Reflections on Ecological Environmental Protection of Tibet

　　Losang Lingdri Dorje（China）

　　Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is one of the most important ecological environmental protection regions in China. The ecological environmental protection on this plateau draws extensive attention because it has national and global significance.

　　1. Current Situation of Ecological Environment in Tibet:

　　⑴ It is frigid and dry on Tibet Plateau and it is lack of oxygen. More than 90% of its area is under alpine climate. Due to its severe natural environment, the ecological system of Tibet Plateau has some vulnerable characteristics, such as instability, sensibility and mutability.

　　⑵The diversity of ecological environment of Tibet. Because of its various land forms and obvious regional disparity in Tibet, its ecological environment is manifold, ranging from tropical area to frigid zones and from low valleys to highland mountains.

　　⑶ Tibet Plateau is a unique ecological region in the world. Its environment has narrow threshold of ecological safety and low population capacity. Once its ecological system gets destructed, it is very difficult to recover. It will even become a desert or bare land after destruction.

　　⑷ Under the comprehensive influences of global warming and human activities, the ecological environment on Tibet region presents problems including reduced stability of ecological system and increased pressure on resources and environment. These problems stand out as obvious glacier recession, severe land deterioration, intensified water and soil erosion, increased threats to biodiversity, decreased rare biological resources, and growing number of natural disasters, etc1. As China’s major distribution area of glaciers, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has 5590 cubic kilometers of glacier reserve. During the last thirty years, there has been obvious glacier ablation. Its glacier area has decreased more than 15%; there is a growing trend of desertification in the whole Tibet region. The area of its desertization land and potential desertization land, and the area of desertification territory reach 210 thousand square kilometers and 430 thousand square kilometers respectively, which take up 18.1% and 36.1% of its total land area respectively2. The total area of grasslands in Tibet is 1.244 trillion mu (a unit of area which is equivalent of 0.0667 hectare), among which half suffers from serious degeneration while one tenth is obviously desertificated. The area of grasslands, which have been degenerated and are unsuitable for grazing, reaches 170 million mu3. With the boosting of industrialization process, the improvement of traffic conditions including highways and railways, the development of social economy and sustained population growth, the issues on ecological environment become increasingly prominent and ecological safety situation is still severe.

　　The government of Tibet has started the establishment of natural conservation areas since 1970s. Afterwards, it carried out engineering measures, including a series of ecological construction work, such as natural forest protection and returning farmland to forest or grassland, etc. At present, there are forty-seven natural conservation areas of various kinds in the whole Tibet region, among which nine reserve areas are of national-level. The total area of these natural reserve areas is 412.2 thousand square kilometers, which takes up 34.35% total area of the region. Twenty-two different kinds of protection zones with ecological function are set up to effectively protect important ecological areas of Tibet5. There are remarkable achievements in the ecological environment protection work in Tibet. In general, the water environment and atmospheric environment in Tibet are basically not polluted, its displacement of industrial waste water are not huge, and its emission standard of industrial waster gas is within national control range6. According to the views in Scientific Assessment of Environmental Change of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a report made by the Institute of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of Chinese Academy of Sciences in June 2014, it is considered that since 2000, the adverse impacts of human activities on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have been kept within limits to a certain degree and its environmental quality has had a tendency of improving partially7.

　　2. Establishing a National Ecological Safety Barrier

　　As the main part of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Tibet Plateau is about 2000 kilometers in width from east to west and about 1000 kilometers in length from south to north. Taking up 12.5% of China’s national territorial area, Tibet Plateau has an area of 1.2 million square kilometers, which is almost half of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Tibet Plateau is an important ecological barrier and safety barrier of China.

　　⑴ Tibet Plateau is Upper Mountain. Leaning from northwest towards southeast, the terrain of Tibet Plateau is high and steep with an average altitude of more than 4500 meters. As the world’s highest place, Tibet Plateau is also called the Roof of the World and the World’s Third Pole.

　　⑵ Tibet Plateau is Upper Wind. Tibet Plateau provides topographical barrier for the forming of geographical conditions of China and East Asian regions. Its highland climate has a profound impact on our national climate system and on the formation of China’s general environmental pattern, which is characterized by arid climate in northwest and humid climate in southeast. It plays an important part in the stability of the climate systems of China and East Asia. Tibet is the climatic modifier of Asia as well as the Northern Hemisphere.

