State Council Information Office

“ The system of protected natural areas is an important means of management to protect biodiversity, preserve natural capital, maintain ecosystem services, and safeguard the wellbeing of Chinese people and the peoples of the world. Currently the protected natural areas on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are more and more composed of national parks than of nature reserves. ”

“ In addition to creating more material and cultural wealth to meet people's ever-increasing expectation of a better life, we need also to provide more quality ecological goods to meet people's ever-growing demands for a beautiful environment." Ecological progress on the Plateau in the new era is an important component of the Beautiful China initiative. The Chinese people are committed to making the Plateau an even more beautiful place, and to realizing harmonious coexistence between man and nature. ”

“ In Tibet, passive solar housing is one of the first solar technologies introduced – it first appeared in Ali, Naqu and Lhasa in the 1980s. In addition to providing heating in winter, solar housing offers a better home environment and raises people's living standards. Energy conservation and environmental protection have become important factors for farmers and herdsmen on the Plateau to consider when they build houses. By the end of 2017 clean energy – mainly water power, solar energy and biogas – contributed 87 percent of the total installed capacity of electricity in Tibet Autonomous Region. ”

“ Traditional Tibetan medicine is a precious health treasure for people living on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and a major resource strength for the Plateau to develop a local specialty economy. To develop Tibetan medicine in a standard, modern and industrialized way, sci-tech departments have promoted research on and demonstration of key techniques, such as artificial planting and wild tending of Tibetan medicinal materials. They have carried out basic and applied research on Tibetan medicine, and kept improving the standards and the inspection and monitoring system of Tibetan medicine. ”

“ Efforts are made to maintain a good environment and a high degree of public satisfaction with ecological progress, and to achieve green development. An economic model featuring a circular economy, renewable energy, and distinctive industries, is forming on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, signaling an increasing level of green development. ”

“ China has run pilot programs to carry out river basin-related environment monitoring and law enforcement, in order to strengthen supervision in different river basins and boost synergistic law enforcement, and to have unified planning, standards, assessment, monitoring, and law enforcement activities within the same basins. To assess the performance of officials in providing leadership to ecological conservation, China has set up an ecological goal appraisal system, and a supervisory system for auditing the natural resource assets when a relevant official leaves office. ”

“ In villages on the Plateau, a number of measures have been taken to improve the environment. By building modern-standard toilets, livestock pens, and housing, and undertaking domestic garbage collection and disposal, domestic wastewater collection and treatment, drinking water source protection, efficient crop stalk utilization, noise abatement, and human and livestock feces pollution control, the local governments have effectively addressed such problems as random dumping of garbage, illegal construction or extension of houses, unauthorized mining, and open-air burning of crop stalks. ”

“ Under the Chinese ecosystem research network, observation stations for eight different ecosystems, including forest, grassland, farmland and desert, have been set up on the Plateau and surrounding areas, offering long-term located monitoring of changes of the Plateau ecosystem and thus revealing laws for and causes of changes in the ecosystem and environmental factors. With the network for monitoring and studying earth surface processes and environment in extremely cold areas of high altitude, researchers have performed continuous monitoring of environmental change on the Plateau surface. ”

“ The state has set red lines for ecological conservation, and put in force unified registration of natural resource rights, measures for managing natural and ecological space, and guidelines on reforming paid use of natural resource assets owned by the whole people. Different regulations and measures have been integrated for simplification, and pilot programs on state parks have been rolled out. China has improved its ecological compensation mechanism, and run trials to reform the ecological damage compensation system coordinated between cross-regional environmental protection institutions. ”

“ Qinghai Province has issued the Opinions on Promoting Green Lifestyles in Qinghai, and held major campaigns to clean the Sanjiangyuan area and protect the environment of Qinghai Lake. The government encourages the public to abandon outdated habits and embrace new and green lifestyles, enhance ecological awareness, and correctly understand the interdependent relationship between good ecology and sound development. ”

“ Improvement of the wildlife habitats is the basis for protecting biodiversity. The improvement of vegetation on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has improved the environmental quality of local wildlife habitats. ”

“ Since the 1990s, to meet the needs of socio-economic development and environmental improvement on the Plateau, the Chinese government has launched research programs on the rational development of regional resources, ecological restoration and environmental governance, and planning for socio-economic development, and carried out systematic research in related subjects on the formation, evolution, and influence of the Plateau, and some other scientific issues. ”

