(TibetanReview.net, Nov16’24) –China is accelerating dam building on the upper reaches of the Yellow River (Tibetan: Machu) in Tibet despite evidence from its own scientists of the risks of geological disasters and serious environmental problems, said London-based monitoring and research group Tibet Watch and a network of digitally connected specialists Turquoise Roof in a policy briefing Nov 14.
The briefing on The Risks of China’s Dangerous Dam-Building in Tibet has found that entire villages were being displaced and ancient monasteries submerged to make way for the construction of such dams by state-owned corporations that are also building more coal-fired power stations in China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
The briefing revealed that at least three major new dams were under construction on the upper Machu, despite warnings from Chinese scientists that the area is seismically unstable with increasingly insecure weather conditions due to climate change and Tibet’s melting glaciers and permafrost.
The briefing said the first of these major dams, the Yangkhil (Yangqu) hydropower station, had devastated an entire community. China removed the centuries-old Atsok Monastery from a protected heritage list before beginning its demolition to make way for a dam that Chinese engineers boast is constructed by AI-driven robots. Besides, accounts and images from eyewitnesses in this bulletin document how Tibetans had been compelled to dismantle their own homes.
The expansion of the dam is being built in Dragkar (Xinghai) county of Tsolho (Hainan) Prefecture, Qinghai province, and set for completion later this year.
The Chinese government is stated to be upending delicate local ecosystems by introducing in this dam the mass breeding and slaughter of trout, a non-native fish species, which is then marketed to Chinese consumers as salmon. The groups said the introducing of invasive species into Tibet’s rivers had alarmed scientists as well as appalled Tibetans due the factory farming methods.
Disrupting the quality and flow of Tibet’s rivers has significant impact on the wider regions of central and south Asia and the global climate. The rivers flow into India and southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, where they are depended on daily by millions of farmers and fisherfolk, whose lives are directly affected by damming and Tibet’s rapidly melting glaciers.
The briefing sounds alarm over how building dam on the permafrost zone on the Tibetan plateau – which at 1.6 million square kilometres is the largest in the world outside of the Arctic, and which thaws in summer and freezes in winter – is dangerous. The accelerating melting of the permafrost due to climate change risks releasing tonnes of environmentally hazardous trapped methane into the atmosphere, it warned.
The briefing rejects China’s claim that it is protecting Tibet’s pastures from grazing, and promoting a policy to maintain “ecological civilisation” as it tightens control over Tibet’s landscape and displaces rural Tibetans. It points out the contradictions of this policy in light of China’s intensive exploitation of Tibet’s minerals and natural resources.
The most effective way of protecting the Tibetan landscape and its water is by including Tibetan people who have cultivated methods of adaptation to the often harsh conditions as part of the solution rather than excluding them as part of the problem, the briefing said, citing global experience highlighted by bodies such as the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change.
“The Chinese government is keen to tout its green energy credentials on the international stage, while in occupied Tibet, the local population are forced to bear the costs, as their monasteries are torn down, communities torn apart and its ecology unbalanced,” said John Jones, Head of Campaigns, Policy and Research, Tibet Watch.