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Tibet

ERASING NOMADS AND MEMORY OF PASTORAL PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES

EXCLUSIONS, EXEMPTIONS, SCIENTIFIC NARROWNESS, NATURE versus NOMADIC  CULTURE Blog two of two on UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE IN TIBET:   What the World Heritage experts have failed to notice is that most of the Tibetans were removed well before the World Heritage nomination process began, specifically to the Chinese petrochemical industrial city of Gormo, hundreds of […]

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Tibet

KOKOSHILI/HOH XIL

NATURAL AND CULTURAL WORLD HERITAGE in KOKOSHILI/HOH XIL: TIBET’S EMPTY QUARTER OR HUMAN LANDSCAPE? Blog 1 of 2 on the decision facing UNESCO World Heritage Committee in the first week of July 2017 A remote, high, frigid land of lakes on the Tibetan Plateau is about to become news, thrust forward by China’s nomination of […]

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Tibet

EMPTY QUARTER OR HUMAN LANDSCAPE?

KOKOSHILI/HOH XIL: TIBET’S EMPTY QUARTER OR HUMAN LANDSCAPE? NATURAL AND CULTURAL WORLD HERITAGE   Blog 2 of 2 on the decision facing UNESCO World Heritage Committee in the first week of July 2017   The inspiring example of Tibetans determined to protect wildlife as fellow sentient beings created a worldwide movement to stop animal slaughter. […]

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Tibet

Innermost Veins of our Planet #1

CHINA’S HI-TECH AMBITIONS TO SUPPLANT THE WORLD’S TOP MANUFACTURING COUNTRIES, BY EXTRACTION OF RARE STRATEGIC METALS FROM TIBET Blog #1 of 2 LHAGANG LITHIUM AND RARE EARTH DEPOSITS   Fresh evidence has emerged confirming how and why Tibetans in remote areas, far from metropoles of power, experience the state as predatory. The Tibetans of the […]

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Tibet

Innermost Veins of our Planet #2

CHINA’S HI-TECH AMBITIONS TO SUPPLANT THE WORLD’S TOP MANUFACTURING COUNTRIES, BY EXTRACTION OF RARE STRATEGIC METALS FROM TIBET Blog #2 of 2 LITHIUM, HI-TECH STEALTH BOMBERS AND THE DAM PLANS ON THE NYAGCHU/YALONG RIVER Even though extraction on a commercial scale has barely begun, lithium mine construction at Lhagang/Tagong is confined to warmer months and […]

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Tibet

CONCRETE WALLS ACROSS THE GREAT TIBETAN RIVERS

HYDRO DAMS ADVANCING UP THE RIVERS OF EASTERN TIBET   Will Tibetan rivers be saved from damming? We now know what China’s planners intend, in more detail than when the 13th Five-Year Plan was announced early in 2016. Now, at the end of 2016, China’s water planners have finalised their plans for that five year […]

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China Tibet

IN THE “NO-MAN’S LAND” OF TIBET

 EVALUATING CHINA’S NOMINATION OF HOH XIL NATURE RESERVE TO BECOME A UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE NATURAL PROPERTY #1 of a series of 3 blogs   The cute Tibetan chiru antelope mascot of the Beijing Olympics is to be saved, by making its winter pastures and summer birthing grounds UNESCO World Heritage. Before China reached  the Tibetan […]

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Tibet

EMPTYING TIBETAN LANDS FOR SAFARI TOURISM

EVALUATING CHINA’S NOMINATION OF HOH XIL NATURE RESERVE TO BECOME A UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE NATURAL PROPERTY #3 of a series of 3 blogs WATER VERSUS PASTORALISM In 2007, China’s leading research institute for making Tibet a scientific object reported that: “No man’s land records of scientific investigation in China for the first time the work […]

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Tibet

SAVING CHIRU ANTELOPES OF “NO-MAN’S LAND”

EVALUATING CHINA’S NOMINATION OF HOH XIL NATURE RESERVE TO BECOME A UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE NATURAL PROPERTY #2 of a series of 3 blogs THE ICONIC CHIRU ANTELOPE In celebration of the heroic efforts of Tibetan guardians of the chiru antelope, China produced not only the very popular movie Kekexili: Mountain Patrol but, in 2004, a […]

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China Tibet

INSPECTING THE STRAIGHT LINES OF THE CHINESE DREAM

XI JINPING COMES TO AMDO QINGHAI Xi Jinping’s recent tour of inspection of Qinghai province suggests all is well in the northern half of the Tibetan Plateau, which, in China’s usage has become hyphenated, as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, or QTP. Although the Tibetan Plateau is one unit, in any sense –geographically, tectonically, altitudinally, culturally, linguistically, […]