce their relocation plan, which was vehemently opposed by the Tibetans who refused to leave their ancestral lands and houses.

Subsequently, on 5 May 2009, the Chinese government dispatched a large number of armed police to the region and destroyed homes of some families, including those of Ati Gyatso Tsang and Chego Pezi Tsang.

Earlier, the authorities convened a meeting and erected a stone pillar in their plan to relocate the residents of Wara Mato town to another place. Expressing strong opposition to the forced relocation policy, the angry residents led by an old woman named Lhamo, who is believed to be aged above 70, refused to move saying they are owner of the land and destroyed the pillar.

Consequently, as residents from Tawu and Nyagchu districts gathered in the region to protest the arrival of large number of troops on the morning of 24 May, the army fired shots leaving six Tibetan women seriously wounded.

Those wounded have been identified as Tsering Lhamo, Rigzin Lhamo, Dolma, Kelsang, Dolkar and Khaying.

But sources could not tell whether those injured are dead or alive as they were forcibly taken away after the firing incident. Read more on this article...

Ready to die defending sacred mountain

"Hundreds of Tibetans are facing off against armed security forces at Ser Ngol Lo, site of a planned gold mine in Tsangshul sub-district (Lhara Village, Markham County, Chamdo Prefecture) which natives consider a sacred mountain." Read more here: here.

Read the original news source from Radio Free Asia. Read more on this article...

Wen Jiabao intervenes in Salween Dam Project Again!

The Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has personally intervened in the construction of dams on the Salween River, once again, "calling for more careful environmental assessment and prudence before going ahead with the plan," according to the South China Morning Post. This intervention will halt the project for some time, as it happened earlier when the Premier first intervened in 2004. I am pleased to hear this news, but I wonder why he is intervening again.




China's official news agency Xinhua has quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu today saying that the "Chinese government attaches great importance to the utilization and protection of transnational rivers inside Chinese territory." Yeah right. Isn't the Mekong an international river?

The reasons provided by SCMP are far more believable: "Mr Wen ordered a halt to work on the Liuku hydropower station last month, telling authorities not to resume the plan until its impact on the ecology and local communities was fully understood." These are the same reasons provided in 2004. Chinese environmental activists campaigning to save the Salween River have been working very hard to keep the Premier's office apprised of these concerns and the state of construction on the ground. The real credit thus goes to the dedicated and well-coordinated work of these environmental activists.


Before I go further on this topic, I want to quickly bring up this notion of "two undammed rivers of China". This Times article quotes an activist saying that the Salween "is one of only two rivers in China that have not yet been dammed." I think the activist is assuming Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) to be the other undimmed river. Chinese officials have made statements in the past that there are no dams on the main stream of the Brahmaputra River. This is misleading because China is building a 510 MW hydro project on the mainstream of the Brahmaputra river, about 140 km southeast from Lhasa, between Zangs-Ri (Sangri) and rGya-Tsha (Jiacha) counties.

Coming back to the work of environmental activists, one may wonder how they are able to campaign so successfully in a country like China where public works undertaken by powerful bureaucracies such as the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Machine Building and the Ministry of Construction are notorious for their lack of social and environmental concerns, as well as their use of state power to silence criticisms. How did a project in a remote location (in Yunnan Province and on the Salween River) attract sympathetic attention of national leaders? Where were these activists during the construction of the Three Gorges Project, the world's biggest dam?

The Three Gorges Dam is (probably) the most controversial construction projects undertaken by the PRC -- more than a million people were relocated to make way for the dam and its reservoir . Its construction began in 1994, directly under the supervision of the then Premier Li Peng. There are countless stories of corruption and mistreatment of relocatees and protestors. Dai Qing's work is a prominent example. Opposition to the project was not tolerated because the project was closely tied to the legitimacy of the Communist Party (by invoking, for example, Mao Zedong's support for the project) and the economic interests of key party leaders (e.g., China's power sector has been described as the "fiefdom of Li Peng family"). For more information on the dam, visit www.probeinternational.org and www.internationalrivers.org . In many ways, the sacrifices of the victims and activists of the Three Gorges Project paved the way for a new generation of critical environmentalists in China.

By early 2000, China had a critical mass of environmental activists and journalists who were beginning to form an informal alliance to check on China's dam construction madness. China has half of the world's large dams and it has been building more than one large dam per day since the inception of the country as PRC in 1949. The trend continues to this day. The only difference is that the size and the scale of these projects are getting bigger. In June 2003, a group of academics, journalists and civil society leaders gathered for a conference at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing to discuss the implications of irresponsible dam construction in the country. The conference was in fact the first of its kind in China.

The participants of the conference discussed many dam projects, including several that were planned on the Eastern and South-Eastern fringes of the Tibetan Plateau such as the Tiger Leaping Gorge dam, the Yeti Lake dam, and the Salween dams. It was informally decided among the activists that they will focus their campaign on the Salween Dams and the Tiger Leaping Gorge project. Unlike environmental activism in the West where campaigns often criticize the government, Chinese activists must work with the government. Their goal is to assist the government, specifically the State Environmental Protection Agency, in implementing its extensive environmental laws related to construction of development projects. And they had identified a perfect tool, the new Environmental Impact Assessment Law that was passed in 2003. The standards and specificities of regulations in the new EIA law are considered to be world class. The broader campaign strategy was to focus on saving the Salween River as a World Heritage Site.