　　⑶ Tibet Plateau is Upper Water. Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the Water Tower of China. One fifth water of China is originated from Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which is the foundation of security strategy of  water resources and the basement of water power resources in China. As the birthplace of Ganges River and Indus River in South Asia, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau brings up Chinese civilization and Indian civilization.

　　3. Try Hard to Build Ecological Civilization of Tibet

　　To fully recognize the strategic positioning of Tibet as China’s important ecological safety barrier and to make sure a favorable ecological environment for Tibet can help to improve China’s influence among international community and China’s image as a responsible world power. To build ecological civilization is an inevitable choice for the protection of blue sky and clear water in Tibet. We must understand and protect the ecological environment of Tibet with a global vision, and build an ecological Tibet.

　　⑴ Protect Every Mountain, River, Tree and Bush of Tibet. Forests, rivers, lakes, meadows, wet lands, glaciers, and snow mountains are all very important components of natural ecological system of Tibet Plateau. At present, there are 6.529 million hectares of wet lands of various kinds in Tibet, which cover 5.3% of the region’s total territory. These wetlands safeguard the ecological functions of plateau regions and protect the ecological safety of rivers in downstream regions9. As the world’s largest treasury vault of fresh water, Tibet Plateau is richly endowed by nature in terms of water resources with a total of about 96.61 trillion cubic meters of underground water and 462.14 trillion cubit meters of surface water, accounting for about one seventh of national reserve10. There are 14.7156 million hectares of forest areas in Tibet. Its forest cover rate is 11.98%. Forests play a significant role in protecting the ecological environment of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and even of the whole nation and the whole world. There are 85.11 million hectares of natural grasslands in Tibet, which account for 68% of its total territory area. The ecological value of Tibet Plateau is much higher than its economic value11. Researches show that the value of carbon sink produced by forests, grasslands and energy sources in Tibet every year exceeds ten trillion yuan. The ecological environment protection and construction of Tibet concerns not only its own ecological safety, economic development and establishment of a harmonious society, but also ecological safety of China. According to Plan for Main Functional Area of China, which was released by the State Council in 2010, two out of twenty-five National Key Ecological Functional Area are located in Tibet and these two areas take up nearly half of its total area12. The State Council authorized the implement of Plan for the Protection and Construction of Ecological Safety Barrier in Tibet, which has a planned investment of 15.5 trillion yuan in total. According to the plan, three major classes and ten items of ecological protection and construction projects will be implemented, ecological environment protection and construction work will be carried forward on basis of regional division, and an ecological safety barrier will be  established basically in the year 2030.

　　⑵ Strengthen the Legislative Protection of Ecological Environment in Tibet. We must stick to the principle of running affairs according to the laws of nature and scientific laws and further formulate and perfect laws and regulations related to ecological civilization construction in Tibet under the guiding ideology of sustainable scientific outlook on development. Only when the ecological environment protection in Tibet develops in a scientific and legal direction, can we be optimistic about protecting this ecological barrier and promoting the sustainable development of Tibet’s economy, society and environment to its own benefit.

　　⑶ Current Mining Industry in Tibet. Mining industry is a basic industry of China’s national economy. However, the investigation of mineral resource is a fundamental guarantee and an important precondition of the development of mining industry. It usually takes an evaluation period of five to ten years for preliminary survey and the mine construction of a large or a ultra-large ore deposit. Tibet failed to make it or is incapable of achieving it in a short period of time. Therefore, from my point of view, we should be double cautious to the mineral exploitation of Tibet. Instead of seeking quick success and instant benefit by damaging the environment, its exploitation work should be considered from an overall, long-term point of view with considerations for environmental protection. Because Tibet is upper wind and upper water, the exploitation of its mineral resources involves the ecological safety of the whole plateau, and even the whole nation. We must think of Tibet as an important strategic reserve foundation of China, wait for the improvement of mining technology and smelting process and the enhancement of management ability and environmental awareness before making actual exploitation. The ecological environment of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is extremely fragile. Once damaged, it is very difficult to recover or even impossible to recover any more. Researches of environmental evaluation experiment show that under general circumstance, it takes at least forty-five years for vegetation coverage in damaged areas on Tibet Plateau to recover to its original level; if the damage degree of primary soil is relatively severe, the recovery of vegetation coverage takes more than sixty years, even forever17. There is a great mass fervor to exploit a mine in Tibet. The development of Tibet should not rely on the exploitation of mining industry. “Green hills and clear waters are gold and silver mines”, as said by leaders in the central government, an additional tens of billions of output value in Tibet does not mean anything if the environment of the roof of the world gets polluted and its ecology gets damaged. Extensive mining industry, which causes havoc damage to ecological environment, will bring disaster to China and Asia.

