26 Feb 2013: Report
In Tibet, Change Comes to the
Once-Pristine Roof of the World
Renowned biologist George Schaller has been traveling to the Tibetan Plateau for nearly three decades, studying its unique wildlife. But with climate change and overgrazing taking a toll on the landscape, he reports, scientists and the Chinese government are working to preserve one of the planet’s wildest places.
Chang Tang. It is a hard name for the great northern plains of the Tibetan Plateau in China, a name that conjures visions of wild emptiness, silence, and desolation. Most of the Chang Tang lies above 14,500 feet, a land where icy winds howl and snow falls even in summer. Yet these harsh uplands support a unique community of large mammals including Tibetan antelope, or chiru; wild ass, or kiang; gazelle; wild yak; snow leopard; and Tibetan brown bear, to name a few.
I first went to the Chang Tang in 1985, attracted by its little-known wildlife and its remote vastness, an area as large as Italy and France combined. Once, in 2006, my Tibetan and Han Chinese colleagues and I traversed the northern part of the Chang Tang in winter, and for the first 1,000 miles — roughly the distance from New York to Chicago — we did not see anyone.
Photo courtesy of George Schaller
Schaller first came to Chang Tang in 1985 to study chiru, or wild antelope, about 150,000 of which are believed to exist today.
Scientific investigations confirm this change. An estimated 95 percent of the thousands of glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau are retreating. Temperatures have been rising at 0.3 C (O.5 F) per decade since the 1970s, double the world average. The turf layer of the vast alpine meadow habitat in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau is drying and dying, its organic matter releasing a massive amount of carbon dioxide and methane, and drastically reducing livestock production.
These shifts in Tibet’s climate are occurring as human population growth, development of roads and mines, economic changes in the lives of nomads, degradation of rangelands, poor livestock management, killing of wildlife, and other problems are threatening the Tibetan Plateau, one of the most imposing geographical features on earth. At 965,000 square miles, the plateau is almost as large as the contiguous United States west of the Mississippi, and roughly half of it lies above 15,000 feet. Its huge bulk has an influence on regulating weather patterns, such as the Asian monsoon, and its great rivers — fed, in part, by seasonal meltwater from 46,000 glaciers — provide water to 1.4 billion people in the lowlands of China and southern Asia.
My colleagues and I had originally come to study wildlife, but we have been increasingly taken away from the pleasure of observing animals to mitigating conservation problems that threaten the ecological integrity of
Half of the rangelands are now moderately degraded, and erosion in places is severe.the region and imperil the lives of species and livelihoods of nomadic people. Today, thanks to the efforts of the scientific community and the Chinese government, large regions in the Chang Tang and Tibet have been set aside as conservation areas, and steps are being taken to reverse the degradation of the rangelands that are so vital to the region’s residents and its ecology.
This conservation work in Tibet has taught me important lessons. One is that nothing in nature remains static, and may change rapidly. Another is that the simple word “conservation” implies far more than saving biodiversity. Solutions must be based on solid science, sound policy, and local support, drawing on the knowledge, interest, and participation of the area’s communities.
Such issues were far from my mind 27 years ago when I started research with my Chinese colleagues on the distinctive and little-known community of large mammals inhabiting the high Tibetan Plateau. The chiru, or Tibetan antelope — the males adorned with two-foot horns rising straight from the head — particularly intrigued me, as it migrated long distances and its travels defined the ecosystem. I also was drawn to the luminous grandeur of the chiru’s homeland, the Chang Tang. To date, I have made 26 journeys there, spending a total of more than 3 ½ years.
In that time, my colleagues and I have confronted many conservation challenges, including a period during the 1990s when as many as 300,000 chiru were illegally slaughtered and the wool smuggled to Kashmir to be woven into expensive shahtoosh shawls and sold as fashion statements to the world’s wealthy. Alerted to the slaughter, local governments sent out anti-poaching teams and confiscated guns, and we also publicized the killings internationally. Chiru numbers are slowly on the increase — about 150,000 are thought to exist today — thanks to greater awareness and better protection. But poaching continues; recently Nepal intercepted a shipment of 2,500 pounds of chiru wool, representing about 11,500 dead animals.
