A Call for Help to Stop Logging in Khyung mChu

Here is an English translation of another Tibetan language blog post related to Tibet's environment. This post is a letter providing news and calling for help to stop the deforestation, which, according to the letter, has been secretly going on for over a decade in Khyung mChu township area of Hongyuan county in North-Western Sichuan's Ngawa Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (see map below). Although posted on the blog of Tibetan writer and singer Jamyang Kyi, the letter is written by a person named Mindruk. Jamyang Kyi says she is merely posting it on her blog as per the author's request.




[begin translation]

Dear Readers:

As everybody knows, protecting the environment is protecting one's own life and prolonging the future livelihood base for humanity. Therefore, we ask how can we protect the earth and how can we ensure future security and benefit existing livelihoods.

However, at the present time, in some places, pristine areas with beautiful hills and forest are being extensively destroyed and harmed for economic benefits. Major environmental pollution and destruction are taking place in the name of regional development and construction of suburbs. For example, in Zangkar [Zangs dKar] area of Kyungchu [Khyung mChu] (Hongyuan) county, tremendous destruction is being done to the land by gold mining activities. The residents of the area repeatedly complained to the government and made every effort to stop the mining. Some local monks even left the area in protest. Their efforts were able to stop the mining activities but only for a brief time.

I wanted to write about this issue for a long time, but I was unable to do so for some time due to other reasons. Zangs dKar is a beautiful region, blessed with ten natural qualities of soil, pristine natural forest with streams flowing down from the rocky mountain, with all kinds of life forms making the place their habitat. One third of the region used to be covered by forests. However, today, mining and logging activities have inflicted irrecoverable environmental damage upon the region. In this region there is a place called Thang Lung, which is rich in natural forests. Though some of the forests are under national level protection, the majority of the forests are under regional level protection. However, local authorities and offices do not have the power to independently cut down the forests.

According to the State Forest Protection Law, logging and other activities in the forests are not allowed unless one obtains necessary permits from the provincial, prefectural and city (local) level offices of the Department of Forest. The law also clearly outlines that consumption of forest resources must be lower than the natural growth rate of the forest. The State Forest Protection Law of the People's Republic of China clearly states that one must undertake verification with concerned local authorities and obtain the permit from the State authority for any kind of activities in the forests. In the last twelve years, large scale deforestation and widespread grassland degradation have taken place. Today, this area is so barren and horrific that people do not dare to catch a glimpse of the site.

According to the testimony of local people, these irrecoverable environmental damages are caused by the local and regional Forest Department offices. Every year, between Spring and Summer seasons, the local forest department undertakes extensive logging activities. They undertake these activities deep in the forest so that the public will not notice their actions. During the festive seasons when many people travel through the area, they halt the logging activities so that public will not know. Moreover, to fool the public, they have intentionally kept the forests near highway and bridges in its natural form. It is clear from their actions they are not in accordance with the law.

The local people and their representatives have repeatedly lodged complaints about the destruction of forests, and requested the authorities to stop these activities. However, authorities have never heeded these calls. This area is rich in old growth forest, it has all kinds of trees like pine, Juniper, fir and so on. Some of the old growth are believed to be over one thousand years old.

Just like scavenging vultures driven by an insatiable desire to eat flesh, they have been destroying the region's ancient forests without the slightest concern for many years. This is a very tragic scene. The place looks like a man without any clothes, standing naked to be humiliated. People believe it is because of this destruction and the resultant imbalance of the four elements that there were disasters like earthquake and landslides in the region. In order to protect Zangs dKar from this kind of continued disaster, I request my kind brothers and sisters, officials and journalists to help save the region from destruction.

Thank you.

From Mindruk, 2009/01/16.

Note: As requested by the writer of the article, I have put it as blog on this site.

[end translation]

Translated by Thinley Norbu of www.ecotibet.org