In a recent interview with Beijing Youth Daily, Yang
Xin spoke candidly about his passion for the environment and
wildlife. Who would have thought that this naughty boy who loved to
catch frogs and hunt birds would turn out to be one of China's most
ardent environmentalists?
Despite his work, Yang, the leader of Greenriver, a
non-government environmental protection organization, is still not
as famous as the Hoh Xil nature reserve, the Tibetan antelope or
the late Sonam Dargyi, his predecessor, all of which were
introduced to the media by Yang. But that doesn't seem to bother
him or his work.
In June, Yang and his team of volunteers started the fundraising
for the NGO's second nature reserve protection station. The main
source of funds is sales of books Yang and/or his team wrote.
For this fundraising project, the book for sale is Experience
Hoh Xil in Ten Years - The Narrations of the Volunteers.
Published in June, it was written by volunteers who built the Sonam
Dargyi Nature Reserve Protection Station in 1997. The station has
proudly protected the harsh yet beautiful area of Hoh Xil in
China's northwestern Qinghai
Province for the last?10 years.
Greenriver plans to open the new nature reserve protection
station in Minjiang, Yunnan
Province.
Yang first pondered the relationship between nature and man in
the 1980s, around the time when foreign concepts of environmental
protection were introduced to China.
But it wasn't until 1994 that he made the decision to quit his
comfortable accounting job to devote himself to the protection of
the environment.
What gave him the courage to go full-fledge into environmental
protection was the memory of Sonam Dargyi, a Tibetan who died
fighting for the rights of the Tibetan antelope. Sonam Dargyi was
murdered by poachers in 1994 in Hoh Xil. By the time his body was
found, the minus 40 degree temperatures had turned his corpse into
an ice sculpture. He was holding a gun and his body surrounded by
more than 1,000 antelope skins.
Sonam Dargyi's last wish was to build a nature reserve
protection station in Hoh Xil to keep poachers out. Yang sold his
book Soul of the Yangtze River, published in March
1997, and used the proceeds to build China's first non-governmental
nature reserve protection station. It was aptly named, "The Sonam
Dargyi Nature Reserve Protection Station."
Trials and tribulations
For all the work Yang and his team at Greenriver have done,
they've received much respect from the public.
But things changed in December 2002.
Two young men were found dead in Hoh Xil in a stranded vehicle
belonging to the Sonam Dargyi protection station.
Feng Yong, a 21-year-old volunteer with Greenriver, and Li
Mingli, a 26-year-old construction company driver reportedly died
of respiratory failure brought about by a combination of
hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning and altitude sickness. They
were found in an area about 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) above sea
level.
Records from the local weather center showed that overnight
temperatures on the evening of November 30 were approximately minus
30 degrees Celsius.
This unfortunate event was the first involving volunteers and it
attracted much media attention.
Questions were asked about the seemingly unnecessary risks the
volunteers took.
There were even questions raised about Greenriver's motives. Was
it all just a publicity stunt?
Some controversy surrounded the building of a costly watchtower
in 1998. Critics claimed it was useless.
Yang said: "The watch tower was a long-cherished wish of Taba
Dorje, who took over from Sonam Dargyi as leader of the patrol
team. After the protection station was founded in 1997, Taba Dorje
said: 'What if there is a watchtower? The station is in the middle
of the two entrance roads.'
"The 12-ton, 28-meter-high tower was built the following year to
allow us to guard the two roads leading into the reserve, which are
about seven to eight kilometers away. But most poachers these days
have changed their routes and enter Hoh Xil from Xinjiang, so the
watchtower seems useless. But the tower symbolizes an important
step for a Chinese non-governmental environmental protection
group."
Despite the pressures and heavy criticism they faced?--
with Feng and Li's deaths, and the core of Greenriver coming under
fire?-- Yang and his team managed to complete their report,
"The Tibetan Antelope: Their Numbers and Suggestions on Their
Protection," in 2002. The report included the findings of 139
investigations, and more than 1,400 statistics. It was presented to
the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).
Greenriver also updated their volunteer handbook, and instituted
expert training for volunteers. More important, volunteers were
required to spend time on a plateau near Chengdu at an altitude of
4,000 meters above sea level.
'Sonam Dargyi, Taba Dorje and Feng Yong inspire me to go
on'
In 2004, Greenriver set up special traffic lights along a
section of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway to allow herds of Tibetan
antelopes make the passage across the highway safely. Each June to
the middle of July, more than 10,000 female antelopes migrate north
to give birth along the banks of the Zhuonai and Taiyang lakes in
northwestern China. They then make the return trip with their young
a couple of months later. They have to cross the highway each
time.
Timid in nature, Tibetan antelopes are easily frightened. The
traffic lights have helped to make their trip less stressful. In
addition, they remind drivers and tourists to respect the serenity
of the reserve and wild animals in general.
But Yang's work isn't limited to protecting the Tibetan antelope
or even to animals, for that matter.
In early 2003, Greenriver and Liu Yuan, an anthropologist,
started a six-month program called the "Yangtze River Headstream
Anthropology" to study the effects of the construction of the
Qinghai-Tibet Railway on the lives of people living in the
surrounding areas.
In 2005, in cooperation with scientists, Greenriver turned their
attention to the shrinking glaciers. Earlier this year, the team
erected a stele where glacier meets land as a stark reminder of the
effects of global warming. Another four steles are planned for
erection over the next four years.
Yang explained that Greenriver doesn't have the resources to do
high-tech research. But it does try to make the science easier for
the common man to understand, and tries to provide the statistics
to back up their claims. Take the glaciers for example. A
considerable amount of research has been done on this topic, but
many of the reports scientists have prepared are either too
technical for the ordinary person to understand or don't reflect
the seriousness of the matter in a language that the common man can
appreciate. That's why Yang and his team decided to erect steles,
to provide the visual impact.