Photo courtesy of George Schaller
A Tibetan herder in front of one of the permanent homes the government encourages nomads to build.
Half of the rangelands are now moderately degraded and erosion is in places severe. The many fences also impede the movements of chiru, kiang, Tibetan gazelles, and other animals. Some try to leap over or crawl under fences and become entangled, left to slowly die. In 2005, the government initiated a program entitled “ecological migration” to relieve pressure on the rangelands by relocating many households into new settlements, where they are given houses and an inadequate monthly government subsidy. But such resettlement created unanticipated social problems, such as continual idleness — some of the affected Tibetans said they felt like “empty sacks that can’t stand up by themselves.”
I collaborated with various organizations, including the Wildlife Conservation Society’s China program, in trying to alleviate conservation problems, such as the ones with chiru. Starting in the late 1990s, I became
Recognizing the value of Tibet’s ecology, the Chinese government has taken steps to preserve the plateau.closely affiliated with the staff and students of Peking University, especially after professor Lu Zhi established the Center for Nature and Society and the Shan Shui Conservation Center. We focused on promoting cooperation in resource management between Tibetan communities and the government, incorporating traditional Tibetan knowledge and livestock management into conservation plans. We have offered better fence designs and have encouraged a return to the traditional communal grazing practices, which give pastures time to recover.
The deterioration of rangelands is also being hastened by rapid climate change. Chinese scientists monitoring 680 glaciers in Tibet have shown that nearly all are in retreat and that many could disappear this century. China considers the eastern half of the Tibetan Plateau its “water tower,” as the region is the source of the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, and Salween rivers. About 75 percent of the arable land in northern China depends on irrigation from rivers originating on the Tibetan Plateau. “To protect your rivers, first protect your mountains,” the Chinese emperor Tao Tu Yu said 3,600 years ago.
The warming of the plateau has increasingly caused wetlands, ponds, and other surface waters to dry up. And the melting of permafrost, which covers about half of the Tibetan Plateau, is leading to a lowering of the water table and a loss of soil moisture. Tibet’s Alpine meadow habitat is expected to more rapidly dry out, crack, and slump, with the exposed soil eroded by wind and precipitation, causing it to increasingly disappear. The Stipa grass on the Alpine steppe, a favored food of wild and domestic ungulates, is short-rooted and may die out in many places.
Recognizing the value of Tibet to the ecology of the entire country, the Chinese government has taken important steps to preserve large parts of the plateau. A sprawling area in Chang Tang was established as a nature reserve in 1993, and three contiguous reserves were added in the adjoining provinces of Xinjiang and Qinghai from 1996 to 2007, giving protection to about 174,000 square miles, an area larger than California. In 2000, the government established the 59,000-square-mile Sanjiangyuan Reserve — meaning Three-River-Headwaters — in Qinghai province, encompassing the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow, and Mekong. Such reserves will be vital as climate change forces species of plants and animals to adapt, move, or die.
In November 2011, China’s State Council approved a far-sighted, community-based program of ecological protection for the Sanjiangyuan region. My colleagues and I are now focusing our research and planning on
We have involved monasteries in monitoring wildlife and spreading the conservation message.Sanjiangyuan, contributing to the efforts of the provincial and national governments. Based on the awareness that their livelihoods depend on a healthy rangeland, a number of communities have set aside land for wildlife, are checking the condition of pastures, patrolling their land against intrusion by outsiders, and monitoring wildlife numbers and water levels in lakes and streams.
This imaginative new conservation model of giving management rights to communities is now being slowly expanded throughout the Sanjiangyuan region. It will mean that a core of people in every community — a total of perhaps 20,000 throughout the region — will have to be educated in the basics of ecology and trained in the details of monitoring and protecting their environment. It demonstrates how ideas generated by communities and a small and dedicated organization such as the Shan Shui Conservation Center can have a far-reaching impact on policy and society.
To achieve a harmonious balance of rangelands, wildlife, and livestock will require an immense effort by private and government organizations alike. But the opportunities in Tibet and Chang Tang are exciting, allowing us to address the conflicting demands of conservation, development, and the livelihood of the region’s pastoral people — and not just in an area of modest size, but in a vast landscape larger than many countries.
