The PlateauThe Tibetan Plateau towers over the central part of the continent of Eurasia. It is bounded by the

Himalayan mountain chain in the south, and connected with the Altyn Tagh and Gangkar

Chogley Namgyal Mountains in the north. Its western part merges with the Karakoram

Mountains and its eastern part slopes downward more gradually with Minyak Gangkar and

Khawakarpo Mountains.

Tibetan Plateau is the highest and largest plateau on the earth. The area occupied by the Tibetan

Plateau is more than 2.5 million square km. Its average elevation exceeds (13,000 feet), and

many of the peaks reach beyond 8000m, Mt. Everest, with 8,848m, being the world's tallest.

In fact Tibet has all fourteen of the world's 8000-meter peaks (greater than 26,259 feet in

elevation). Tibetan Plateau consist of a variety of landscapes ranging from lunar landscapes in

some parts of southern Tibet to lush and thick tropical forests in eastern Tibet.

The Plateau is undoubtedly the most prominent and distinguishable feature on the face of the

globe, rightly known as the ‘Roof of the World’.  With an average elevation of around 4500

meters (14,763 ft.) and covering an approximate 2.5 million sq. km of area, it is the largest and

highest plateau in earth’s entire geological history. It is surrounded by the Himalaya-Karakoram

complex in the south and west that contains 14 major peaks of over 8000 meters including

Mount Everest. To the north, the plateau is bounded by the deserts of the Tarim Basin and

Tsaidam while a series of alternating deep forested valleys and high mountain ranges marks its

eastern periphery.2

The GlaciersThe Tibetan Plateau holds the Hindu-Kush Himalayan Ice Sheet, considered the largest ice mass

outside the two poles. Hence scientists and geologists are increasingly using the name ‘Third

Pole’ to pronounce the global significance of Tibet’s environment. According to the Inter-

governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau are receding fast,

which will result in massive flooding followed by severe drought. Some reports suggest that

Tibet’s glaciers have shrunk by 6,600 sq. km in the past 40 years and 82% of the glaciers have

already retreated in the past 50 years. Furthermore, a major concern is the lack of any net

accumulation of snow since 1950 over these mountains.

The scale of glacial melting can be viewed at Rongbuk Glacier, the northern slope of Mt. Everest

(Tib: Jhomolangma). Between 1966 and 1997, the glacier receded by up to 270m in the middle,

170m at its eastern side, and 230m at its far-east side. Similarly, the Zepu glacier of southeast

Tibet has thinned by more than 100m in the last three decades alone. Mountain glaciers are

experiencing less accumulation of snow and higher rates of melting. Without these glaciers the

flow of rivers would become seasonal, leaving the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people

affected by the extreme weather conditions.

Furthermore, melting of glaciers and the permafrost in recent years have destabilized hillsides

and resulted in landslides. A massive landslide in Tibet blocked Pareechu, a tributary of the

Sutlej in Tibet. In the year 2000 and 20005 this unstable rock-fall dam burst caused heavy

destruction of livelihood, infrastructure, and socio-economic assets in Kinnaur and Shimla

districts in Himachal Pradesh, India. Due to the rapidly melting glaciers, there has been a rapid

increase in the numbers of glacial lakes in the Himalayan regions resulting in Glacial Lake

Outburst Floods (GLOF) particularly in Nepal, India and Bhutan. According to the International

Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), there are 8790 glacial lakes within a

selected area of Hindu-Kush Himalaya and more than 200 potentially dangerous glacial lakes,

where rock walls created by retreating glaciers may suddenly collapse.

PermafrostThe presence or absence of the permafrost layer necessitates major variations in the soil’s

physical structure mainly its moisture and nutrient content. The permafrost covers approximately

1.3 to 1.6 million sq. km. These covers have thickness ranging from 1 to 130 m, depending on

such local characteristics as slope and exposure, altitude, geological structure, soils, and soil

water content.

The alpine permafrost on the Tibetan Plateau stores about 12,300 million tons of Carbon.

Significant amount of methane gas are also trapped in the permafrost, preventing its release into

the atmosphere. The alpine permafrost on the Plateau are characterized by warm permafrost and

rich ground ice, as a result they are sensitive to climate change and are particularly vulnerable to

rising temperature.

Tibet serves as a major carbon sink with around 37% (12,300 million tons of Carbon) of its

grassland Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) stored in the alpine permafrost of the Tibetan Plateau.

