The Question(s) of Tibet - World Affairs Council

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
reduced to less than 75,000, due principally to poaching for shahtoosh. As many as 20,000
Tibetan antelope are killed annually to supply the trade, with males, females and young
slaughtered indiscriminately. The only way to obtain shahtoosh is to kill the chiru ‐‐ three to five
dead antelope yield sufficient wool for one shawl. The chiru are skinned and the raw shahtoosh
is collected and smuggled to India, where it is manufactured into shawls in the state of Jammu
and Kashmir, the only location in the world where shahtoosh possession and manufacture are
officially legalized.
MOUNTAIN PATROL: KEKEXILI – 2004 (89 MINUTES)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mountainpatrol/
Mountain Patrol: Kekexili is a film inspired by a people's remarkable mission surrounding the
illegal Tibetan antelope poaching in the region of Kekexili, the largest animal reserve in China.
The story is brought to the screen with great detail by director Lu Chuan. Set against the
exquisite backdrop of the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau, Chuan tells the tale of brave local Tibetans
who face death and starvation to save the endangered antelope herds from a band of ruthless
hunters. The main cause of decline is hunting by humans. Also, habitat disturbance,
hybridization, and competition with domestic yaks pose a threat to the species. The remaining
wild yak population is legally protected, but according to the Tibet Forest Bureau, this is
difficult to enforce in some mountainous regions. Some wild yaks are protected in the Chang
Tang Reserve in China.
CHANG TANG RESERVE (ESTABLISHED BY WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY)
http://www.wcs.org/saving‐wild‐places/asia/chang‐tang‐china.aspx
The Chang Tang region is one of the last great expanses of wilderness left on Earth. Covering a
good part of the Tibetan Plateau, this area of more than 400,000 square miles consists of
broad, rolling alpine steppes broken by hills, glacier‐capped mountains, and large basins
studded with wetlands and saline lakes. The land is too cold to support forests and agriculture.
Vegetation consists primarily of a sparse cover of grasses, sedges, forbs, and low shrubs. A
significant portion of the northern Chang Tang is uninhabited by people, but the southern‐ and
westernmost parts support Tibetan pastoralists and their livestock. Established with WCS’s
help in 1993, the Chang Tang Nature Reserve is the second largest protected area on Earth. The
reserve covers approximately 115,000 square miles in the northwestern part of the Tibetan
Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It provides protection for a unique
assemblage of wildlife, several species of which are endangered and endemic to the Tibetan
plateau—such as the Tibetan gazelle, kiang, wild yak, wolf, snow leopard, and the Tibetan
antelope, or chiru. Despite its remoteness, the Chang Tang region faces numerous threats that
endanger the future of its wildlife, its rangeland ecosystems, and the Tibetan pastoralists. With
the advent of roads, vehicles, and modern weapons, commercial and subsistence hunting has
considerably depleted wildlife populations, especially the chiru. Hunters persecute chiru for
their wool, known as shatoosh—the finest wool in the world. The numbers of pastoralists and
their livestock are increasing, escalating potential conflicts with wildlife. Nomad groups that
herded livestock on the open range are beginning to fence winter pastures, and some have built
long fences across valleys and hills to keep wildlife out and livestock in. Permanent human
settlements pose problems of over‐grazing, increased competition for forage between wildlife
and livestock, and persecution of wildlife predators and pests.
World Affairs Council Teacher Resource Packet – The Question(s) of Tibet February 28, 2011
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