The spiritual strength of the many monasteries in the region is also needed in this ambitious effort. The world’s religions have played far too small a role in the environmental movement. Tibetan Buddhism, with its respect and love for all living beings, is particularly responsive to conservation. Most communities on the Tibetan Plateau revere a nearby sacred mountain, and monasteries have sacred lands, creating a network of small protected areas over the landscape. We have already involved some monasteries in monitoring wildlife and in spreading the conservation message to surrounding communities, following the vision of the 12th Century Tibetan saint Milarepa:
Do if you like that which may seem sinful
But help living beings
Because that is truly pious work.
POSTED ON 26 Feb 2013 IN Biodiversity Biodiversity Climate Oceans Urbanization Asia
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ABOUT THE AUTHORField biologist George Schaller has spent more than half a century studying wildlife in more than 20 countries and has helped protect some of the world’s most endangered and iconic animals, including mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, tigers in India, lions in Tanzania, giant pandas in China, and snow leopards in the Himalaya. A senior conservationist at the Wildlife Conservation Society and vice president of the group, Panthera, Schaller has helped to establish a dozen protected areas in various countries. He has authored 16 books, including, most recently, Tibet Wild: A Naturalist’s Journeys on the Roof of the World.
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COMMENTS
Great article. I do agree that the grass-root level of conservation should be promoted at all cost and happy to learn that the author and its team are successful in promoting the same in monasteries.
It is true that Climate warming and human intervention are the sole causes for the degradation of these landscapes. These days there is a third factor responsible for exacerbating this process... It is the extractive industries. I am sure the author is well aware of the fact that on those protected nature reserves and on those grasslands the mining companies mostly SoEs are investing heavily.
I totally agree with the fact that solutions to environmental issues must be based on "solid science, sound policy, and local support, drawing on the knowledge, interest, and participation of the area’s communities". However, Chinese government chose to blame Tibetan nomads for grassland degradation and forced them into socialist-style ghettos leaving them faced with many social problems. This is far from a real solution. The basic fact is that Tibetan nomads have lived on these grasslands for centuries and maintained a harmonious relationship with environment. Because of their mobile lifestyle, traditional knowledge and adaptation skills, they have been truly the real stewards of the alpine grassland. Their knowledge and participation is highly essential if Chinese government is serious about preserving the grassland.
I appreciate the author's plan to use his research and planning in conserving Sanjiangyuan Reserve which was established in 2000 by Chinese government. Thousand of nomads have been removed from the reserve in the name of "ecological migration". However, the question is whether Chinese government is serious about these protection measures or not. Recently, some reports suggests that the boundary of the Reserve has been changed in order to make way for mining operation owned by Inter-Citic Mining company. The North-western boundary of the reserve has been shrunk leaving out the headwaters of the stream in the reserve. More information in this link (http://tibetanplateau.blogspot.in/2012/04/gold-mining-after-kicking-out-tibetan.html)
Another so called academic fooling the world on behalf of Beijing.
Tibetan people have conserved the Tibetan plateau for thousands of years until 1950 Chinese occupation.
Since Chinese invasion there was massive deforestation of Tibetan land for lumbar needed in China. Reckless mining, damming and hunting of wildlife in Tibet by Chinese for last 60 years were responsible for the erosion.
Tibetans nomads have been living there for thousands of years and how come there was no grassland depletion for Chinese occupied Tibet.
This article is long overdue. The fact that Tibet provides a major part of Asia's population with its water makes the region a prime candidate as an internationally protected ecological zone. I am excited for this book and hope that leaders and researchers can work together to protect this sacred space.
The author reads like an apologist for the Beijing regime.
The article starts well but fails to question about the destruction of the environment since the invasion of Tibet by China, the continuing forced depopulation of areas traditionally inhabited by Tibetans.
The article ends up being a propaganda press release for China.
Very concerned that George Schaller is speaking on behalf of the Tibetan people, their traditions, and their ecology, and actually giving credit to the Chinese government - when they have destroyed so much of the land.
I'm saddened to read this.
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