Their degradation would lead to a huge amount of carbon entering the atmosphere, intensifying

global warming. Recent studies have shown that glacial melting and thawing of permafrost on

the Plateau will lead to a large-scale release of green-house gases into the atmosphere and could

bring further changes in the already warming global climate.

If the current trend of melting permafrost and loss of wetlands continue then the carbon deposits

and methane would be released in the air and it can speed up the Global Climate Change. The

loss of carbon deposits will also degrade the grasslands directly hurting the biodiversity on the

Tibetan Plateau. In addition, since the wetlands and permafrost work as sponges controlling the

amount of water running into the rivers, there could be flash floods and ultimately water crisis in

the most populous regions of the world.

Wetlands and Desertification

Every year on February 2, World Wetlands Day is celebrated internationally which marks the

anniversary of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar

Convention) in Ramsar, Iran, on 2 February 1971. The international theme for World Wetlands

Day 2012 is ‘Wetlands and Tourism’. Presently the parties of the Ramsar Convention have 160

contracting members including China who joined the Convention in 1992. The list of Wetlands

of International Importance includes 1994 wetlands, with a total area of about 192 million

hectares. Out of this 41 sites are located in China, covering an area of 3,709,853 hectares. The

wetland is known as the "kidney of the earth" and is one of the three major ecosystems along

with forest and ocean. The wetland plays a key role in flood control, water conservation,

pollution control, environment regulation and so on. It is deemed as a warehouse with water and

food for humans as well as a habitat for rare wildlife to overwinter and reproduce.

China’s efforts to portray itself as the protector of its bio-diversity and ecology is evident from

the lengthy white paper about its "Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change" and

series of Xinhua reports bragging its "initiatives" and "achievements". Xinhua, the official

mouthpiece of China recently quoted a spokesperson of its State Forestry Administration who

boasted that they, “carried out 42 wetland protection projects, increased 330,000 hectares of

protected wetland areas, added four wetlands of international importance and 68 national

wetland parks.” These "initiatives" and "achievements" may be a step towards the right direction

but addressing the critical problem of wetland degradation, which threatens the sustenance of

over a billion people, entails urgent and sincere efforts from peoples of all sectors.

Herdsmen on Zoige county’s grasslands are finding it more and more difficult to find water these

days, explained Sonam Dorje, a staff member at Zoige Wetland National Nature Reserve. “You

used to be able to dig down two or three metres and find water; then later you had to dig seven or

eight metres. Now in some places you have to go below 10 metres.” He described how, after

many years of studying the area, he has watched the underground water level sharply decline and

plants die off, exposing thick layers of sand.

The situation in Maixi Township, Xiaman Township and Tangke Township is especially serious,

said Sonam Dorje. In the hardest hit places, the desertified area doubles in size every year.

“Sometimes you have pasture still there in the summer but by winter it has already turned to

sand,” he said. “Herders are abandoning more and more areas because they are unsuitable for

grazing.”

Zoige has conducted four desertification surveys since 1995. The first found that only 16,000

hectares were desertified. The latest research, carried out in 2009, showed that in the whole of

Zoige county, 72,000 hectares were desertified, or 6.76% of the county’s total area. Today, the

area of grassland in this county which is threatened by desertification has reached 135,000

hectares, with close to 30,000 people affected, that’s about 39% of the whole county’s

population.

Between 2004 and 2007, less than 2,000 hectares of all levels of desertified land were fully

restored across the whole of Zoige County, which only accounts for 4.58% of all newly

desertified land during this period.

Deforestation Forests in Tibet are the third largest in China’s present day borders and government lumber

operations are cutting at an unprecedented rate. Reforestation is neglected and ineffective,

leaving hillsides vulnerable to erosion. Rapid and widespread deforestation has life-threatening

consequences for the hundreds of millions who live in the flood plains of the major rivers of

Southeast Asia, many of which have their headwaters in Tibet. Clear-cutting also threatens the

habitat of Tibet’s other residents – the rare giant panda, golden monkey, and over 5,000 plant

species unique to the planet.

Parts of southern and eastern Tibet boast some of the best quality forest reserves in the world.

Large fertile forest belts having trees with an average height of 90 feet and girth of 5 feet or more

are found in Tibet. These forest are now indiscriminately destroyed in the name of 'development'

by employing more than 70,000 Chinese. The same condition prevails in other regions of Tibet,

such as Markham, Gyarong, Nyarong and other areas in Kham and Kongpo regions. Tibet had

sustained 25.2 million hectares of forests in 1959 and this has declined to 13.57 million hectares

in 1985 alone, which means 46% destruction and this figure is dramatically increasing each day.

