Saving Mountains and Rivers
“Where else in the world has 40 percent of the land been set aside in nature preserves in twenty years? How hard is it to reverse a steady decline in number of endangered species? The industrious Tibetans achieved it,” wrote former U. S. President Jimmy Carter in the preface of the book Across the Tibetan Plateau: Ecosystems, Wildlife, andconservation.
In Yangdzom and Khar’s memories, Tibet once embraced a great leap in industrial construction. During the “cultural revolution” period (1966-1976), dozens of non-ferrous metals, rare metals and non-metallic ore were found in the region, but massive exploitation was eventually terminated, mostly due to ecological protection concerns.
Tibet has tremendous ecological significance. It is the source of rivers flowing through China, South Asia and Southeast Asia and the climate regulator for China and even the eastern hemisphere of the planet. An important gene tank for protecting Earth’s biological diversity, it is home to over 9,600 types of wild plants, 798 types of vertebrates and nearly 4,000 types of insects.
However, the ecological environment is extremely fragile on the plateau. It takes as long as several years in certain areas of Tibet to grow grass that can be restored within a single year in areas with lower altitudes. The dilemma of balancing economic development and environmental protection was identified by European countries and the United States during the early period of industrialization and in eastern China in the 1980s and 1990s. Tibetans realized the importance of coordinating economic growth and natural resources and environment as early as the 1970s.
Benefiting from the proliferation of green development policies, Tibet has kept most of the region untouched, with 47 natural preserves at all levels that cover Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon, Mount Qomolangma, Lake Manasarovar and more world-known tourist attractions.
Along with environmental protection have come economic gains. Emerging industries such as ecological tourism are thriving in Tibet thanks to its strength in natural resources. In 2018, 33.68 million tourist visits to Tibet generated revenues of 49 billion yuan ( US$7.3 billion), which accounted for about 34 percent of its GDP. “Tibet is better integrated into the entire Chinese market, and the country’s demand for improved living standards and ecological products have injected strong momentum into Tibet’s economic development,” Yang Tao noted.
Concepts of environmental protection from the West were introduced to China in the 1980s, and have integrated with and been restructured by traditional values about nature in the country. In the eyes of Tibetans, there is a worldly space in nature behind the deified concepts that can be utilized for survival. Modern concepts of environmental protection mingle with local values about nature through communication between locals and outsiders as well as within local communities. Traditionally, farmers and herders in Tibet chop wood for household use, but those living in Lulang Town, Nyingchi City have spontaneously taken the role of forest rangers. During a research tour to Lulang in June 2018, Yang noted that local awareness of ecological protection has grown with the tourism boom. “They are earning more money because of thriving
tourism. To keep their hometown attractive to tourists, they actively fight behaviors that could harm the forest. Protecting woods has even been added to the local code of conduct.”
The Dagze Industrial Park, located in eastern Lhasa, is home to more than 1,200 companies that involve production of Tibetan food, handicrafts with ethnic characteristics, refined processing of agricultural and animal products and new energy. In 2017, its industrial output hit 1.28 billion yuan ( US$191 million). The industrial park has implemented low-carbon and recycling transformation in recent years to promote clean production technologies, raise energy efficiency, reduce resource consumption and strengthen waste recycling. In Yang’s view, “green economic engines” as such are critical for balancing economic development and ecological protection in Tibet.