Thus an unprecedented network of activists, journalists, ordinary citizens and government officials began a campaign, mainly of public education of the cultural and ecological heritage on the Nu Jiang or Salween River. On the ground public education work was spearheaded by veteran environmental activists like Wang Yongchen and Yu Xiaogang. Their campaign measures were remarkable because not only were these supportive of China's laws but these also had a kind of ripple effect of activism. Their innovative activities include sight-seeing and rafting tours in collaboration with local residents for officials, journalists and concerned citizens, and photo exhibitions in public places like the main post office in Beijing! This wonderful video provides an insight into the kinds of issues that have been advocated by these activists.



Not surprisingly this amazing campaign became famous. International media, governments, research think tanks, UN bodies, and not to mention ordinary Chinese people took notice. The campaigners also provided direct briefings to the office of national leaders. Thus in 2004, Premier Wen Jiabao intervened in the project and called for proper environmental assessment of the project.

A fresh round of environmental impact assessment was conducted and the review panel decided in 2005 that only four of the 13 proposed dams were allowable. The nine dams that were rejected by the review panel includes Songta Dam, planned in a location inhabited by ethnic Tibetans. The government has refused to disclose the EIA study. The study was classified as a "state secret" because of transboundary (international) implications of the project.

Then I read a report some time ago, which I am unable to locate right now, that preparation work for the construction of Salween Dams is going on covertly. This is alluded to the in the video above, expressing concern for the start of construction work for Liuku Dam, the first and the smallest of the four dams approved. Thus, the news about Wen Jiabao's intervention came as a delightful surprise.

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ALL of the nomads in Amdo region (Qinghai) to be resettled

This is a quick post to share a published source of a disturbing piece of information. This blog has several postings on the topic of resettlement of Tibetan nomadic herders. You can read them here and here. In another posting, I asked readers to share data (numbers) on actual government resettlement plans in Amdo (Qinghai) region.

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous pointed out an article by David Goodman published in 2004, in The China Quarterly, titled "Qinghai and the Emergence of the West: Nationalities, Communal Interaction and National Integration" (Vol. 178, pp: 379-399). On page 61 of this article, there is a disturbing sentence: "The [Qinghai] provincial government’s goal is to settle all nomads by 2011, claiming to have completed the process experimentally in Hainan district by the end of 2001."


If it is true that government plans to resettle ALL nomadic herders in the region, I wonder why people -- including experts I have consulted -- did not know or tell me about it?! Very strange.

Anyways, for further information, David Goodman's source for that information is: Wei Xingguo and Jing Fachang, “Hainan mumin quanbu shixian dingju” (“Hainan herdsmen now live in settlements”), Qinghai ribao, 28 January 2002, p. 1.
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20 more dams on the sources of Yangtze (Drichu) River

About 400 Chinese water managers and bureaucrats have gathered in Shanghai for the 3rd Yangtze Forum, which began yesterday, to discuss about the condition and plans for development of the Yangtze River. The Associated Press reported today that an official said that at least 20 dams will be build on its headwater tributary rivers: Yalong (Nyachu), Dadu (Gyarong Ngulchu) and Wujiang rivers. China Daily quotes Cai Qihua, director of Yangtze Water Resources Committee, that currently only 36% of Yangtze hydropower potential is exploited. Plans are to increase its exploitation to 50% by 2020, and then to 60% by 2030 (as given in the graphic figure below). I suspect these plans do not consider the complex implications of climate change on future water availability in these rivers seriously enough.



My guess is that these twenty dams include those slated for the Western Route of the South-North Water Transfer Project. The size of these dams is staggering: 175 meters high dam on Nyachu (Yalong River) connected with 131 kilometer long tunnel, and a 296 meter high dam on Gyarong Ngulchu (Dadu River) connected by a nearly-30 kilometers long tunnel, and much more.

The only people who can stop China from undertaking these projects are the Chinese people. Chinese environmentalists, officials, academics, journalists, and citizens, should speak out to stop these projects before it is too late. Demand for proper environmental impact assessment of these projects is a good way to start discussion.
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India and China starts a Dams Race on the Brahmaputra River

Worried that China might build a very big dam on the Brahmaputra River near its borders, India has recently approved two big dams of their own, "in principle", on the same river downstream in its state of Arunachal Pradesh. What is interesting, and disturbing at the same time, is that India is building these dams to pre-empt China by establishing a prior use claim.

A key member of India's Planning Council, Dr. Kirit Parikh, is reportedly pushing for this idea as "a broad strategic vision". I disagree with Dr. Parikh because China is not known for respecting riparian rights on international rivers. On the contrary, I think his words would only give more excuse for China to push ahead with their plans.


What follows is an editorial I wrote in 2004 in response to the news that India expressed concerns about Chinese plans then:

Let the Brahmaputra Flow
Tashi Tsering
Trin-Gyi-Pho-Nya: Tibet's Environment and Development Digest. January 12, 2004, Issue 4.

India finally expressed concern over Chinaís plans to divert the Brahmaputra River. In November 2003, several Indian news reports carried a story that the Indian state of Assamís Union Ministry of Water Resources asked their foreign affairs counterparts ìto seek factual detailsî about the project. Indiaís concerns became real after Chinaís official news agency, Xinhua, confirmed Chinaís intentions. According to Xinhua, preliminary studies of the water diversion project were conducted at the proposed construction site in mid-2003, followed by another round of feasibility studies in October. It would not be surprising if China denies having such plans, as did Tibet Autonomous Regionís Chairman, Xiang Ba Ping Cuo, at a press conference last August.