In some areas, up to 80% of the forests have been destroyed. According to Radio Lhasa Report,

the Chinese have removed over US$ 54bn worth of timber from Tibet between 1959-1985 alone.

The Tibetan Plateau Steppe - one of the largest land-based wilderness areas left in the world -

has the most pristine mountain grassland in Eurasia. Known as the "Roof of the World", this

ecoregion has an average elevation of almost 15,000 feet and is the meeting point for landscapes

and species from Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.From here, several major rivers (including

the Yangtze, Mekong, and Indus) begin their long journeys to the sea. Due to its size and its

position near the tropics, the Tibetan Plateau is one of the most ecologically diverse alpine

communities on Earth. Habitats range from gravelly, wind-blown periglacial environments to

moist alpine pastures and scrubs.

Wildlife

Tibet was once filled with wild animals and still is to some degree. In the old days many animals

had no fear of humans. The Swedish explorer Sven Hedin wrote in the early 20th century, "The

wild animals do not sense that man is their enemy. They know only the wolf and are alert against

his cunning." The abundance of wildlife today is demonstrated by the large number of stiff,

frozen and flattened road kills on the roads.

The mountains and forests of Tibet are home to a vast range of animal life, including 142 species

of mammals, 473 species of birds, 49 species of reptiles, 44 species of amphibians, 64 species of

fish and more than 2,300 species of insects. Wild animals found in Tibet include Assamese

macaque, rhesus monkey, muntjac, chitral, serows, leopards, clouded leopards, black bears, wild

cats, weasels, river deer, white-lipped deer, wild yaks, Tibetan antelopes, wild donkeys, argalis,

Mongolian gazelles, Tibetan eagles, marmots, Himalayan mouse hares, Himalayan ravens, foxes,

wolves, lynxes, brown bears, blue sheep, and snow leopards.

Natural Resource extraction and MiningMining and mineral exploration have increased dramatically on the Tibetan Plateau since the

2006 arrival of the Golmud-Lhasa railway link, and due to government programs and promotion.

Along with the large government and business controlled mines, small unregulated mining

operations are popping up all over the plateau. Due to low salaries, minimal health and safety

standards, and weak environmental laws, normally uneconomic mineral deposits can be mined

profitably by Chinese companies. Corrupt officials are willing to cut costs even more. Chinese

mining operations in a Tibetan-populated region of Qinghai province are wrecking the

environment, with mountains stripped bare and waterways polluted by runoff from the mines.

Sedentrization of NomadsRaising yaks and other livestock has been a way of life in Tibet for centuries.Nomadic herders

range across the Tibetan plateau, using their intimate knowledge of the landscape to find the best

grazing for their animals and sustain their families and communities.

Since the early 1990s, China has sought to destroy this way of life. It has moved more than two

million Tibetans from the land they have lived off for generations to barrack-like urban

settlements. Torn from all they know, nomads face poverty, unemployment and social exclusion.

China has justified its policy - known as ‘tuimu huancao’ by claiming grasslands must be

protected from overgrazing. But traditional Tibetan farming techniques have protected the

grasslands for hundreds of years. Independent experts have shown that China’s policies are

scientifically unjustified.

Once vacated by nomads, Tibetan land is open for exploitation by Chinese companies. Tibet is

rich in natural resources, including gold, copper and water (for hydro-electric power). Mining

companies and damming operations have replaced farmers in many areas.

Many nomads, poorly educated and unable to give properly informed consent, are persuaded to

give up their land rights through deception, threats and bribery.

Tibetans who voice their concerns about any Chinese policies through peaceful protest can be

arrested, imprisoned and even killed by security forces - just like Norpa Yonten, a 49 year old

herder who was killed during a mass shooting in January 2012.

Relocated families can be forced to pay three-quarters or more of the cost of their new, lower

quality housing. This forces Tibetans into debt making them unable to feed their livestock or

families.

Robbed of their traditional livelihood, nomads rarely have the skills to make a living in an urban

setting. Unable to compete with Chinese-literate urban Tibetans or Han-Chinese immigrants,

they are hopelessly outmatched in their homeland’s job market. Economically marginalised,

nomads may be treated as criminal outcasts and blamed for thievery and other social problems.

Free Tibet raised these issues with the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for Food in 2010.

After visiting the country, he agreed with Free Tibet’s findings, which stated that the “serious

policy failure” had left nomads “landless, without means of subsistence, [and] untrained in

modern skills essential for entry into the modern workforce.”

He also observed that "while climate change is most probably the main driver of environmental

changes, mining is another driver of land degradation in some areas".

