The transboundary Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river, on the roof of the world.
Photograph: Imaginechina
In 2015, I completed my thesis as part of a Master in Environmental Technology - Water Management at Imperial College. I commenced these studies during a time when Imperial College was recognised as the 2nd best university in the world.
My thesis involved 'A comparative analysis and critique of the different perspectives on constructed and planned hydroelectric dams. A case study of the Yarlung Tsangpo – Brahmaputra River'.
Having submitted my thesis, I co-wrote an article on this subject with Sarah Margono-Samsudin. You can read this article (published in French) here on Asialyst, and shared on France Tibet.
Recently I spoke with Gabriel Lafitte, one of my expert interviewees during the completion of my thesis. Gabriel Lafitte has spent years living with Tibetans, in exile and in Tibet. Based in Australia, he researches the impacts of Chinese policies on the Tibetan Plateau, and regularly trains a new generation of young Tibetan professional environmentalists and advocates. Decades of immersion in Tibetan culture, and a dozen journeys round China, have given him an insider/outsider perspective on two great civilisations in conflict. He is an experienced public policy adviser with expertise in development, biodiversity and resource management policy. He is author of Spoiling Tibet, a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of mining across the Tibetan Plateau, published by Zed Books in September 2013 He has authored numerous reports, submissions and the 2006 book on the Dalai Lama's teachings, 'Happiness in a Material World'.
Gabriel shared his analyses with Bona Fide on how 'the recent sudden catastrophic collapse of a glacier perched high above the deep river valleys of Indian Uttarakhand' and 'British Raj imperial follies of a century ago, justified as empirical science, still haunt the Himalayas and divide Tibetans from each other.'
6 years since starting my research on the tensions in this region, China's ambitions to build the world's biggest dam in Tibet persist. Geopolitical tensions are rising evermore due to political decisions to construct more dams, bigger dams, on rivers flowing from Tibet, thus impacting millions of beneficiaries in downstream riparian states like India, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha, Head of Environment and Development at the Tibetan Policy Institute talks more about this in an exclusive interview with Tibet TV.
Nyintri City in Southern Tibet/Google Earth image
"The longest river in western Tibet is about to face another round of assaults from Chinese dams. According to a report (29 November 2020) published in the Global Times, a CCP mouthpiece, the Chinese government plans to construct a ‘Super Hydropower Dam’ on the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet in its 14th Five Year Plan(2021-2025). The report, absurdly stated that the hydropower dam would be “meaningful for the environment, national security, living standards, energy and international cooperation”, stated Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha.
"In reality, the ongoing excessive damming on the Yarlung Tsangpo is neither eco-friendly nor is it beneficial for the local community. It is in fact, part of a massive state-engineered, long-term preparation for a mass influx of Chinese migrants into the Kongpo region for permanent settlement. Such an eventuality could cause irreversible damage to the local ecology, would diminish local Tibetan identity and will greatly destabilize the hydrological balance across northeastern India. The dams would apparently serve one and only purpose, China’s ‘national security’ as repeatedly emphasized in the Chinese report."
THE NEED FOR A CONCEPTUAL REVOLUTION
Beyond these neighbourhood quarrels between China and India, it is the whole problem of water, considered as a good and not as an essential part of an ecosystem embedded in complex relationships, that needs to be rethought.
In China's 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020), a top-level policy blueprint called “one of the most important documents on the planet”, they declared that they 'will coordinate the development of hydropower with ecological conservation while giving priority to the latter...'
Imagining dams as a green solution to China's development needs is a risky gamble. Beijing intends to reduce its CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by more than 60% compared to 2005. The objective is to increase hydroelectric capacities from 216 GW in 2010 to 568 GW by 2030. China's latest development plan which will be released in March 2021 will spell out their latest pathway to realising such targets. But doesn't Tibet have other energy sectors to develop?
Sustainable growth cannot exist without dialogue and transparent reflection with local populations and experts. In this regard, some are advancing the solution of solar energy. The Tibetan Plateau comes just behind the Sahara in terms of annual sunshine, and China is the world's largest producer of solar panels. An advantageous energy for the Tibetan nomads who could capture the energy of the sun while maintaining their mobility, a key element of an ancestral culture.
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