Trailed to Twin Lakes by Uranium Prospectors!

  Changtang Nature Reserve, China
Friday, September 1, 2006

The opening of the Tibet railway will have important significance for the development of mineral resources in Tibet. Mining will then comprise one third of Tibet's gross domestic product and will become a major industry in Tibet.
~Lu Yan, a senior engineer from the Tibet Geological, Mining, Exploitation and Development Bureau

When building the train between Golmud and Lhasa, large amounts of money were spent to protect the environment, mainly wetlands and the migration routes of the Chiru. What was left out of the official equation, however, was what the train would do afterwards to the environment and the Tibetan people. While Killer and I were in the northern grasslands, which the train bisects, much of this insidious plan became more clear.

I wasn't expecting to be uncovering insidious plans, however. Instead I was simply hoping to see wildlife in large numbers and to enjoy being with Killer.

While in Nakchu, we soon found a ride in a new Mitsubishi ECI-Multi V6 3000. Tashi was our driver, who had a great ability to make friends quickly. We would be with him for six days on a trip around the Changtang.

We met at 8:30 the next morning to buy some more food. In the store was a Chinese Chess board, which we bought. I had wanted to learn how to play and Killer, who had won the Beijing Championships as a child was the perfect teacher.

Chinese Chess is similar to western Chess, but different. It is based on the historical war between the Han and the Chu. In the end, the Han defeated the Chu and established the Han Dynasty.

A river known as Chu He Han Jie divides the center of the chess board. Chu He Han Jie roughly translates as "Chu River and Han border." Naturally, one side is Han and the other side is Chu.

Pieces reflect weapons and military roles: catapault, commander, horse, chariot, soldiers, guards or advisors, and ministers. Each piece has certain moves and things it can and cannot do. Killer's favorite piece was the pow or catapault, which could attack other pieces across the board by skipping over another piece. The advisors and the king must stay in the palace, and the ministers could not cross the river, making defense of certain positions important.

We played in the back seat until the roads became too bumpy.

We crossed miles of grassland, now yellowed with frost. The landscape was rocky in places, gently sloping in other, and almost flat elsewhere. We passed many villages, nomadic tents, livestock, lakes, and wetlands along the way. For lunch, we ate at a small restaurant run by a friendly Sichuan couple; Killer was impressed with the food, saying it reminded her of home.

At Bamtso, a dark blue lake, thunderstorms surrounded us and a baby gazelle hid in the grasses. Tashi picked up the fawn, who struggled as Tashi gave it some loving strokes. The love wasn't reciprocated as the baby ran away, terrified. We also saw fox, eagles, hawks, and falcons, but mainly sheep and yak, as expected, in the nomadic areas.

In the evening, we arrived at Balgon, an administrative town for the area with a new paved boulevard and street lights. Many of the storefronts were empty and the bank was under construction. The Chinese seem fond of building cities as part of their development plans under the vision of "build it and they will come (or we'll make them come)."

For the next day, we continued to drive through the vast areas of the Changtang, passing a few gazelles and many sheep and yak along the way. We were driving what was called "secondary highway" on my Tibet map, but on the ground, these roads were not really roads, just places where people have driven for years, making ruts in the ground. We ate lunch at a Muslim restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Despite no mosque, they said they were there just to make money.

Soon, we were at Seling Lake, which Tashi said was now the second largest lake in the world because of the large rainfall over the last couple of years. Most other lakes in Tibet were shrinking because of lack of rain over the years. At Nam-tso, for example, Kevin, Nate, and I saw the old lake shores, now above the shrunken Lake. At Seling Lake, the waters had risen to flood bridges and roads and to incorporate other smaller lakes into its growing mass. Settlements moved uphill.

Killer related that once the largest lake was in Henan Province, where emperors went to enjoy the water's beauty. Today, the lake does not exist. Over the years, it had been completely filled for villages and agriculture.

We spent the night at the crossroads in a small truck stop near the Za'gya Zangbo River. A Chinese man ran the place. Although he didn't enjoy himself, he was making money and could go home during the winter months. On the other side of the river was the Changtang Nature Reserve, as a large sign indicated.

In the morning, in a heavy rain that turned the secondary highway to a big mud puddle, we began going the wrong way or several hours, finally making a detour after much prodding. Tashi thought it would be better if we went west, but we wanted to go north. He didn't consult us about this until an hour's drive later.

Hours later, we were well into the Changtang Nature Reserve, but had hardly seen any wildlife, only thousands of sheep and yaks, clearly dozens of times more than would be needed for a sustainable nomadic lifestyle. Knowing that a yak could bring several thousand yuan each, we calculated the wealth of these nomads. Not too shabby. But there was obviously more to the story because where there's a supply, someone must be willing to pay for the livestock.

