National park to be built on Qinghai-Tibet plateau

Gov't moves to protect ecology of Qinghai-Tibet region

China is going to build a national park on western China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, scientists involved in the project said Monday, adding that a second research project in the region will begin in June.

A staffer from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed with the Global Times on Monday that the national park is named the Third Pole National Park.

There is no timetable as to when the project will be started, said the staffer, refusing to give more details.

Experts noted that the ecology of the plateau is very fragile and it is difficult for it to recover from damages. Protection measures in the region will help protect unique species in the region such as yaks, as well as the whole ecosystem of Asia.

"The plateau plays a vital role in shaping ecosystems in Asia with very high rates of endemism. It is very vulnerable and deserves high level of protection as the South Pole" said Lü Zhi, an expert from the School of Life Sciences at Peking University.

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the highest plateau in the world. Its average altitude surpasses 4,000 meters.

The plateau is also the source of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River in China as well as the Mekong River that crosses China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Establishing a national park will bring an end to harmful activities such as mining, which is a pillar industry for the plateau that is estimated to hold 30 million to 40 million tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead and zinc, and more than 1 billion tons of iron reserves.

"The suspension of mining and other activities that have negative impacts on the ecological condition will help sustain the integrity of the region. People on the Plateau should rely on environment-friendly industries such as traditional farming, grazing and tourism," Lü said.

China will launch its second large-scale survey on the plateau in June, the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced in March. The first investigation was conducted in the 1970s.

According to a Saturday report from the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, the second survey will help draw the boundary of the new national park.

Scientists from neighboring countries in the Himalayan region such as Nepal will also join the survey. However, India, which has border disputes with China in Tibet, has refused to participate in the plateau survey, according to the South China Morning Post.

India has put too much attention on geopolitics and overlooks the benefits of joining international projects that China has launched, Sun Shihai, a research fellow from the Chinese Association for South Asian Studies, told the Global Times.

According to the South China Morning Post, the park will cover more than 2.5 million square kilometers, including the entire Qinghai-Tibet plateau. However, experts said that it is very difficult to run such a large national park, let alone resettling the people living there.