A September 2, 2010 article in the Guardian spotlighted the environmental degradation of the Tibetan plateau particularly in Qinghai province, location of our grant. This damage is caused by agricultural mismanagement and global warning.
Yak Grazing, perhaps a vanishing site in rural Qinghai
One impact of environmental degradation is the government’s removal of Tibetan nomads off of the land and to reservations where they cannot find work and face the loss of their traditional culture. As the article’s author, Jonathan Watts, writes:
“Qinghai is dotted with resettlement centres, many on the way to becoming ghettos. Nomads are paid an annual allowance – of 3,000 yuan (about £300) to 8,000 yuan per household – to give up herding for 10 years and be provided with housing. As in some native American reservations in the US and Canada, they have trouble finding jobs. Many end up either unemployed or recycling rubbish or collecting dung.”
We witnessed the construction of many of these ghettos which consist of row after row of small houses with little other infrastructure around them, as I have written about elsewhere on this blog. The full text of the Guardian article is available here.
