Phuntsok Yangchen
DHARAMSHALA, February 16: A book revealing China’s destruction of ecosystems from the highlands of Tibet to the deltas of Asia was launched today in McLeod Ganj.
“Meltdown in Tibet” by a Canadian writer Michael Buckley exposes the environmental destruction on the Tibetan plateau through building of mega-dams, extensive mining and grassland degradation.
Speaking about his experiences in Tibet, Michal Buckley said that what he had seen in Tibet is “not that great”. “China doesn’t have very good reputation on environment to begin with, but what they are doing in Tibet is criminal because Tibetans can’t stop it, they have no power to prevent what is happening on their land,” said Buckley on his book launch at Drum Stick restaurant.
“Climate change is a very very tricky subject and China is prompt to blame everything on climate change. This is their standard line. ‘Climate change, we can’t prevent it and there is nothing we can do about it.’ But the fact is China is causing the climate change,” Buckley regretted.
Buckley described Tibetans as the best environmentalists around the world because they have left everything alone, untouched and have a sense of sacred peaks, sacred lakes, sacred rivers and even sacred forests, and further noted that what China is doing there is a huge insult to the Tibetan mentality because “that’s going right against all of those principles.”
The Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in the preface to the book, says, “The question of river and water management in Tibet transcends mere political concerns because of its far-reaching impact in this part of the world. This book, therefore should be part of a wake-up call to the international community and China to seriously assess ecological and environmental conditions on the Tibetan plateau and take remedial measures before it is too late.”
China has been extracting minerals from mountains, damming the river and removing the nomads from grassland in Tibet. Tibet is rich in many minerals and is the third largest producer of Lithium, which is used in manufacturing batteries.
Many Tibetans have protested against the mining and resettlements of nomads, but China always responded to these actions with arrests and heavy prison term.
A 12-minute long documentary film with the same title as the book was also screened. He filmed the damming of rivers and mining in Tibet during his visit there.
Michael Buckley is an adventure travel writer and documentary filmmaker. He has travelled widely in Tibet and the Himalayas, visiting many Tibetan enclaves.