The answer was that Tibet's population had almost doubled now that the Chinese military had arrived and the Chinese government began a concerted program to relocate Han people to Tibet, against all pleas and cries from around the world that this would eventually cause Tibetan culture to go extinct. In order to relocate people, incentive packages were offered, wages were increased, and vacation packages were provided, including a week's vacation to adjust to the high altitude. Chinese businesses were therefore given competitive advantage to any Tibetan business, should they want to compete.

Our driver mentioned that 20 percent of Tibet's population came from Sichuan Province alone. Most sources say that Tibetans will soon become a minority in their own country.

Killer, in a chilling reply, said that this was how China had expanded throughout their history. She believed that at one point, her relatives were from the far north, part of Manchuria. In the past, emperors had ordered Han Chinese to relocate to various parts of the empire to colonize and assimlate the local population.

Now this is still going on in Tibet, East Turkistan, and Inner Mongolia, the three western provinces, all of whose ethnic groups claim independence in one form or another. These regions all have major human rights problems and bear the brunt of most of China's 10,000 executions per year. At the same time, Inner Mongolia now boasts more Han Chinese than Mongolians. The travelers I've met that have visited there described police beatings, depressed locals, and extensive pollution and resource extraction. Much of this occurred after these areas were connected to the rest of China by good roads and railroads.

We were seeing the result of this in front of our eyes: overgrazing to feed the new masses and military as well as the corresponding loss of wildlife. Here we were in one of the "premiere examples" of a wildlife refuge and we were seeing thousands upon thousands of domestic animals and very few wildlife. A new village was still constructing new houses, which would undoubtedly move more people into the nature reserve.

In the afternoon, we reached a small river, swollen because of the rains. A vehicle was parked, the driver and occupants too scared to cross. "This is about one fifth the size of the Chumar River, which we crossed by foot. It looks shallow and the bottom is sandy," I said. We examined the river during a short break in the sleet storm, but spent most of the time in the vehicle.

The occupants of the other vehicle were from Beijing. They were the ones who had opened the door to our room the night before, shone a light into my face, and said "laowai" (a derogatory word for foreigner). These people were government uranium geologists prospecting within the nature reserve. My entire body shuddered.

Meanwhile, a small fledgling bird had taken refuge under our vehicle. Killer had seen it. We talked about eating wild animals versus domestic animals. I said I'd much rather eat a wild animal that led a good and free life, providing it was sustainably hunted. Perhaps when I'm older I'll be able to hunt and eat like that. We also talked about saving animals versus letting them die: "shouldn't we help," Killer said compassionately, looking out the window. Aside from her periodic bouts of excessive nationalism, she clearly loved wildlife more than people. She picked up the bird and brought it in the car, just as it died. She burst into tears. I took the bird into my jacket, but it was too late.

This trip really wasn't meant to be pleasant, was it? We were being taught some kind of lesson, it seemed. Maybe next trip I'll go to Disney World or take a cruise.

Soon we had crossed the river, with the uranium prospectors close behind us.

After another hour, we reached a bus full of hungry Tibetans. The bus had broken down and no one had any food. In such a remote area, the needed auto part was nowhere to be found, so they had to wait for repairs. Killer and I immediately began giving away our food. Luckily we had been well prepared and were able to give out salty eggs, fresh fruit, crackers, and more. We also gave a ride to three people, filling our vehicle. Meanwhile, the geologists didn't give any rides, they just looked: "the vehicle wasn't meant for so many people," the driver said. "I hope they get stuck in the lake," said Killer, as we crossed another of the many lakes newly created during the summer deluge.

Clearly, the Mitsubishi people didn't build a 4x4 just to accomodate three people. I couldn't imagine them making a commercial that said: "buy our 4x4, it can't cross small streams and can only carry three people."

Near evening, we reached the town of Twin Lakes, a small town with only a few people. Anywhere else in the world, it would have been a village. Here, it had new concrete boulevards, new street lights, a four story government building, a three story bank, and room for hundreds of stores. Only about a dozen stores seemed to be open; the rest of town was a ghost town, only it was new. All the other inhabitants were stuck on the broken bus, hours away. David Lynch should visit this town to create a sequel to Twin Peaks, Chinese-style, only the police officer would have to be corrupt. Just like Twin Peaks, Twin Lakes was darkly comic and had something to hide.

