Tuesday 15 January 2019

Who are the guardians of China's last frozen river?

Original by ExploreToConserve here. Click to see the incredible photo series that this written account accompanies.

In the 30 degree summer of New Zealand, each breath is full of sunshine and sandy beaches. Groups of young people ahead wear shorts and flip flops, not missing the opportunity to expose their creamy skin to each ray of sunshine.

The heavy heat on our bodies makes it hard for us to imagine that at the same time, on the other side of endless mountains and seas, stand peaks capped by year-round snow that have been on top of the Tibetan plateau for hundreds of thousands of years, whose melting snow is carried into the giant river of life.

Let us focus in on the Tibetan plateau's eastern part. At an altitude of 5369 metres, Bayan Kala mountain range's highest peak has a special name: Nian Bao Yu Ze.



The name of the mountain god is 'Nian Bao Yu Ze', and the place where this god lives is god's mountain.
At the start of August 2018, myself, Obermann, and several local Tibetan friends undertook the main peak's frozen river annual monitoring mission, run by the Nian Bao Yu Ze Ecological Protection Association. This is a civil society group started up by local monks and herdsmen, which although grassroots, has been protecting Nian Bao Yu Ze for the past 11 years through local ecology and traditional culture. It has invested a lot of energy and seen many achievements.

Every August since 2004, salt-of-the-earth native herdsman Lewan from the valley of Nian Bao Yu Ze chooses two days of good weather. He takes a tent, camera and tripod, and single-handedly hikes to the edge of the peak's frozen river. After noting the GPS coordinates, he writes the year in acrylic paint, and takes a photo from a fixed point to document the river.

Two years ago, the nearly 50 year-old Lewan taught this task to another herder, Bade, who lives on the other side of the ice river. In 2018, with equipment sponsorship from The North Face, we and core members of the association who for a long time had not reached the river's 5000 metre-altitude rode horses together entering from Bade's valley. Then leaving from Lewan's village, we attempted a crossing almost no one had ever tried.

Just like a real adventure, every experience was brand new, which requires full mind-and-body immersion. Since it is not easy to write about the experience, how can it be conveyed to anyone who did not stand atop that mountain? Photos and videos do it much better justice.


Although it was a happy adventure, hearing about the frozen river's historical demise was distressing. Around ten years ago, this place was perhaps unrecognizable. Outdoor explorers had very few grievances; the more pressing question is...

The head of the association Ake Kamakura is a monk proficient in classical Buddhism. Standing in front of the stone used as the fixed point from which to take photos, he says that when he was a small he herded cattle at the foot of the mountain. In the past few decades he has seen with his own eyes the frozen river disappearing at an incredible speed.

"Tibetans believe that water comes from the top of the snow mountain, but in maybe 50 years time, if there is no frozen river, our water source will no longer be guaranteed."

Not just you, this would also be a problem for the thousands of people living downstream of Sanjiangyuan! I think silently.

In the past 50 years, the average annual temperature of Nian Bao Yu Ze's county, Juizhi, has increased by almost 2 degrees Celsius. What about this makes it so bad?

The Paris Agreement three years ago called for all countries to limit the global temperature increase between the years 1850 to 2100 to less than 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold beyond which the world will face irreversible changes. Other plant and animal species may still thrive, but humanity's complex and fragile social structure will be very hard to maintain under even the slightest environmental changes.

In 2009, an article in an authoritative journal summarized the crisis brought by climate change facing the Tibetan Plateau as seen by scientists - the temperature increase on the plateau is three times that of the planet. The frozen river's decline is evident. Will the lives of the herdspeople and villagers who live here be able to withstand the effects of such an upheaval? There are many plants and animals that are not found anywhere else on the planet. While the temperature rises, the mountain's height stays limited; so where will they all go?


We discovered the corpses of at least 20 little birds at the top of the frozen lake. Even locals who regularly climbed here had never observed this before. Was it related to climate change? It's not clear, but the summer of 2018 was abnormally hot.
Our understanding of the plateau's flora and fauna is so limited, so the traditional culture in which local Tibetans live in harmony with nature is very much worth maintaining and sharing. But life there is facing huge uncertainties of the future.

How can we make outsiders aware of the severity of this generation's environmental problems, and have the confidence to make changes?

This is a question I have not yet found an answer to. However, what the association's founder, Tashi Sange, told me gave me hope:

"This planet is my mother. If my mother is sick, I worry she might die tomorrow. So does she still need looking after today? Of course she needs looking after. Our planet is the same. If the planet is exploding tomorrow, we still have to care for it today."

The members of Nian Bao Yu Ze Ecological Protection Association believe that nature is a guesthouse, and humans are just her temporary guests. We have the right to use her, but not to ruin her. All beings should enjoy the guesthouse's clean air, food and water, but if our appetite is too large, we will be stealing resources from other beings.

Leaving Nian Bao Yu Ze, the other association members and I are walking along a dirt path through the middle of the grasslands, when Tashi suddenly stops dead in front of me, both feet apart. I go to stand next to him, curious, and ask "what are you doing?"

"There's an insect on the ground, I'm protecting it," he says with a laugh.

They have already started protecting. Have you?

Having finished reading this article, you can:

1. Make fewer online purchases and deliveries, use fewer plastic bags and other single-use items
2. Use public transport more, or cycle, run or walk
3. Support truly environmentally-friendly businesses (not those just paying lip-service)
4. There is lots more you can do, but the easiest is to scan the QR code below or click 'Read the original article' and share it, like our ME public welfare innovation project application, to help Nian Bao Yu Ze Ecological Protection Association receive 500,000 yuan in charity funding. We hope to present a new balance of coexistence between humans and nature, so that everyone can be a guardian of nature.

Of course, this is a monumental topic of discussion. Will we be able to protect Nian Bao Yu Ze or even China's last frozen river? We hope so, and believe there is still time... because there is you, Tashi!

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