(TibetanReview.net, Mar24, 2010) - China’s move to declared mountain pastures roamed by Tibetan nomads since ancient times as national parks and to move the nomads, with their herds, to fixed settlements have nothing to do with improving the environment or the people’s livelihood. This is an eyewitness finding of Canadian documentary maker Michael Buckley who has made a documentary on China’s damming of Tibet’s rivers.
“It is just a cover. They don’t want people living there. The nomads are being taken off their land so as to make way for hydro projects and mining ventures,” the Epoch Times online (New York) Mar 22 quoted Buckley as saying.
Michael hopes that his documentary would help expose the Chinese propaganda about Tibetans happily taking to settled in fixed townships. “The nomads are the forgotten people of Tibet. No one is standing up for them, they are being wiped out and they will just disappear and no one is doing anything to stop that so it is a tragic situation,” he was quoted as saying.
Buckley’s 40-minute documentary film, “Meltdown in Tibet,” was screened in Bangkok Mar 22.
His original plan was to investigate the Tibet-China railway line; but he got sidetracked when he discovered Tibet’s river systems being strangled by large-scale dam construction. In 2005, he teamed up with a group of tourists kayaking through Tibetan rivers and came across newly constructed dams built to divert water and hydro energy to China. The dams were hidden, located down gorges so that that one could not see them from the road, he has said.
The documentary investigates a number of rivers in Tibet, including the Salween (Tibetan: Gyalmo Ngulchu), which also flows through China, Burma, and Thailand and empties into the Andaman Sea. Buckley has said: “Despite widespread protest from within China and from neighboring countries in Asia, Chinese engineers are forging ahead with plans for a cascade of 13 large dams on the Salween. Several dams are already under construction—one the height of a 60-story building.”
Another river he has investigated is the Dri Chu, or Yak River, which becomes the Yangtze—one of China’s most famous rivers—a river which, along with the Yellow River, now fails to reach the sea. “In the upper reaches of the Yangtze River—at the edges of the Tibetan plateau—there are three more large dams under construction, and five more in the planning stages,” his film is quoted as saying.
Buckley has found that altogether 31 large dams are scheduled to be built in the Three Parallel Rivers region, which includes the Upper Yangtze, Upper Mekong, and Salween rivers.
In the downstream region, China’s efforts to dam the Dza Chu, or Mekong River, in its Upper region have dramatically altered the flow of the river, affecting those nations further downstream—Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam – according to Buckley’s documentary. The most recent of these dams to come into operation—the Xiaowan Dam—is the second largest of China’s hydroelectric power station after the Three Gorges Dam.
Environmental groups outside of China have been vocal in blaming four Chinese mega dams in the Upper Mekong for being the main reason why the famous river’s level has dropped to a 50-year low.
Buckley’s conclusion from his research is: “If you want to kill a river, building dams is the best way to do it.”
“It is just a cover. They don’t want people living there. The nomads are being taken off their land so as to make way for hydro projects and mining ventures,” the Epoch Times online (New York) Mar 22 quoted Buckley as saying.
Michael hopes that his documentary would help expose the Chinese propaganda about Tibetans happily taking to settled in fixed townships. “The nomads are the forgotten people of Tibet. No one is standing up for them, they are being wiped out and they will just disappear and no one is doing anything to stop that so it is a tragic situation,” he was quoted as saying.
Buckley’s 40-minute documentary film, “Meltdown in Tibet,” was screened in Bangkok Mar 22.
His original plan was to investigate the Tibet-China railway line; but he got sidetracked when he discovered Tibet’s river systems being strangled by large-scale dam construction. In 2005, he teamed up with a group of tourists kayaking through Tibetan rivers and came across newly constructed dams built to divert water and hydro energy to China. The dams were hidden, located down gorges so that that one could not see them from the road, he has said.
The documentary investigates a number of rivers in Tibet, including the Salween (Tibetan: Gyalmo Ngulchu), which also flows through China, Burma, and Thailand and empties into the Andaman Sea. Buckley has said: “Despite widespread protest from within China and from neighboring countries in Asia, Chinese engineers are forging ahead with plans for a cascade of 13 large dams on the Salween. Several dams are already under construction—one the height of a 60-story building.”
Another river he has investigated is the Dri Chu, or Yak River, which becomes the Yangtze—one of China’s most famous rivers—a river which, along with the Yellow River, now fails to reach the sea. “In the upper reaches of the Yangtze River—at the edges of the Tibetan plateau—there are three more large dams under construction, and five more in the planning stages,” his film is quoted as saying.
Buckley has found that altogether 31 large dams are scheduled to be built in the Three Parallel Rivers region, which includes the Upper Yangtze, Upper Mekong, and Salween rivers.
In the downstream region, China’s efforts to dam the Dza Chu, or Mekong River, in its Upper region have dramatically altered the flow of the river, affecting those nations further downstream—Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam – according to Buckley’s documentary. The most recent of these dams to come into operation—the Xiaowan Dam—is the second largest of China’s hydroelectric power station after the Three Gorges Dam.
Environmental groups outside of China have been vocal in blaming four Chinese mega dams in the Upper Mekong for being the main reason why the famous river’s level has dropped to a 50-year low.
Buckley’s conclusion from his research is: “If you want to kill a river, building dams is the best way to do it.”
2 comments:
There is no humanity left in this world!
Western world called that CONQUEST and DEVELOPMENT and calls DEMOCRACY and ENVIRONMENT from now..
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