Construction of this mammoth multi-purpose project is tentatively scheduled to start in 2009. The main structures are planned in Tibetan areas of Pema Koe, near Indiaís northeastern border. The area is also known as the ìGreat Bendî of the Yarlung Tsangpo (Tibetan name for Brahmaputra) where the river takes a sharp U-turn to enter into India. At the Great Bend, the Tsangpo River descends over 3,000 meters in approximately 200 km, constituting one of the greatest hydropower potentials anywhere in the world. China hopes to build a hydroelectric plant there that would generate twice the electricity produced by the Three Gorges Dam, currently the worldís largest dam. Plans also include diverting the waters thousands of kilometers across the Tibetan Plateau to the ìthirstyî northwestern parts of China, into the provinces of Xinjiang and Gansu.

If undertaken, the project is bound to raise some serious transboundary issues. Claude Arpi, a Tibet-China-India analyst, called the project ìa declaration of warî by China. "When it comes to a transboundary question, where the boundary is not even agreed upon, it seems practically impossible to find a workable understanding," Arpi said. In addition to border disputes, the project would make India and Bangladesh dependent on China for release of water during the dry season, and for protection from floods during the wet season. Not to mention the adverse impacts on the millions of people living downstream when nutrient rich sediments and fish will be blocked by the dam. Arpi believes the most serious issue to be the fact that the Great Bend area is located in a highly earthquake prone area. "A huge reservoir and a few PNEs [Peaceful Nuclear Explosions, as proposed by Chinese scientists to make tunnels through the Himalayas for the project] could provoke new earthquakes even more devastating than in August 1950 when thousands died."

Such massive water control projects are clearly a state (central government) undertaking--without the economic and political support of the state, these projects cannot proceed. Unfortunately, and often ironically, national leaders prefer to marvel at their engineering accomplishments in controlling nature to serve economic development rather than addressing issues of transboundary and socio-environmental responsibilities. In fact, Chinaís plan to divert the Brahmaputra would impair India's own plan to link approximately thirty of its own rivers, a project that is bound to affect the downstream riparian state of Bangladesh.

Such international transboundary river development projects raise many important issues--from the comparative importance of national economic development to issues of social justice, from the primacy of territorial sovereignty to the merits of international cooperation. As important as these intractable topics of debate are, policy makers ought not to forget the real issue--the concern expressed by the affected people. After all, states exist to provide material and physical security to the people. The goal of development policies should be to benefit the people first, not powerful interest groups like corrupt bureaucracies and businesses.

While the Brahmaputra Diversion Plan will bring sizeable benefits to China in the form of construction jobs, electricity, and water for the "thirsty north," the price that the affected people and the environment must pay is clearly unacceptable. For the local Tibetans, the project is an imposition on their land and their birthright by the occupying Chinese government. The beneficiaries of the project are foreigners while "locals" are made to bear its price. If China is genuinely committed to human rights and sustainable development as it claims to be, then the Brahmaputra Diversion Plan should not be undertaken.
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Uranium near Pangong Lake (སྤང་གོང་མཚོ༑) in Ladakh

I came across a news article from 2007 titled, "India finds uranium in icy Ladakh." It says that the uranium content (concentration) is the highest ever reported in India: as high as 5.36 percent compared to around 0.1 percent or less found in other sources of the country. If this is true, and if the reserves are significantly large, it is huge news (well, not any more) for India's nuclear program, especially for those who advocate India's nuclear independence and oppose the US-India nuclear deal. I actually travelled to that part of Ladakh, all the way to Spangmik Village of Pangong Lake, with a local freelance reporter, Tashi Morup . Here are some photos from that trip.














The fate of the people living in this corner of the world is uncertain. The farmers, pastoralists as well as nomads in this part of the region are concerned, nay, angry, at government plans to turn the region into a wildlife sanctuary. They are worried that government plans will impinge upon their traditional way of life. A wildlife sanctuary may restrict the number of livestock they can keep, limit their grazing area, ban collection wood, hunting and other such practices.










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Photo of dam on Indus (Senge Tsangpo)

A friend just sent me a link which has a photo of "The Sengye Tsangpo Hydropower Station." Upon comparing the photo with the dam on Ngari I found on Google Earth last week, it's clear that these are the same dam. According to the text on the photo, the Sengye Tsangpo Hydropower Station has an installed capacity of 6,400 Kilowatts and is now operational. Read more on this article...

The Qinghai Lake eco-environmental protection and comprehensive management project

Map source: QInghai Province website

In May 2008, the government of Qinghai Province launched the 10-year project to restore the ecological integrity of Lake Kokonor (called Tso Ngon by Tibetans, མཚོ་སྔོན་) region. Key environmental protection objectives include protection of wildlife biodiversity, wetlands and the grasslands of the region, which are believed to be threatened by global warming, desertification, human encroachment, over-grazing by yaks and sheep, and also by rodents and pests.

The project area is 30,000 square kilometers in size and comes with a promissory central government funding of $227 million. This project follows the example of a larger conservation project in the same province, the Three Rivers Headwaters Nature Reserve.