“ Since the establishment of the Black-necked Crane National Nature Reserve on the Middle Reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet Autonomous Region in 1993, the number of overwintering black-necked crane has increased year by year, accounting for 80 percent of the world's total, and the nature reserve has become the world's largest wintering ground for black-necked cranes. ”

“ The air quality is little impacted, the types of pollutants are few and the density is low, and the content of pollutants is similar to those at the North Pole. With the promotion of use of green energy, the progress in building ecological towns, and efforts to improve rural environment, the air quality on the Plateau has seen further improvement. ”

“ In Qinghai, provincial-level programs have been initiated in farming and pastoral areas to promote passive solar housing, solar stoves, solar water heaters, solar batteries, and household wind turbines, and to replace the burning of coal and dung with electricity for heating. By the end of 2017, support from the province had resulted in the use of 102,200 solar stoves, 12,800 solar water heaters, and 9,200 sets of solar batteries; 13,100 passive solar housing units had been built as demonstration projects, totaling 1,305,000 sq m. ”

“ On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, new energy is being used for a diversity of purposes. Solar energy and other new energy have been widely applied in heating, cooking, lighting, irrigation, telecommunications, and other areas of daily life and work. ”

“ As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in its fourth and fifth assessment reports, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway offers a successful example for other countries and regions in building "green" railways adapted to climate change. ”

“ Efforts are focused on clean energy, tourism, culture, characteristic foods, natural drinking water, transport, commerce, logistics, finance, information services, and other green low-carbon economic activities. ”

“ Since 2004, the state has invested more than RMB3 billion in Tibet, directed to more than 450 projects in 10 categories related to agriculture and animal husbandry unique to the region, including highland barley, yak-breeding, and traditional Tibetan medicine. More than 100 leading enterprises have emerged as a result, increasing the incomes of local farmers and herdsmen by RMB1.18 billion and benefiting 1.75 million people. ”

“ The Tibet Autonomous Region has implemented a project for the protection and construction of an eco-safety barrier, and a project for afforestation in the basins of the Yarlung Tsangpo, Nujiang, Lhasa, Nyangchu, Yalong, and Shiquan rivers. ”

“ Science magazine in the United States published an article on April 27, 2007, pointing out that the railway will "ultimately promote the sustainable ecological, social, and economic development of western China", describing it as not only an engineering accomplishment, but also "an ecological miracle". ”

“ The Tibet Autonomous Region is pressing forward with the certification of products of specified geographical origin, developing unique brands, and speeding up development of animal husbandry and agricultural products. ”

“ In 2017, Tibet hosted more than 25.61 million visitors and its revenues totaled RMB37.94 billion, representing 28.95 percent of the region's GDP; Qinghai received 34.84 million visitors and its revenues totaled RMB38.15 billion, representing 14.44 percent of the province's GDP. In 2017, Yunnan Province's Deqen Prefecture received 26.76 million visitors, providing revenues of RMB29.8 billion. The number of visitors to and the tourism revenues of the plateau region of Gansu Province have grown at a double-digit rate for the last seven years. ”

“ Today, the rate of urban domestic sewage disposal has reached 78 percent and domestic waste bio-safety disposal 96.69 percent, and the living conditions have been notably improved in cities and towns. ”

“ The main ones are glacier retreat, melting permafrost, and other growing disaster risks due to global warming, and prominent contradictions between protection and development in the course of economic growth. We still face an arduous task in consolidating and furthering our ecological achievements. ”

“ During the 12th Five-year Plan period, Tibet Autonomous Region built a series of key public cultural facilities, and initiated such programs as cultural and sports facilities, movie circuits, village libraries, sharing village-level broadcasting resource, upgrading village clinic equipment, and solar lighting for public use. ”

“ Since 2010, it has allocated RMB11.82 billion for the improvement of living conditions in more than 5,261 villages, and introduced long-term mechanisms for rural environment management and protection. Since 2008, Qinghai Province has allocated RMB1.74 billion of special funds for the environmental improvement of over 3,015 villages and settlements of nomadic people, benefiting 2.2 million people – 76 percent of its rural population. ”

“ They have fostered a group of innovative enterprises in prevention and treatment of diseases, research and development of drugs, and health preservation, and created a series of branded Tibetan medicine products. ”

“ It has also compiled various eco-education readings to distribute to elementary and secondary school students, Party and government officials, and farmers and herdsmen, opened a website on ecological education, aired eco-themed public-service advertisements, pushed text messages to mobile phones, and held writing contests on conservation. ”