　　⑷ Let Prataculture Industry Play an Important Role in Ecological Environment Construction of Tibet. As a main component of ecological environment system and an important barrier of ecological safety, grassland is a basic means of production for the survival and development of farmers and herdsmen in pasturing areas and a particular living area for many rare flora and fauna. The area of alpine grassland in Tibet is equivalent to one fifth of China’s national territory. It is an enormous production basement of animal husbandry in China and an important homeland for the survival of multiple nationalities. Grassland resource is a natural barrier for the protection of land ecological environment. It has various functions, such as climate adjustment, water conservation, wind prevention and sand fixation, water and soil conservation, air purification, and landscaping design. Promoting ecological environment construction by developing prataculture industry, improving arid and semiarid deserts and degenerated prairies, and transforming medium and low-yield fields have obvious social, economical and ecological significances18. Grassland agriculture, whose output value accounts for more than 40% of GDP in TAR and about 50% of output value of large-scale agriculture, is always the pillar industry of Tibetan economy. In the meantime, its output value of animal by-products accounts for about 85% of TAR’s gross foreign export value19. As a leading industry of agriculture economy of Tibet, grassland agriculture plays an irreplaceable part in its social economy. The average annual precipitation in most part of Tibet is between 200mm to 500mm. This kind of natural climate condition determines that the improvement of ecological environment through the protection and construction of grassland is better than tree planting in terms of economic significance and ecological function. Grassland ecological system is a leading ecological economical system on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Grassland is one of superior resources in Tibet. To strengthen efforts in the protection and construction of grassland ecological environment in Tibet is not only a fundamental need for constructing ecological environment in Tibet, but also an objective requirement to promote the economic and social development of Tibet. Implementing projects which take the protection of natural grassland as the principle thing and improving ecological environment by developing prataculture industry mean economic benefits in the long term.

　　⑸The Most Fundamental Task for Tibet is to Develop Ecological Economy. As emphasized by the Fifth Forum of Tibet Work of the Central Government, we should construct Tibet into an important national safety barrier, an important ecological safety barrier, an important reserve basement of strategic resources, an important basement of agricultural products with plateau characteristics, an important cultural reservation area, and an important world tourist destination. The Six Important positioning has great foresight.

　　Based on the perspective of constructing ecological civilization, Tibet should completely abandon the extensive development pattern, which consumes a large number of resources and destroys ecological environment in pursuit of high-speed growth of economy. Instead, Tibet should develop recycling economy, apply a sustainable development pattern, make best of natural ecological advantage of Tibet, build a new industrial structure, construct distinctive ecological industry and explore a resource-saving and environment-friendly development road in order to truly develop the economy of Tibet and improve Tibetan people’s livelihood20.

　　We should strive to develop ecological economy and turn its ecological resource advantage into industrial advantage. For example, we should develop industries such as ecological tourism, unique animal husbandry industry, ecological agriculture, processing industry of farm and pasture products, Tibetan Medicine industry and ethnic handcraft industry.

　　If we want Tibet to develop for the well-being of the people and make contributions to China, we have to give better protection to Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which is a national safety and ecological barrier. However, this extremely fragile barrier can not stand any disturbance. Once destroyed, it can never recover again. Therefore, giving a good protection of this place without exploitation or destruction means development to a certain degree. Many ecological disasters and even the disappearances of many civilizations were caused by unreasonable exploitation of natural resources in history.

　　(Losang Lingdri Dorje, Vice General-Director of China Tibetology Research Center)