Photo Gallery
03.05.20
China’s New Deserts
From Madoi county, a settlement near the headwaters of the Yellow River, our two-car convoy headed out to visit a desert Yang Yong had first viewed through binoculars in 1997. From the roadside, the geologist had seen a small, wind-blown patch of...
Environment
03.14.17
Source of Mekong, Yellow, and Yangtze Rivers Drying Up
from chinadialogue
In 2015, the Chinese government announced plans to set up a new nature reserve in the Sanjiangyuan (“three river source”) region of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. This area is a key source of fresh water for Asia and is known for the rich biodiversity...
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10.24.16Living in China’s Expanding Deserts
New York Times
People on the edges of the country’s vast seas of sand are being displaced by climate change
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05.18.15Duck-Rice, Honey Bees and Mandarins
China Policy Institute Blog
There has to be a financial model which allows the farmers to see the impact of restoration on their business.
Environment
05.23.14
Killing Pika Won’t Save Tibetan Grasslands
from chinadialogue
A pest extermination campaign is under way on western China’s Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. But experts say there is no scientific basis for the killing of the pika, a small rabbit-like mammal, and warn that the campaign may throw the ecosystem further...
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02.05.13Worse Than Poisoned Water: Dwindling Water, in China’s North
New York Times
When 39 tons of the toxic chemical aniline spilled from a factory in Changzhi in China’s Shanxi province at the end of December, polluting drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people downstream along the Zhuozhang River and dangerously...
Environment
01.25.13
Climate Change, Not Grazing, Destroying the Tibetan Plateau
from chinadialogue
Sanjiangyuan—which literally translates as the “three river source area”—feeds China’s mightiest rivers. The 300,000-square kilometer region, high on western China’s Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, provides a quarter of the Yangtze’s water, almost half of...
Environment
09.20.12
Desertification in Tibet’s Wetlands Threatens the Yellow River
from chinadialogue
The “kidneys” of the Tibetan plateau are failing.The Zoige Wetland National Nature Reserve, which sits on the northeastern fringe of western China’s Qinghai-Tibet plateau, contains the largest alpine peat wetlands in the world. It is also the...