Problems Faced by the Ecological Environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Area and its Protection progress

　　（China）Gao Huixia

　　The ecological environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area is very weak. With the growing pace of social-economic development, the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development has begun to appear. As the ecological safety net of China and one of the areas with the highest environmental sensitivity globally, the difficulties encountered during the ecological construction and environmental protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have attracted much attention.

　　Located in the center of the Asian continent, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has the Pamir on its west, the Hengduan Mountains on its east, the Kunlun Mountains and Qilian Mountains on its north, and the Himalayas on its south. It is known as “the roof of the world” and “the third pole”, based on its average elevation above 4,000 meters. The range of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau covers 27 regions in six provinces, an area of 2.48 million square kilometers that includes the Tibet autonomous region, Qinghai province, Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture, Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture, and part of the Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province, Nujiang Lisu autonomous prefecture, Diqing Tibetan autonomous prefecture, and part of Lijiang in Yunnan province, part of Gansu province and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

　　The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau serves as the ecological safety net of China due to its special location, abundant natural resources and important ecological value. By regulating the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere, it greatly affects the climate system of the South-eastern part of China. The precious and unique alpine ecosystem is well-preserved in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where lots of rare and precious wild animals and plants exist. It is one of the 34 hot spots of various biodiversity in the world. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is also the source of many large rivers in Asia. As a result of the active crustal movement, complex climate environment and fragile ecological environment in this area, the contradictions of ecological protection and economic development is increasingly apparent under the accelerated process of economic and social development. The area’s ecological security is facing serious challenges. Strengthening the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau ecological construction and environmental protection, has important strategic significance for the maintenance of the national ecological security, promoting sustainable development in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region, maintaining stability in border areas and national unity, and building a moderately prosperous society.

　　Ecological Crisis on the Plateau

　　Serious land degradation

　　The ecological environment in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region is vulnerable. Under the adverse effects of global climate change and human activities, the ecosystem there is under great pressure, such as serious grassland degradation, desertification, soil erosion and salinization. Various types of degraded grassland cover an area of about 637,000 square kilometers, including the Qilian Mountains area, the Gannan Plateau, and western Sichuan plateau. Decertified land on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau distributes over a wide range and types, covering an area of 363,000 square kilometers. The area of soil erosion land is about 180,000 square meters, with mild and moderate erosion as the most frequent types. The total area of salinization land is 27,000 square kilometers in the Tibet autonomous region and Qinghai province.

　　Shrinking lakes and wetlands

　　The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is one of China's five areas with the most number of lakes. There are over 1770 lakes greater than 0.5 square kilometers, with a total area of 300,000 square kilometers. As a result of the effects of climate change, the area of wetland has shrunk by more than 10 % compared with the situation in the 1980s. Water levels of the Yamdrok Lake and the Namtso Lake in the Tibet autonomous region decline 0.06 meters annually in the past l0 year. Wetlands in the water source regions of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and the Zoige region are now more isolated than they used to be.

　　Biodiversity under threat

　　Due to the reduce and degradation of forests, grasslands, the of shrinkage of wetlands, plus over-excavation and hunting, animal and plant resources on the plateau, such as musk, Chinese caterpillar fungus, leopard, Tibetan wild kiang and wild yak have been severely damaged, with narrowing distribution area, dramatic reduction in numbers and whole species being endangered. About 15 percent to 20 percent of the species on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region are threatened. Meanwhile, with the extinction of alpine plateau biological resources, the genes that are adapted to alpine habitats are also endangered.

　　Serious pollution in some areas

　　Major cities in the eastern part of Qinghai province and the Sichuan-Yunnan Valley have serious water pollution, especially in the downstream segment of HuangShui River. Water quality in some sections are rated as lower than Class V — the worst level to evaluate water quality. Urban airborne pollution is severe in parts of the HuangShui River Basin and Qaidam Basin. The yearly average concentration of sulfur dioxide in Xining’s air exceeds the national standard. Other pollution generated by rural livestock industry, pesticides, fertilizer also began to appear in some areas. The rapid development of tourism has also increased the quantity of garbage being produced and its processing difficulty, affecting environmental quality of the cities and some scenery spots.

　　Numerous ecological challenges faced

　　Instability of regional ecosystem increased by global climate change

　　Under the background of global climate change, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is also warming up. Since the plateau is more sensitive to global climate change, the weather there changes earlier and more dramatically than the rest parts of China. With the growing temperature, some of the areas on the plateau started to be warmer and dryer. The glaciers and permafrost are melting faster, and freeze-thaw erosion, desertification, and land degradation have a trend of exacerbation, with more frequent meteorological disasters, posing adverse influence on the conservation of forests, grasslands, wetlands and biodiversity protection and significantly weakening the water supply function of the plateau area.

　　Increased pressure on the ecological environment due to unreasonable resource exploitation activities

　　The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is a gathering area for the country’s ethnic groups. For a long time, due to historical reasons and differences in ideas, the level of social-economic development of the ethnic areas is relatively low. Their industrial development rely strongly on natural resources, posing a lot of pressure on the environment. According to the area’s abundant resources and relevant national policies, the future development plans for the region’s mineral resources and processing industry, agriculture, tourism industry and hydropower industry are grand. With the acceleration of economic and social development and the increasing population and urbanization , the environment will face increasing pressure.

