China - Vandalism of Tibet's Natural Resources


Secret Chinese Document Reveals Vandalism of Tibet's Natural Resources

The 6th Tibet People's Political Consultative Conference held its third general body meeting in Lhasa. We were able to secure two conference newsletters (Dusal newsletter in Tibetan issue #7 and #l4) detailing the motion passed by the meeting on May 16th and 22nd May 1995. Following is the full translation of the motion passed during the conference on the environmental plight of Tibet.

The Secretariat of the Tibet People's Political Consultative Conference said, "The government must take concrete action to make sure people abide by laws as enshrined in the constitution to safeguard the environment. For example forest protection laws, wildlife conservation laws and conservation of mineral resource laws are well established in the constitution and made public through relevant government documents, but endless news of people breaking these laws by engaging in indiscriminate felling of trees and hunting of wild animals still continue."

"Moreover, in Gansu and from Tso-ngon province (Chinese: Qinghai) to the districts to the west of Nagchu in central Tibet there are over 12,000 gold miners unlawfully extracting gold from the area. Both farmers and nomads of the area have raised serious objection against heavy extraction of mineral resources and destruction of green pastures," the Secretariat said.

Mr. Gonpo (Standing Committee member, Tibet People's Political Consultative Conference, vice-president, State Education Commission) said, "the protection of Tibet's ecosystem is very important. But, it becomes more crucial to see whether Tibet's concerned departments have taken concrete steps towards this end."

"Improving the forest resource of Tibet is a significant contribution towards the development of its economic growth, which I don't need to explain further. However, the citizens of Lhasa and Nyingtri (in Kongpo region of Tibet) have expressed serious concern over the destruction of forest by timber poachers on the excuse that they have official 'license' from the various government forest departments (district, municipality, county, province) to fell trees," Gonpo said.

People of Pome (Chinese: Pomi) in Kongpo region of Tibet said thousand year old cypress and cedar forest arc indiscriminately logged and sold for profit. About 2,000 cubic meters of thousand year old timber was already cut in the region between Nyingtri and Pome. The government pays 180 yuan (US$ 22 at the current rate of US 1$ = 8.31 yuan or RMB) per cubic meter timber locally and sell them in Beijing and Shanghai for 8000 yuan (US$ 963) per cubic meter and a whopping sum of 10,000 yuan (US$ 1204) in Japan. Local people of Pome consider the forest as a precious natural resource and call these old forest "sandalwood forests," he said.

He further said, "People in Lhasa expressed their concern over the illegal timber extraction in the past and I am eyewitness to such activities. I have seen a government truck belonging to the 5th Work Division filled with tons of "sandalwood forests" logs. The distance between one end of the piled logs to the other (in the back of the truck) is seven to eight meters. These huge logs are destined to be trucked to Gormo (Chinese: Golmud, in Qinghai Province and these logs are then hauled by railway lines to China). If such illegal activities continue, the local people will not be substantially benefited, nor will it be a good income generating scheme for the government. These kind of activities are new in the environmental scenario of Tibet and will not help to develop Tibet's economy. Logging these old growth forests significantly destroys the intricate ecosystem of the forest belts. It is not the right time to cut these precious forest and sell them for profit. Therefore, the concerned department authorities and divisions must play an active role to protect these forests."

(Green Tibet - Annual Newsletter 1996)

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