Measures to achieve project goals include planting trees and shrubs, controlling rodents and insect pests, and curtailing grazing on grasslands by fencing and "ecological migration" of nomadic herders living in the region.

Plantation of trees and shrubs sounds fine but I wonder what species of plants are being used and if these are sustainable considering local ecology.

Government measures to control rodents on the Tibetan Plateau have been controversial. The mainstream assumption of the government, supported by many local people, is that rodents, which have been found to be rapidly increasing in population, are causing grassland degradation and are competing for forage with livestock. The three main rodent species are plateau pikas (Ochotona curzoniae), voles (Microtus brandti), and zokors (Myospalax baileyi). The government has undertaken many poisoning campaigns to exterminate these little animals in the last few decades. The rodenticides not only killed target animals but also many other species of plants and animals.

In 1999, an important study was published in the journal of Animal Conservation by Andrew Smith and Mark Foggin that shattered the logic of this poisoning campaign. Smith and Foggin argued that the plateau pikas are a "keystone species" which provide essential ecosystem functions to the Tibetan Plateau. The animals are a major food source for wolves, brown bears and most of the large predatory birds of the plateau. The scientists also found that many nesting bird species use pika burrows as shelters for breeding. The increasing number of rodents on the Tibetan Plateau are a symptom, not a cause of environmental degradation.

Another important study by a team of scientists found that grazing is not the cause of rangeland degradation on the Tibetan Plateau but climate warming. Research experiments found that simulated grazing actually dampens loss of plant species diversity caused by climate warming. The team of scientists have also published an argument in the journal Ecological Applications.

There are a ton of studies that have looked at the implications of fencing of Tibetan rangelands. My advisor Tsering Shakya once told me that the academic/scientific consensus on the topic clearly show that the policy has been a disastrous failure. I have read reports from wildlife scientists such as the one here by noted biologist George Schaller who argue that fencing causes problems for many endangered animals such as the Tibetan Antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) and the Tibetan gazelle (Procapra przewalskii). These animals and the local people prefer their grasslands to be open without fences. This study, for example, indicates fencing actually exacerbating overgrazing and causing health problems among Tibetan pastoralist communities.

I think the most important perspective on this topic would be those of the nomads who are directly affected by the projects. My colleagues at TEAM will be interviewing some of these people. If anyone else have any information or insights to share, please let me know.

Before I end this blog, I want to mention about two earlier posts relating to the project area. One was about a government edict which admits there is a problem of illegal gold mining in the region. We also translated a news story about skirmish between nomads and fisherman near the lake.
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Accuracy of Three Rivers Headwaters Nature Reserve Map

A friend just forwarded a link to Chinese language maps of Three Rivers Headwaters (San Jiang Yuan) Nature Reserve and "Qinghai Lake eco-environmental protection and comprehensive management project". This link is from the official website of Qinghai Province. Here is its SNNR map.




I am pleased to say that the map of SNNR confirms the accuracy of the SNNR map that was released on this blog last month (February 2009). Of course, our map provides more details, including demarcation of zoning systems within the subareas of the reserve.

I will post a separate blog about the map of Qinghai Lake eco-environmental protection and comprehensive management project" since this is the first time I am writing about it.
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Pakistan shocked at Chinese dam on Indus River

I have heard word-of-mouth stories of a Chinese dam on the Tibetan headwaters of Indus River (Senge Khabab, སེང་གེ་ཁ་འབབ་) but never saw anything published about it. A news story from Pakistan confirmed the rumour today. I tried to locate the spot where the dam could be using Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library's handy mapping tool. Unfortunately the satellite imagery is not clear on close-up and the mapping system won't show rivers. So I drew a VERY rough blue line (took me few seconds on PhotoShop) on the map to show Indus headwaters. The dam is located near Ngari (མངའ་རིས་, called "Ali" in Chinese) township, circled in black, in Gar (སྒར་) county in Western Tibet.




I then checked on Google Earth, and guess what, the dam is clearly visible there. See a screen shot of GE image below. The dam is situated at 32 degrees and 31 minutes North latitude, and 80 degrees and 10 minutes East longitude. It is built on a tributary of Indus River, which flows from East to West joining the main (Indus) river at 32 degrees and 31 minutes North latitude, and 79 degrees and 42 minutes East longitude. The "city" on the left of the image is Ngari township.

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China and the freedom of information

Tibet has been shut off from the rest of the world for about a month now. Even Tibetan language websites and blogs have been shut down "for maintenance". So the rest of the world is essentially dependent on Chinese state run news agencies such as Xinhua and People's Daily for news. The government can churn whatever information they want as "factual news" now. Independent (and all foreign) journalists have no access to Tibet. Interestingly, Chinese state media has reported several stories linking Tibetans and bombs in the last two weeks. Although these reports haven't produced any evidence or photographs, foreign media is quick to put their own spin to the stories.

How about environmental news from the rest of China? Surely, there is more freedom there. However, censorship is also widespread. Here is an interesting story from China Digital Times:


Guangdong Nansha integrated oil refinery and petrochemical project is a major inititiative, involving Kuwait National Oil Company and Guangdong Province. The project’s potential impact on the environment became a concern of not only the residents of Guangzhou, but also neighboring Hong Kong. On March 4, 2009, Hong Kong legislator Yu Ruohui raised this question, and the Director of the Environmental Protection Department in Hong Kong replied, saying, “As far as we understand, the impact assessment of the proposed project has yet to be approved.”

