Pictures of stranded polar bears on melting sheets of ice remind us all how global warming is causing the two poles, the Arctic and Antarctic, to melt. But what about the so-called ‘Third Pole’, the Tibetan plateau, which holds the third largest amount of stored water on earth?
Approximately one billion people depend on the seven major rivers - like the Yangtse, the Indus and the Yellow River - which begin high up on the Tibetan plateau. With average temperatures rising and the Tibetan glaciers melting at faster than average rates, this vital water source is in danger. Protection of this natural resource is now critical, not only for the Tibetan people but for us all.
Tibetan nomads have been the stewards of this unique environment for generations. The Chinese administration’s policy of forcibly resettling nomadic families has put not only their unique way of life at risk of being destroyed but also risks knowledge of how to manage this fragile environment being lost for ever.
Forcible resettlement is motivated not only by China’s scramble for natural resources, which has seen Chinese state companies drilling, mining and extracting as far afield as Tibet, Iraq and Zimbabwe; it is also motivated by political aims. Last year Zhang Qingli, the Tibet Autonomous Regional Party Secretary, publicly acknowledged that the resettlement of Tibetan nomads was to counteract the Dalai Lama’s influence: the Chinese administration is desperate to avoid the scenes of Spring 2008 - of brave Tibetan nomads riding bare-back into towns and villages, challenging China’s occupation of their land.
Beijing has attempted to justify the forcible relocation of nomads by unjustly blaming the escalating ecological crisis on the “backward” and “unscientific” behaviour of the Tibetan nomads. Independent research demonstrates that it is actually the Chinese administration’s land-use and resource extraction policies in Tibet that have accelerated the degradation of the plateau’s fragile ecosystem.
Read in depth information about the lives of nomads and how the Chinese government is putting this ancient and unique lifestyle at great risk by persuing its policy to force almost one million nomads to resettle by 2011.
Free Tibet has gathered testimony from nomads who have been forcibly resettled. Here, a nomad named Tenzin talks at length about how forced resettlement has affected her and how she longs to return to the plateau.
Find out more about Tibetan nomads and how their lifestyle is being put under threat by forced resettlement. Read the full story about nomadic resettlement and why Tibet's nomads are vital to the plateau.
Help fund our nomadic campaign by adopting a virtual yak for £3, which will be added to our virtual plateau. You can decorate your yak as nomads do, and help us fill the plateau just as it should be in Tibet!
The Endangered Third Pole: A Crisis in Tibet
Approximately one billion people depend on the seven major rivers - like the Yangtse, the Indus and the 
