Blog two of three on Tibetan nomads, frogs, green iron rice bowls and highland clearances CAN NOMADS, WILDLIFE AND YAKS STILL COEXIST SUSTAINABLY? China’s program of steadily depopulating rural Tibet, especially in the upper watersheds of the Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong Rivers, is not the only possible way ahead. Quietly, Chinese NGOs such as Shan […]
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IRON RICE BOWLS AND RADICAL UNCERTAINTY
Blog three of three on Tibetan nomads, frogs, green iron rice bowls and highland clearances INSECURITY AS THE MODE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE Pastoralism worldwide is confined to drylands, which receive enough rain for grass to grow, but not forests. The drylands are between the desert and the arable. By definition, such lands are inland, often […]
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CHINA & GLOBAL WILDLIFE CRISIS
BIODIVERSITY, ETHNIC DIVERSITY: CAN YOU HAVE BOTH? A new urgency about effective action on climate change is evident wherever you look, from striking school children marching on city streets, to the endless torrent of scary warnings from panels of scientists. The 2015 Paris agreement, which let each country set its own climate change targets, already […]
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CAPTURING AND BRIDLING UNESCO
CRUNCH TIME FOR TIBET’S DRI CHU RIVER: a blog about UNESCO’s inability to hold China accountable for endangering World Heritage Will UNESCO be the first major agency of the United Nations to fall to Chinese money, patronage, soft power projection and suasion? At first, this sounds like a slur on a venerable multilateral institution with […]
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POTALESQUE
When China’s first railway line into Tibet opened in 2006, Tibetans outside Tibet, and their supporters, condemned it, for many reasons. It would only intensify Han Chinese emigration to Tibet, they warned, would disrupt migratory wild animals seeking safe, wolf-free remote pastures to give birth, would cause erosion and degradation, and other disasters as well. […]
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RUKOR SUMMER SCHOOL
ANNOUNCEMENT: RUKOR SUMMER SCHOOL Skills training for Tibetans and their friends in Europe, in researching and analysing China’s plans for Tibet. Have you wondered how the Rukor blog obtains information and assesses China’s plans to transform Tibet? How does Rukor find its’ stories, verify and document China’s agenda for the future of Tibet? This European […]
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TIGER LEAPING, CONCRETE DAMMING
UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE THREE PARALLEL RIVERS PROTECTED AREA UNDER THREAT Blog one of three This 2019 moment uncannily echoes 2004, when Chinese environmentalists and an investigative newspaper revealed Tiger Leaping Gorge, on the southeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, was about to be dammed, stilling a mountain river famed for its untamed wildness and spectacular […]
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LEAPING TIGERS, GREAT LEAPS FORWARD
UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE THREE PARALLEL RIVERS PROTECTED AREA UNDER THREAT Blog two of three HOW TO UNDO A WIN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT What has changed since 2007? Why are the Longpan/Tiger Leaping Gorge dam construction plans now again high on the infrastructure construction agenda? Much has changed, tilting the playing field in favour of the […]
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LEAPING INTO THE EARTH, LEAPING GLOBALLY
UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE THREE PARALLEL RIVERS PROTECTED AREA UNDER THREAT Blog three of three MINING PERSISTS INSIDE WORLD HERITAGE PROTECTED AREA Other industries, within UNESCO’s World Heritage protected area, have drawn expressions of concern from UNESCO, notably mining. Yunnan is known for its copper deposits, for which demand grows as the power grids sending hydropower […]
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PRISTINE WILDERNESS, CHINA’S TREASURE
Blog one of three updating Achen Gangyab/Hoh Xil: problematic UNESCO World Heritage IN LOVE WITH ICONIC TIBETAN SPECIES Now that UNESCO has bestowed its prestigious World Heritage badging to a remote portion of the Tibetan Plateau, China is figuring out what to do with this jewel of alpine desert, even though very few lowland Han […]