However, in the last few days, an internal notice from Internet supervision departments was sent to all major Chinese news websites, translated by CDT’s Japhet Weeks.

“Environmental impact report for the Guangdong Nansha integrated oil refinery and petrochemical project”: All internet sites are prohibited from reproducing, commenting on, or discussing anything relating to the content of this report. Nor should it be discussed on blogs. Furthermore, blogs should set up keyword filtering to make sure the topic isn’t discussed. All websites are requested to strictly implement these rules.

《广东南沙炼油化工一体化项目环境影响报告书》将于近日公示，公示期间，各网站对有关内容不转载、不报道、不评论，论坛、博客不讨论并设置关键词过滤。请各网站务必严格执行。
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Grasslands of Bathang County unsafe for livestock due to mining

Bathang county (Tibetan: འབའ་ཐང་; Chinese: 巴塘县) gets its name from Tibetan, meaning the vast grassland where one can hear sheep everywhere. "Ba" refers to the sound made by sheep, and "Thang" means plains or grasslands (as in "Tsa-Thang"). However, Washington Post has published a story today that says that the grasslands are not safe for the sheep anymore due to gold and copper mining in the region. Here are two quotes from the article:

Their sheep die when they drink tainted water flowing from the mine, or lick crushed ore left on the hillside, villagers say. Now there are reports that the mine will open another cave this year in the upper grassland above Dorje's home. "We are trying to think of every possible way to stop this. If we have to, we will carry stones and wood sticks to block the entrance as soon as [the miners] begin to dig again," he said.

"Last year, eight of my yaks died. They just fell down, foaming at the mouth," said Gompo Dondrup, a nomad and farmer in Bathang county in western Sichuan province, whose family has lost more than 60 percent of its herd. "At first we didn't know why. Later, the veterinarians told us it was because of the mine. We protested, but the mine continues to operate. They said they gave compensation to the government, but the government never gave us any."

Read the full Washington Post article here .
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A delightful surprise to the people of Phagri

People of Phagri (ཕག་རི་), near Shigatse (གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ་), have some wonderful visitors this year. Xinhua reports that a flock of Black-necked Cranes have chosen Phagri, instead of their usual spot in Nyalam (གཉའ་ལམ་), as their resting site this winter.

[Photo: Xinhua]

The Black-necked Cranes, also known as Tibetan Crane (scientific name: Grus nigricollis), is well known among the Tibetans. Trung Trung Kenag (ཁྲུང་ཁྲུང་སྐེ་ནག་), more popularly known as Trung Trung Karmo (ཁྲུང་ཁྲུང་དཀར་མོ་ / "White Crane"), is a bird immortalized by what is believed to be the final and the most popular poem composed by the legendary sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso (ཚངས་དབྱངས་རྒྱ་མཚོ). A story goes that the poet Dalai Lama was sitting on a mountain top, looking for inspiration. Just then he saw a White Crane flying in the sky. He spontaneously broke into a song: "Oh White Crane, lend me your wings. I shall not fly far. From Lithang, I shall return."

The 6th Dalai Lama's last poem is believed to contain signs of his next life as the 7th Dalai Lama was born in Lithang. Here is a video of a man and a girl singing the song:


The Black-necked Crane is also popular among naturalists and environmentalists. According to the International Crane Foundation, Black-necked Cranes were the last species of crane discovered and described by ornithologists (1876). With a declining trend in its total population, which is only about 5,000-6000, the endangered Black-necked Crane is listed as "Vulnerable" in the IUCN Red List of endangered animals. The Black-necked grows to a height of about 4 feet (115cm) with an amazing wing span of nearly 8 feet (235 cm) and weighs about 12 pounds (5.5 kg).

Climate warming is known to drive animals and plants towards higher altitudes and latitudes (comparatively cooler regions) as temperature becomes too hot in their natural habitats. Migratory birds are worse off as these animals must travel long distances, covering different regions with very different environmental conditions. Related to the topic, BBC has produced a four-part documentary series called "Animal Migration in a Climate of Change" . As the Himalayas get warmer and the glaciers melt, the lakes and marshlands in areas around Phagri have become larger, and the surrounding meadows and shrubs have become greener. All these changes have made the area into an ideal winter hibernating site for the Black-necked Cranes, according to the Xinhua article.
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Qinghai edict on the ban on mining of gold powder

While going through Tibetan language blogs, I came across a notice issued by the Qinghai Provincial Government on the ban on mining of gold powder. The blog was posted on January 30, 2009. I don't know when the edict was issued, nor have I seen the text of the original Chinese source. Some readers may still find the document of interest, so here are screen shots of the original document (only) along with an English translation of the text. This document proves that the government acknowledges there are mining problems in Qinghai, specifically in Drito and Zato counties of the Three Rivers Headwaters Nature Reserve. It is also interesting to note that mining (or collecting) gold powder is not banned completely. The ban is mainly for miners from other provinces.





Edict on the Ban on Mining of Gold Powder issued by the Qinghai Provincial Government

The ecological system of the Tibetan plateau is so fragile that it cannot be restored after it has been damaged. Therefore, in order to protect the natural environment around the [headwaters] of the three rivers and maintain sustainable development in the three river basins, the provincial Government of Qinghai has issued [the following] edict.

