UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has dutifully rubber-stamped China’s application to declare a further 60,000 sq. kms of the Tibetan Plateau to be branded with World Heritage status. Politics has trumped facts on the ground, inconvenient facts such as China’s removal of most of the Tibetan nomad guardians of the Koko Shili landscape to remote concrete […]
Well, maybe not. But I do want to introduce myself, the author of all the www.rukor.org blogs, if only to say hello and goodbye. When I started this blog a few years ago, it seemed to me that debate on Tibet was restricted to a narrow range of essential issues: civil and political rights, religious […]
EXCLUSIONS, EXEMPTIONS, SCIENTIFIC NARROWNESS, NATURE versus NOMADIC CULTURE Blog one of two on UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE IN TIBET: June 2017: One month before the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is due to decide the fate of a large portion of the Tibetan Plateau, documentation has been released giving us a detailed picture of what China […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]