The deaths of a young volunteer and his driver in a nature reserve near south-western Tibet Autonomous Region have sparked an outpouring of emotion on Chinese Websites, raising awareness of the growing number of people involved in volunteer work.
Feng Yong, 21, and the unidentified driver were found frozen to death last Sunday morning after their jeep broke down in the remote Hoh Xil Nature Reserve in Qinghai Province, according to Xinhua news agency.
The reserve in China's remote west is one of the last refuges of the rare Tibetan antelope.
Feng, a former soldier, volunteered to work on the reserve picking up litter soon after joining the Green Rivers environmental group two months ago.
Feng had worked there for one month when he and the driver were frozen to death after being stranded on the barren Tibetan plateau, where nighttime temperatures plunged to minus 30 degrees Celsius.
The deaths have drawn a flurry of postings on popular Chinese-language Websites, making volunteer activity a hot topic among Web chatters.
Most postings praised both the groups and Feng, and called on others to follow his example of donating time to charity work, Xinhua reported.
"I hope the lost life of this volunteer will awake more public attention to environmental protection. We should honor his contribution," said one message on sina.com under the name of Ning Ma.
Signed by a user who called himself ygygss, another posting on the Website says "Don't argue about the causes of this hero's death. Let's sing the praises of his heroic acts."
In an essay posted on xinhuanet.com entitled "Environmental protection lacks humanitarianism," Cai Fanghua said groups like Green River need to be more careful, especially when operating in harsh regions like the Tibetan plateau.
"Lacking adequate funds, materials, knowledge and technical support while blindly pursuing ideals will lead to unnecessary disasters," Cai said.
(Eastday.com December 7, 2002)