One
All the mining areas in the Dokha and Kyikha valleys of Padma county and Dzatod in the Khridu county run by prospectors from outside provinces should be closed immediately.

Two
The Forestry Department, Environmental Protection Bureau, Department of Animal Husbandry and Legal Department in different levels in the region must launch a campaign on the protection of the natural resources and promote awareness of environmental protection among the local people.

Three
All the local governments [are responsible for posting billboards about] environment protection along the highways.

Four
Town governments are responsible for preventing its people from digging gold powder and for providing advice and helping them to establish certain environmental protection regulations in accordance with their cultural tradition.

Five
Different levels of government in the region should actively engage with the protection task and not only lead the local people toward the path of economic development but also encourage them to enhance their living standard through greater agricultural and pastoral production as well as other small industries.

Six
Mining areas in Dokha and Kyikha of Padma County and Dzatod in Khritod county should be managed according to the environmental protection law designated by the regional government.

Seven
The legal branch offices responsible for natural resource management at different levels of government in the region must impose rules on the prevention of digging natural resources and those who violate the law should be punished according to the Management Regulation of Natural Resources of Qinghai Province and other regulations issued by the government.
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Dams on Tibetan areas of Brahmaputra and Mekong

[photo: wikipedia]

1. Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo), one of the last two free-flowing, undammed major rivers in Tibet, AND China, is also being dammed. Salween is the other major river that environmentalists tried to save from dam projects but to no avail. A China Daily story yesterday acknowledged that the "Zangmu Water Power Station" is on the main stream of the middle reaches of Brahmaputra, at dZam (རྫམ་) township. Sources tell me that there are five dams planned in this section of the river, and construction has been going on since 2006. This means there is no undammed major river in China and Tibet. The installed capacity of 'Zangmu Water Power Station' will be 510 MW (85 MW x 6 turbines). The project is located in Lhokha (Shannan) Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region, about 140 km southeast from Lhasa, between Zangs-Ri (Sangri) and rGya-Tsha (Jiacha) counties. Construction work on the first dam is likely to start soon. Huaneng, China's top power company, is backing the financing of the project and, Gezhouba, one of China's biggest dam construction companies, will build the project. This news should be particularly alarming for people living in downstream countries of India and Bangladesh. China is likely to approve more dam projects on the Brahmaputra this year.

2. In March 2007, Tibet Environment Bureau approved another five dams on the headwaters of Mekong (Zachu) in Chamdo Prefecture. China has already built several dams on the Mekong in Yunnan Province that have impacted downsteam ecology and livelihoods. The Mekong River flows into Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. This time, however, authorities have released the Environmental Impact Assessment report of the Zachu dams. As far as I know, this is the first time China has released EIA of dam projects on transboundary rivers.

The total installed capacity of the five dams will be 510 MW. The names of five dams are (all in Chinese): Dhongzhong, Guoduo, Xiangda, Ruxi and Linchang. These dams are located close to each other, around 31 degree North latitude and 97 degree East longitude. This is a low population rural area at an altitude about 4,335 meters (14,225 feet). Dhongzhong and Guoduo are located near Tsher-dBad (ཚེར་དབད་ / Cerwai' in Pinyin) township, Xiangda is located near Re-Thong (རེ་ཐོང་ / Retong in Pinyin) township. Ruxi and Linchang are located near Ru-bZhi (རུ་བཞི་ / Ruxi in Pinyin) township.
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Himalaya, the "Mountains of Concrete": a review

Mountains of Concrete: Dam Building in the Himalayas. International Rivers. 2008.  

Mountains of Concrete by Shripad Dharmadhikary is a fine new report that looks at dam building trends in the Himalayan regions of Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first critical report of its scope and focus, definitely an important contribution to the debates over dam building issues in the region. However, the exclusion of Tibetan Himalayan rivers renders this otherwise comprehensive regional study still incomplete, especially since the Tibetan sections of these rivers are the critical headwaters. The report explains that the omission is due to lack of information and resources. This is personally very disappointing as I believe the information and resources are out there, if only the author and the publisher had dug more deeply to find them.

The report, however, does dedicate a full-page story (Box #4, page 20): “China ‘Goes Out’ to Build Himalayan Dams.” It provides a brief overview of Chinese dam-building expertise and the politico-economic context under which it is ‘going out’ to build “hundreds of dams” in South Asia, Africa, South America, Central Asia and other regions of the world. In South Asia, the report says that “Chinese companies have built or are building at least 13 projects in Nepal and nine in Pakistan.” There is a quick mention of Chinese plans to build a dam on Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), an idea that is alarming to the downstream countries of India and Bangladesh. Since Tibet is the headwaters to many of the major rivers discussed in the report and there are innumerable dams built and planned on the Tibetan Plateau, we can only hope that International Rivers will take up this incomplete project and produce a sequel report about Chinese dam projects in Tibet. Readers interested in getting a glimpse of Chinese dam-building trends on the Tibetan Plateau are encouraged to read this paper.

That said, I want to share some of the many excellent points that are discussed in the report and point out certain important topics that could have been been included. This 48-page report is neatly divided into different topical sections. The first half of the report presents an informative country-by-country discussion of dam-building trends, funding issues and the key players. I found the discussions about Nepal and Bhutan most informative since not much is known about dam issues in these two countries. I did not realize until today, and it is not very surprising as one comes to think of it, that hydropower development represents the biggest source of income for Nepal and Bhutan. According to the report, about half of Bhutan’s national income comes from hydropower development. Bhutan has an installed capacity of 1,448 MW and plans to increase it to 15,693 MW. Nepal is more ambitious, it plans to install a total capacity of 26,324 MW from its current installed capacity of 545 MW. India’s goal is 93,615 MW from 15,208 MW. And for Pakistan, it is 33,769 MW from the existing capacity of 6,385 MW.

