(TibetanReview.net, Mar22’20) – China has never reported anything about water pollution in Tibet Autonomous Region while claiming to pursue highly environment-friendly plans for its development. However, the country’s official Xinhua news agency reported Mar 22 that Beijing had sanctioned 141 million yuan (about US$ 20 million) for water pollution control projects there in 2019.
Tibetans have long complained that China’s ravaging mining practices in the region had led to confiscation of land from farmer and nomads and poisoning of the land and water for growing crops, grazing animals and for the sustenance of both human and animal lives. Numerous protests have been reported, leading to arrest and imprisonment of protesting farmers and nomads while the mining works continued unrestrained, which led even to catastrophic landslides.
The report cited Norgyel, head of the regional department of ecology of environment, as saying the funds for water pollution control projects were poured in to treat pollution of Jinsha, Lancang, Nianchu and other rivers of the region.
As a result, all water sources for centralized urban drinking water supplies have met the quality standard in the region, he was cited as saying.
The report also cited Norgyel as saying that for rural residents, the regional government had spent 42 million yuan on 27 pilot programmes of rural sewage disposal.