Their methods might not reap immediate results, but Yang is not
disheartened.
"I gave a speech in Beijing 10 years ago on the Tibetan antelope
and Hoh Xil," he recalled. "Few people knew what or where they
were. But now, the two are almost popular in their own right. To
me, that's an achievement," he said proudly.?
But he realizes that he can only do so much. Greenriver relies
on book sales for funding.?Like anybody else, Yang does on
occasion feel down and discouraged, and laments the thought that
they might be fighting a losing battle.
"But the memories of Sonam Dargyi, Taba Dorje and Feng Yong
inspire me to go on," he said.
The blueprint of the second nature reserve protection
station
Yang reckons that it will take at least five years for them to
raise enough money and build the second nature reserve protection
station.
There are 25 major biodiversity areas in Minjiang, Yunnan, where
the team plans to build the protection station. The belt from Mt.
Meilli in Yunnan to Mt. Gongkar in Sichuan
is the only one of its kind in China.
Greenriver chose this location for the protection because the
area is in danger of being severely damaged by uncontrolled
tourism. After tourism was introduced to this underdeveloped area
by the local government, it soon became obvious that the local
government had neither the resources nor technical expertise to
maintain a healthy balance between business and protecting the
natural environment.?
Yang hopes that the protection station will help to keep a check
on the exploitation of the belt by the tourism industry.
The station will provide training in environmental protection;
they plan to train about 5,000 students every year. They will also
provide training for staff of other environmental protection
organizations and officials from the various government
sectors.
The second function of the station will be to provide
information on sustainable development to the local people.
Many locals have turned all or part of their homes into hotels.
With more visitors come more waste and pollution. Human waste is
just one of the problems. "We will launch a sewage farms project
this October. We will teach the local people how to build
small-scale sewage treatment facilities. Those who dispose of and
treat sewage effectively will be awarded environmental protection
logos they can display on their front doors," Yang said.
Yang knows that Greenriver cannot single-handedly change the
world. But he said he and his team will keep on working to protect
the environment, and hopes that their efforts help to change the
attitudes of people, even if only just a little.
Profile of Yang Xin, president of Greenriver (www.green-river.org)
Yang Xin was born in 1963, Chengdu, Sichuan.
1984: Began surveying, exploring and photographing the Jinsha
River, the upper stretch of the Yangtze.
1986: Joined China Yangtze River scientific expedition rafting
team, as a core member and photographer. Traveled the full 6,300 km
length of the Yangtze's mainstream.
1991: Organized the Yalong River Photo Expedition Team (team
captain) and surveyed the full 1,500 km length of the Yalong River
and its environment.
1992: Joined the forest resource survey team in the upper
Yangtze, as a photographer, and documented the forest distribution
and the deforestation of the area.
1993: Joined the Yangtze River source area expedition and
photography team, as photographer; photographed the natural sights
of the Yangtze source area; and discovered a series of
environmental problems such as the receding glacial lines,
grassland degradation, and extensive wildlife poaching.
1994: Organized the TV crew for "The Mysterious Yangtze Source"
(team captain); found the area deteriorating even more, and numbers
of the rare Tibetan antelopes on the Tibetan Plateau decreasing
further. The animal is on the verge of extinction.
1995: Set up the "Protect the Yangtze Source, Love Our Mother
Nature" planning committee, prior to the establishment of
Greenriver, initiating the campaign for the protection of the
Yangtze River source area, with the goal of improving the
ecological environment through grassroots efforts.
1996:?Organized a "Protect the Yangtze Source, Love Our
Mother Nature" expedition of scientists and journalists to the
Yangtze source area, as team leader, to research and report on the
ecological environment of the area, and to call for national
attention to environmental protection.
1997: Raised funds by selling his book, Soul of the
Yangtze, and organized volunteers to build the Sonam Dargyi
Nature Reserve Protection Station at 4, 500 meters above sea level
and on the edge of a completely uninhabited region in Hoh Xil.
After three years of fundraising and additional construction, the
station became a grassroots symbol of conservation in the country
and greatly enhanced efforts to protect the Yangtze source
area.
1999: Conceived and advocated the establishment of an
environmental protection monument in the Yangtze source area, and
received a positive response from the SEPA. Former President Jiang
Zemin inscribed the monument erected on June 5, 1999. The
dedication of this monument attracted national concern to the
ecosystem of the region.
2000: Finished editing and publishing, The Source of the
Yangtze, with material collected and photographs taken over the
last 13 years; launched the project "The Hope of the Yangtze"; and
donated books worth more than 400,000 yuan to over 1,000 schools
because "children are the future of the Yangtze."
2001: Implemented the volunteer system for the station. Thirty
volunteers were enlisted each year and divided into 12 groups, with
each group staying in the station for a month, conducting
environmental training and wildlife surveys. Some of
recommendations in the reports that they've prepared have been
adopted by the Tibetan Railroad Construction Bureau.
In the past 16 years, Yang Xin has entered the Yangtze River
source area more than 20 times, for expeditions, exploration,
photography and a series of conservation efforts, initiating the
national NGO campaign on conversation of the Yangtze River source
area.
In 2000, Yang Xin received the "Earth Award" from Friends of the
Earth (Hong Kong) and the Chinese Environmental Journalism
Association. In 2001, he received the first prize of the Ford Motor
Company Award for Ecological Conservation from the Ford Motor
Company.
In 2002, he received the Second Mother River Environmental
Protection Award, which was presented by eight central departments
of the Chinese government.
(China.org.cn by Chen Lin, September 5, 2005)