The drivers of hydropower in Pakistan and India are different. Pakistan wants big dams for irrigation and agriculture. In India, there is much higher demand for electricity and regional development. Needless to mention, the Indian power companies' rush to earn huge profits is also a major factor. A look at sources of funds is also interesting. The involvement of international financial institutions (IFI) such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank are common throughout the region. For Bhutan, the main source of funds is India. Nepal has a more diverse source of income, including domestic sources, private-public partnerships, India as well as China. China is also an important funder for Pakistan. Other sources of funds for Pakistan include internal government sources, foreign private banks and income from sale of power. India’s main funders are its government, domestic banks and financial institutions.

Funding is the biggest challenge to the developers in this mostly rural region. Even if all the available funds are added up, the report estimates that 40% of the funds still remain unsecured. Power sector reforms to raise necessary funds are essentially geared towards privatization. The availability of funding is largely dependent on the ability of the power sector to recover investments, which to me is doubtful because of factors such as climate change, poor performance track record of big dams in general, and the South Asian context of corruption and unstable local/regional politics. However, I imagine the greatest funding problem right now is the global economic crisis as energy demands and investments in many parts of the world are declining. 

The main argument of the first section is the lack of morality in the economics of big dams in the region. Who are the ultimate winners and who are the losers? While the report does not question the role of state in hydropower development in the tradition of political ecology or post-structuralist critics, it raises issues of equity and the plight of the poor and affected people. The prospective winners are the banks and bureaucracies whose interests are directly proportional to the size of investment and prospective profits. The losers are the affected people, many of which are the many unique indigenous peoples (Adivasis, jan jatis), and the environment. In fact, the report is ultimately a warning that the Himalayas themselves and the whole region would face grave consequences if its people and decision-makers fail to act as its custodians.

The second half of the Concrete Mountains report is dedicated to the social and environmental issues. There are a lot of topics covered in this section (downstream impacts, loss of resource base, direct submergence, cultural impacts, ecological impacts, seismicity and sedimentation, climate change, etc.) that could have benefited from focus in terms of a specific target audience that ideally is also relevant to the debate. This section also provides a brief discussion on the response from affected people. I have always been most impressed with the various anti-dam movements in India. The national policy debates raised by the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and the mobilization of affected people’s resistance not only on the Narmada campaign but also other projects such as Teesta in the Northeast are inspiring examples for other dam-affected people. [TEAM has translated the Citizens’ Guide to World Commission on Dams, an activist organizational tool kit for people affected by dams, into Tibetan. We have sent a few copies to Teesta activists and are happy to send more copies for free to anyone who places an order.]

I am pleased that the report rightly situates the debate within the context of climate change. I believe climate change provides an important, pertinent and powerful critique of dam development in the region. If the glaciers and snows that feed the Himalayas are disappearing, why build such large, expensive and inhumane concrete structures? Some experts argue that big dams will be useful for storage purposes if climate change results in changes to water flow patterns. We can use the dams to store water when there is excess and release when supply is scarce. This report rejects this argument. Current dam projects, including those in the ‘pipeline,’ will not be able to deliver the designed benefits since flows are expected to decline significantly in the long run. Big dams in the Himalayas also increase other risks that are more common to the region such as glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) and seismicity.

Another important point that I was delightfully surprised to see emphasized in this report is the issue of cumulative impact of these dams. What will be the long term added incremental impact of all these dams to the region’s environment and economy? No one has the answer to this question. Perhaps we will never know the answer to this question beforehand but this is an important conceptual question for people and policy makers concerned about the future of the region’s cultural and ecological heritage. A step in the right direction toward understanding cumulative impact is to include cumulative impact assessments in project environmental impact assessment measures.

While such important points are raised in the report, there is no discussion of certain other relevant and important concepts such as minimum in-stream flows, ecosystem services (of headwaters and free flowing river, for example), and human rights impact assessment. I think all of these concepts should be made relevant to any discussion of dam project planning to minimize environmental and social costs. It would have been very fitting for the report to include these concepts as a part of its recommendations to governments and funders, a section that is also missing in the report. I would have either expanded the final one-page discussion on “Alternative Approaches” or included a set of recommendations for different target audiences, such as governments, IFIs, affected local people groups such as the Affected Citizens of Teesta.

It is unfair to expect a report to cover all relevant topics under the sun. For what it has set out to do, I think the report has achieved its purpose barring the unfortunate exclusion of Tibet and China. I wish to congratulate Shripad Sharmadhikary and the International Rivers for releasing this informative critical report.

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Settlement vs. Resettlement

Some people responded to my last blog post with more information that I want to share with readers.

1. There are many kinds of housing projects that are being built for herders and farmers on the Tibetan Plateau. So unless someone cross-checks the numbers on the ground, it is difficult to figure out exactly how many herders have been resettled.

