Chinese Govt Halts Logging in Eastern Tibet
8/23/99
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Chinese Govt Halts Logging in Eastern Tibet
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 23, 1999
LOS ANGELES, California, August 23, 1999 (ENS) - In the eastern
region of Tibet known as Kham, the Chinese government has enacted a
total ban on logging in Ganzi, Aba, and Liangshan prefectures. Pamela
Logan, president, of the Los Angeles based Kham Aid Foundation, says
this is the Chinese response to serious flooding of the Yangtze and
Yellow Rivers in the summer of 1998.
The stripping of trees off the steep slopes has allowed large amounts
of rainwater to rush off the hillsides instead of being held in place
by tree roots and absorption as it had been for thousands of year.
Loggers have been allowed to remove already felled timber up to June
of 1999. Now the forest industry has ground to a halt.
"Ganzi Prefecture is looking to tourism as a source of income to
replace logging. They have asked the central government to open Ganzi
to unrestricted travel by foreigners," Logan said.
With Canadian architect and environmental planner William Semple,
Logan travelled to Kham in part to investigate forestry in the
region.
"We are currently raising funds in Canada and the U.S. for tree-
planting in Tibetan areas of Sichuan. Because of last summer's
flooding due to erosion on formerly tree-covered slopes, this effort
is both necessary and timely," Logan said.
Logan's group is seeking to develop a total program "that considers
environmental, economic, and human needs, not one that merely puts
trees in the ground." They will coordinate closely with government
funded tree planting programs.