WaterLocated at a high altitude on an average of 4,500 meters, it is richly endowed with fresh water

contained in its oxygen deprived vast glaciers and huge underground reservoirs.

It is in fact the largest repository of freshwater after the two poles, Arctic and Antarctic, thus

claiming the sobriquet, the “third pole.” Many of the world’s greatest rivers flow out of the

Tibetan Plateau — the Yellow River, Yangtze Kiang, Mekong, Salween, Sutlej and the

Brahmaputra.

HINA has more than 26,000 large dams, more than the rest of the world combined. They feed its

insatiable demand for energy and supply water for mining, manufacturing and agriculture.

In 2011, when China was already generating more than a fifth of the total hydropower in the

world, the leadership announced that it would aim to double the country’s hydropower capacity

within a decade, so as to reduce its heavy dependency on coal-fired power plants. Since the

waterways of mainland China are already packed with dams, this new hydropower output could

come from only one place: the rivers of Tibet.

Rivers gushing through deep canyons at the edges of the Tibetan plateau hold the highest

hydropower potential in the world. The headwaters of seven major rivers are in Tibet: They flow

into the world’s largest deltas and spread in an arc across Asia.

Two of the continent’s wildest rivers have their sources in Tibet: the Salween and the

Brahmaputra. Though they are under threat from retreating glaciers, a more immediate concern

is Chinese engineering plans. A cascade of five large dams is planned for both the Salween,

which now flows freely, and the Brahmaputra, where one dam is already operational.

The damming does not benefit those who live in Tibet. The energy generated is transferred to

power-hungry industrial cities farther east. Tibetans are forcibly deprived of their land; protests

against hydropower projects are prohibited or violently dispersed.

Even more alarming are projects to divert the waters of Tibet’s rivers for use in mines, factories

and other industries. At the eastern edge of Tibet, a planned mega-diversion from south to north

would move water from the Yangtze to the Yellow, China’s two greatest rivers. Other plans call

for diversion of water from the Brahmaputra, Salween and Mekong — all rivers that cross

national boundaries. Including China itself, up to two billion people downstream from Tibet

depend on these rivers. Damming and diverting them will have a severe impact on their lives and

environment, especially when you consider that rice and wheat require water-intensive

cultivation.

Rivers support entire ecosystems. They carry tons of nutrient-rich silt downstream, a cocktail of

elements needed for growing plants: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and calcium.

Silt is essential for agriculture and for bolstering the deltas against rising sea levels. Dams block

silt, and they block fish migration. The Yangtze is China’s biggest freshwater fishery, but since

the Three Gorges Dam that spans it was completed in 2012, the downstream population of carp

has fallen by 90 percent, according to Guo Qiaoyu of the Nature Conservancy in Beijing.

Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh heavily depend on rivers sourced in Tibet. More than 60

percent of Cambodia’s annual fish catch derives from Tonle Sap, a lake that is replenished by the

annual flooding of the Mekong. Over the last decade, as new Chinese dams have come online on

the Mekong, the fish catch has plummeted. The waters rise and fall at the whim of Chinese

engineers.

Then there are the direct human costs of damming and diverting: Whole communities must be

relocated from areas flooded by a reservoir. They are often shifted to degraded land, where they

live in poverty or have to relocate once again. By some estimates, hydropower projects have

forced some 22 million Chinese to migrate since the 1950s.

n Tibet, since the 1990s, at least a million nomads and farmers — a sixth of the population —

have been relocated from grasslands to make way for mining ventures and hydropower projects.

These “ecological refugees” are shunted into ghettos. Moreover, China claims complete

sovereignty over Tibet’s rivers, oblivious to protest from Tibetans and from the people

downstream.

The United Nations has done too little, too late. In 2014, the Watercourses Convention came into

effect, spelling out guidelines for transboundary water sharing, but it is nonbinding. More to the

point, China is not a signatory — and neither are most nations of South Asia.

This will end badly for the nations downstream from Tibet, which are competing for scarce

water. Damming and water diversion could also end badly for China, by destroying the sources

of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers.

The solution to these complex problems is simple: Since these enormous projects are state-run

and state-financed, China’s leaders can cancel them at will. Though campaigns by Chinese

environmentalists have stopped some dam projects, the pro-dam lobby, backed by Chinese

consortiums, is powerful. There are alternatives to disrupting the rivers: China has made great

investments in solar and wind power, but has not significantly deployed them in Tibet.

China’s leaders need to consider the costs of forging ahead with these projects. The health of

these rivers is of vital concern to all of Asia