2. A couple of friends (Thanks again!) brought to my attention that the Reuters article discussed in my previous blog post talks about 'settlement' (ding ju) of herders, which is different from 'resettlement' (yi min) of herders. Settlement likely means simply building permanent houses at the winter pastures where villagers live -- which is not in any way as serious as "resettlement" or "ecological migration" where herders are removed to new areas as in the case of the Three Rivers Headwaters Nature Reserve.

4. Speaking of 'ecological migration,' What happens to all the yaks when the nomads are forced to resettle? It seems like many sell the animals as they are suppose to do, while others leave their yaks with relatives for keeps. I don't have any credible or interesting story about the fate of these animals. Please share any information you may have on this issue.

3. Some housing projects are simply replacing traditional mud houses with houses made of bricks. This project is more prevalent in Tibet Autonomous Region, where, in total, 860,000 farmers and herders from 170,000 families have moved into the new houses by the end of 2008. According to this Xinhua article , "another 312,000 farmers and herders from 57,800 families moved from shanty homes into new solid brick houses in Tibet [Autonomous Region] this year under a government-subsidized housing project aimed at improving living conditions."

As much as I think this is a tragedy in terms of losing traditional architecture (its cheaper, locally more suitable, environmentally more sustainable, better insulation for Tibet's cold winter, aesthetically more beautiful, etc, etc.), these brick houses are popular among Tibetans. I have seen this trend among Tibetan Buddhist farmers of Ladakh and in Spiti Valley in India. While many of these farmers tend to prefer houses made of bricks with corrugated tin roof as modern and reject their traditional mud houses as pre-modern, many local leaders are clearly concerned about implication of these changes.


[Traditional Tibetan architecture in the Western Himalayas. Photo: Tashi Tsering]
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Snuffing out the nomads?

A friend brought this Reuters article to my attention. He was baffled by the sheer number of Tibetan herders that the article says will be relocated. According to the article, there are 530,000 nomads in Western Sichuan Province, out of which 470,000 herders will be resettled in the name of environmental protection. If these numbers are true, that's the last of the nomads in Sichuan. He said this is effectively "a kind of nomad genocide.” Although I never thought of this as such, I was pleased to see that at least someone was paying attention to this issue.

As evident from my earlier postings, I have been very concerned about the many large scale ecological resettlement projects going on in Tibet. To me, this is a far more serious issue than the high profile topics such as Hillary Clinton’s China visit or the arrest of monk protestors. Precisely because the resettlement project is a low profile, politically-correct sounding policy in the context of environmental protection, I think it is one of the most far-sighted strategies of the Chinese state to deal with several serious problems on the Tibetan Plateau at the same time. As the saying goes, "Kill many birds with one stone".



China has designated many areas on the Tibetan Plateau for different environmental protection goals. Local people living in these regions are usually forced to sell their yaks and then resettled somewhere. I haven’t dug into the numbers yet, but it is clear from Xinhua and other official reports that several hundred thousand people, mostly nomads and pastoralists, are being resettled from these “protected” areas. This Science magazine article, for example, talks about government plans for the “ecological migration” of nomadic herders living around Kokonor Lake (Tso Ngon) to restore the region’s “degraded” ecology. The power of scientific and environmental discourse makes these projects sound like noble endeavors. How could anyone oppose protection of wetlands, lakes, and endangered animal species?

There are other benefits of resettling Tibetan herders. The government wants to provide access to education, health, postal system and other development schemes in every corner of the country. Promotion of economic development, especially in politically volatile regions, is an important technique for promoting state legitimacy. The Tibetan herders have been a major problem to state policy makers in this regard. Statistics reflect these people poorly on both economic and human development scales, for which the government receives a lot of criticism, but it is difficult for the government to provide them access to development due to their nomadic and subsistence lifestyle. So settling them in housing colonies is one obvious way of dealing with this problem.

The Tibetan nomadic lifestyle is the heart of the traditional Tibetan economy, which is reliant on herding of yaks, goats and sheep. The nomadic lifestyle represents the symbolic spirit of Tibet to many people. Romantic notions of Tibetan nomadic life are popular not only among Tibetans and Western sympathizers but also among Chinese people. The government could not have settled the nomads by calling their lifestyle “backward” or “primitive”, as it was done in the past. The perfect excuse to do this, thus, is within the context of environmental protection. Rallying support for environmental protection on the Tibetan Plateau is easy. Tibet is known for its “biodiversity hotspots”, pristine lakes, old growth forests, “fragile grasslands”, and for being “China’s Water Tower.” And resettling people from nature reserve parks is not a new idea but a well tested strategy. States around the world have declared many areas inhabited by troublesome indigenous peoples as nature reserves in order to control and assimilate them into the political economy.

The real issue is not about a clash between romantic notions of the Tibetan nomadic lifestyle and state development. It is about choices, whether the herders have a say in the policies that shape their lives. Do the herders have a choice whether to resettle or not? The issue is also about scientific management. Is it scientifically appropriate to remove herders and halt grazing on the Tibetan Plateau? Julia Klein, a scientist who specializes in climate change impact on grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau, says that the ecology of the region “is a system that has evolved with grazing; the removal of grazing from the system could have profound ecological consequences.”

Going back to the topic of “nomad genocide,” I wonder if anyone has actually done some research on the numbers. I can only hope the figures quoted in the Reuters article are inaccurate or exaggerated. I wonder how many people have really been resettled so far, and how many more are yet to be resettled? If any of you readers have any information, please share. Thanks for reading this, and spread the word!

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