Reconstruction or Destruction of Tibetan highland ??
Surrounded by the high Himalayan snow capped mountains ranges and dotted with numerous pristine water lakes, The Roof of the World as the Tibet is fondly known, is a land rich in minerals with a variety of flora and fauna. Contrary to popular perception, the Tibetan land is not arid and barren but comprises vast areas redolent with the leafy smell of forests, wide spanning pasturelands suitable for animal husbandry and humongous fertile valleys.
However, with the Chinese subjugation of the plateau, Tibet is witnessing sudden disruption in its traditional practice of ensuring care about harm committed on the environment and its wild life inhabitants. The negative overhaul in Tibet’s landscape component can mainly be subscribed to the fact that the PLA soldiers have consistently taken recourse to hunting of herds of wild animals through machine guns and continue to cause dynamite explosions in rivers and lakes to catch fish instantly.
As far as the natural vegetation is concerned, one of the world’s oldest forest reserves predominately found in south eastern Kham, Kongpo region of southern Tibet and eastern Amdo has been subjected to China’s insatiable appetite for timber. The devastating deforestation drive has seen Tibet’s forest cover massively reduce by a staggering 46 per cent between 1950–1985. According to the Research and Markets (2019), the consumption of timber in China has increased by nearly 20 per cent from 2013 to 2017.
Massive tree felling and transport exercises by China has been one of the main reasons for the 1998 Yantgze flood which killed more than 3000 people, displaced more than 15 million and affected more than 223 million people. As part of its new policy issued in 2005, China cleared up the forest in Drukchu area to exploit the Druchu river and set up more than 156 hydropower stations along the river valley which has been a major factor in eruption of the 2010 Drukchu flood which destroyed power, water supply and telecommunication facilities in the region.
Add to the heinous vegetation exploitation, the large scale resource extraction through destructive and unethical Chinese mining practice, especially in Gyma, close to Lhasa, and you get a heady concoction of poisoned rivers and large scale depositions of toxic contaminants such as lithium and zinc laying waste to death the marine animals and threatening local drinking water.
Plans are also afoot to elaborately expand and ‘redesign’ the architectural landscape of Lhasa by making it a cultural tourism hub. A large shopping center (Spiritual Power Plaza) with underground parking located in the northeastern section of the Barkhor is being constructed next to the holy Jokhang Temple while older buildings are being destroyed.
Beijing based Tibetan writer Woeser puts it emphatically, “There are no more pilgrims from Kham and Amdo who prostrate themselves in front of the temple, no more lamp pavilions that were the sight of the devotional Tibetan outpourings, only snipers poised on Tibetan roofs, fully armed military sweeps and massive government joint venture shopping malls flaunting their vulgarity of operations”.
Since Lhasa is a river town, the underground parking garage containing 1,117 parking spaces severely damages the water table by pumping it lower, not only on the building site but also the surroundings. The construction activity has furthered chances of land subsidence, causing cracks to appear in many places while excavated sites have no water.
The crude fact remains that the dramatic increase in tourism since the opening of the new railway line from Qinghai in 2006 has reduced the Old City of Lhasa to less than 2 per cent of the total area of Lhasa even as the rest of the city is reshaped with modern concrete buildings while hundreds of old Tibetan buildings, including the village of Shol, have crumbled to China’s rampant infrastructural drive.
The unheeding measures to reconstruct Lhasa do not end there as plans are in the making since 2007 to expand the Lhasa City area by more than 60 per cent through the establishment of Liuwu New District which will accommodate 110,00 residents. Such Western style development strategy has resulted in the ousting of market trading stalls from Barkhor street at the heart of Lhasa.
The question then that should behoove the world is what and how long will it take for the world to recognise that razing down of Tibetan architectural and natural environment, particularly when no outside heritage and conservation groups are allowed to operate in Lhasa?
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