We checked into the empty government hotel. The uranium geologists were the only other occupants. They were friendly in a sugary way, underlying the fact that anyone in their job had to lack at least half a conscience. Let's see: their plans were to prospect for uranium along two transects--one along an east-west road and another on a north-south road. The transects were exactly where the wildlife was supposed to be, as it had been destroyed everywhere else by excessive grazing and previously by PLA machine guns (yes, this has been verified!).

A man in town said that at one time, foreign tourists used to visit Twin Lakes, but no longer. He was not sure why. We suspected that the uranium geologists had something to do with it, as well as the fact that most outside observers and conservation groups have no real access to the Changtang

"The effectiveness of protection cannot be measured because of China's strictly limited access, plus secrecy concerning actual data," states one group. The only real data came from George Shaller from WCS, who was only able to look at a small area of the Changtang.

The actual data, although not quantitative, is this: much of the Changtang is a paper park. Effectively it is not the largest nature reserve in the world (the largest National Park is a sheet of ice in Greenland). Instead, much of its southern half is extensively grazed due to population pressures caused by the genocidal relocation of millions of Han Chinese to the plateau. Thus the wildlife are confined to the northernmost reaches, where uranium prospecting is currently being conducted despite the government telling WWF that no prospecting for minerals is currently occurring.

In a recent article, a WWF employee said: In the last two to three years, the Tibetan government became worried about the impact on the environment and banned exploration in the area.

Maybe the TAR government banned exploration, but the Beijing government didn't.

The seriousness of this cannot be understated. Not only is this mining in a wildlife refuge core area, but it is uranium mining, one of the most toxic substances known to man. The Tibetan plateau is now known to possess the largest reserves of uranium in the world. In addition, 126 other minerals including a large reserve of copper are found on the plateau.

Already these mines are leaching toxins into the environment. I personally know of several villages whose streams have been completely destroyed because of a lack of retaining walls for the mine tailings. Environmental controls are nonexistent. Uranium disposal, for example, is in unlined pits next to Tibetan villages. At the same time, uranium mining and processing continues as first revealed by Lin Fatang, a Chinese Communist Party Secretary in Lhasa.

A previous worker testified to this: "Chairman Mao and Chou En Lai directly initiated the secret mines and production facilities of 792 and 405 [in Northern Tibet]. The goal of these projects is the production of nuclear weapons, which are critical for the advancement and defence of China. The chief element needed to produce these nuclear arms is uranium, which we know is rare in China [but not in Tibet]. Hence, in Thebo, we have located sufficient uranium for the research and production of nuclear weapons, as well as other elements needed for the country."

Reports of birth defects and health problems are beginning to reach the free world.

Tibet's Chinese name, Xizang, by the way, means "Western Warehouse."

The next day, we left to find the wildlife in a dense fog and snow. Since we had left Lhasa almost two weeks ago, it had rained and snowed every day. The uranium geologists followed close behind. "Sometimes you need to cross a desert to reach an oasis," I said, hoping we would find some wildlife today in the hills beyond.

The skies cleared for a bit, but we continued higher, into the clouds. This was where we found the oasis: we passed a small herd of Chiru. My heart finally began to feel warmer. We passed some yak and asked our driver and his new friend who was a local: "wild yak?" "Yes," the local said. They're hard to tell apart, especially in the fog, except that the wild yaks are larger. This one was big.

Further on, in the mid-day sun, Killer and I took a hike and saw many wild animals as the skies cleared around the snowy mountains. A Wild Ass grazed and watched us as we watched him. Chiru grazed in several herds. The views extended for a hundred miles across the plains and hills towards the glaciers and peaks on the horizon. These few hours were the highlight of the entire trip; it was a magical moment.

A family near the road had recently been terrorized by a wild yak. They asked us to tell the communal authorities about this as a favor for them. We stopped there to let them know. Instead, they told us that we needed to leave the Changtang. They were polite and wanted us to stay, offering to take us around the park on our next visit. The Twin Lakes authorities, however, said we needed to get permits from Lhasa, permits that would never be granted as we knew. Was this because they were afraid that we would damage the environment of this fragile area? If so, why did they grant a permit to the uranium prospectors, for starters?

We turned around, feeling partially defeated though we had gone as far as we had wanted to go. Killer was maddened by her government's actions and what she had seen in Tibet. I felt glad that she had been able to see the truth: someone in her country had to know.

The two days back to Lhasa were long and difficult, mainly because we felt that partial defeat. I was exhausted from the constant problems, issues, and red tape that confronted me throughout this trip. Thank you for reading this far, simply because it is important to know the truth. With ignorance, governments throughout the world can get away with so much and when it comes to issues such as this, international borders shouldn't matter.