　　Long-term mechanism of ecological environment has not been established

　　It is difficult and cost a fortune to conserve and repair the ecological environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. However, a long-term mechanism of regional ecological environmental protection has not been established. Insufficient grassroots ecological institutions’ capacity, too few staff, low expertise, weak monitoring system, lack of means of supervision and poor technological support cannot meet the needs in practical work. Facing a large funding gap, local governments mainly rely on state support to protect the ecological environment. The system of ecological compensation remains in the infant stage and cannot provide strong support yet to the ecological and environmental protection. Measures that may help resume the function of the grassland and improve local residents’ livelihood are still under consideration. A comprehensive coordination mechanism within the plateau’s administrative areas has not really been established yet. Also there is a lack of coordination among provinces in terms of the construction and management of ecological function zones and nature reserves.

　　Inadequate environmental infrastructure

　　The urban and rural environments infrastructure in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is inadequate. As of 2007, the 179 county-level administrative areas within the plateau had only 12 sewage treatment plants and five waste treatment plants. Most of the villages had problems such as untidy environment and relying on traditional energy sources. In some areas, even safe drinking water cannot be guaranteed. There are several reasons for the inadequate infrastructure, first is insufficient investment. Local governments have so limited financial resources that there is no ability to carry out construction of environmental infrastructure. The second is climatic factor,  the construction period is short with slow progress on the plateau, which often resulting in urban environmental infrastructure construction being lagged behind.

　　Significant effect of management and control

　　As an environmentally sensitive area, the Chinese government has always treated the environmental protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as an important problem and part of the country’s ecological safety strategy. Existing projects include the implementation of differentiated functioning areas and ecological compensation system. After years of efforts, the ecological construction and environmental protection of the plateau have gained significant progress.

　　Significant progress in ecological protection

　　First, the natural reserves cover large areas with high construction quality. Currently, the region has 149 natural reserves at different levels, covering an area of 990,000 square kilometers, 33 percent of the plateau’s total area. Among the 149 reserves, 27 are national-level ones with an area of 654,000 square kilometers, accounting for 61.3 percent of China’s national-level natural reserves in total. Supervision within the national-level reserves has been strengthened and wild animals and plants well-preserved. Second, the protection and construction of ecological functioning regions have started. According to the requirement of the national plan, 10 ecological functioning regions will be built within the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, including the three rivers’ head source area, Gannan water recharge area, the Zoige wetland, and the Qinghai Lake Vally. Third, the repair work of the ecology has been enhanced, with measures such as grassland planting, reconverting farmland to forests, restoring grazing areas to grasslands, protection of the natural woods, and desertification prevention and control. Forest coverage has been raised by 0.8 percentage points since 2001. About 160,000 square kilometers of grazing areas have been restored as grasslands and about 4,200 square kilometers of farmland have been reconverted to forests, successfully preventing soil erosion of about 9,000 square kilometers. The area of decertified land in the Tibet autonomous region has shrinked by 657 square kilometers from 2004 to 2009, and by 548 square kilometers in Qinghai province. Fourth, local governments have been responding actively to climate change. A special plan has been made in the Tibet autonomous region to deal with climate change, promoting the use of clean energy and reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases.

　　Progress made on the comprehensive management and control of the environment

　　The comprehensive management and control of the environment on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau involve works such as control of industrial pollution sources, construction of environmental infrastructure in towns and cities and protection of drinking water sources. The measures have led to major companies’ emissions reaching the national standards, major cities sewage and waste being handled properly. Currently, although the region’s economic is developing fast, most parts of the region remain undisturbed by human activities and maintain a relatively native state. More than 80 percent of the rivers and lakes have excellent water quality, and many cities and towns have good air quality under the strictest national standard.

　　Activities of industries and resource development kept under control

　　All levels of governments of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau enhanced their supervision on local environment so that many of the polluting activities have been controlled. The Tibetan government has completely halted mining placer gold and iron within the region. There is not a single company within the region that is highly polluting, consumes high level of energy or has high level of emissions. The Qinghai government has issued an announcement to place tougher requirement on environmental impact assessment. Both the two regions have enhanced management on digging the caterpillar fungus and environmental protection work in scenery spots. Catering the problems and difficulties faced by the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, an environmental protection plan from 2011 to 2030 issued by the State Council brought up the strategy of “ecology first” and “space first” into the existing environmental protection within the region. The plan specified four major targets of the regional government, to enhance ecological protection and construction, to strengthen pollution control, to improve the ability of supervision and scientific research, and to encourage the development of environmental-friendly industries. As the plan is being implemented, the central government will conduct environmental protection on the plateau following different stages, to achieve the target of harmony between man and nature.　

　　(Gao Huixia，Inspector，Department of Publicity and Communications, Ministry of Environmental Protection）