APPENDIX X: PLATEAU PERSPECTIVES REPORT: SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES, NOVEMBER 1999
Plateau Perspectives is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping local communities in the Tibetan Plateau area to protect the environment and to improve the lives of the poor through integrated development programs. We provide training and technical assistance in community health, literacy, basic education and the environment. Further, we emphasize the relationships between these fields and their joint contributions to poverty alleviation (income generation) and to a more sustainable future. All of our work is undertaken in cooperation with the local government and target communities from the early planning stages through to project implementation and final evaluation.
The founding principles (guidelines) of Plateau Perspectives are:
· to consider local environments, local ways and local knowledge;
· to adopt an integrated approach to development work;
· to partner with and encourage communities to help themselves;
· to integrate the physical, emotional, and social aspects of health;
· to emphasize replicability (training of trainers) in adult education; and
· to find sustainable ways of using resources and protecting biodiversity.
Plateau Perspectives was originally conceived in 1995, and was founded in Montreal, Canada, in October 1998.
Plateau Perspectives’ Director has assisted in the development of the Upper Yangtze Organization’s work since December 1997, and continues to work closely with the UYO as well as the local township, county, and prefecture governments. The Upper Yangtze Organization (UYO) was established in May 1998. It is registered with the Civil Affairs Bureau of Zhiduo County, and the People’s Government of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province also endorsed the organization in one of its recent congresses (meetings) in the autumn of 1999. While the UYO has independent links with several provincial, national, and international organizations and bureaus, Plateau Perspectives remains its primary counterpart organization (and its sole counterpart organization that also focuses on the integration of socio-economic development with longer-term environmental protection and biodiversity conservation).
Our current
work and future plans are based on several work trips to Suojia Township (in
total, eight weeks in the field), and on extensive discussions in Xining with
the UYO’s Director.
A project office may eventually need to be established in Ge’ermu (Golmud) City to provide easier access to Suojia Township. A trip was therefore made (in June 1999) to discuss this possibility with the city’s Foreign Affairs Office. An invitation has now been extended for the purpose of opening a project office in Ge’ermu, on condition that the provincial Foreign Affairs Bureau is in agreement.
The UYO and the local government have requested assistance to determine what priority actions should be taken to improve community health in Suojia. To this effect, a questionnaire-survey was introduced in modified form to the UYO (this approach has previously been used among Cree and Inuit communities in northern Quebec, semi-nomadic pastoralists in Mongolia, and Miao communities in Yunnan). Initial training on the use of this questionnaire-survey was provided for several UYO members and leaders in October 1999.
Part of the overall work planned in Suojia Township is to find ways of increasing literacy rates among local pastoralists. The UYO has already begun to design a literacy primer. A more participatory approach also may be useful (along the lines of the REFLECT method), and this continues to be encouraged by Plateau Perspectives for all of the UYO’s work.
One of the local advisors to the UYO has recommended that the UYO write and publish a “guidebook” to the upper region of the Yangtze River, emphasizing the local culture and ecological conditions. This book would serve two purposes: to introduce the region to interested people (government officials, development organizations, tourists, etc.), and to promote the name and image of the UYO. At the UYO’s request, Plateau Perspectives has suggested a brief outline for such a book.
In early 1999, the Suojia Township government established a new Environment Bureau with a small supervisory committee and 16 field staff (that is, the leaders of the 16 shengtandui, or former work teams, of the township). Plateau Perspectives purchased five canvas tents and 16 binoculars (for the field workers) in August 1999. An initial work plan was also provided to the local bureau in response to their request – a simple worksheet for monitoring local wildlife populations, with simple words and pictures that can also assist with their planned literacy work.
Following discussions held in July 1998 held on-site in Muqu Village, four township-level nature reserves were established in early 1999. The protected areas’ focal species are the Snow Leopard, Tibetan Antelope, Tibetan Wild Ass, and Black-necked Crane – all internationally endangered species. The UYO’s Director has indicated that Plateau Perspectives’ Director was instrumental in conceptualizing, and hence in establishing, these reserves. An area of around 133 km2 on the bank of the Yangtze River (adjacent to one of the four reserves) also has been set aside to serve as a demonstration area for sustainable animal husbandry and nature tourism.
Plateau Perspectives provided an environmental awareness video (with Chinese translation of the transcript) to the UYO for its ecology classes at the Zhiduo Minorities’ Middle School.
Less than one year ago, the Yaqu community generally felt that there would be no benefit for their children to obtain a formal education. Since then, however, the village has been encouraged by the UYO (which in turn was encouraged by Plateau Perspectives) to find a way for their children to attend school. In response, the community has mobilized itself and set up a tent school. The nomads have provided the land, around 7 tents, and food and blankets to the school. The township government has provided two teachers and all the desks and chairs. There are presently 34 students in first grade, and up to 70 more children are ready to join if adequate facilities can be made available. Currently, however, the tents are only summer tents, yet winter has already arrived... Padded (winter) tents are needed if the students are to continue studying until the regular winter break that begins in mid-January... Hope has grown in this community, but this hope risks disappearing if their great efforts of this year lead to naught because the school cannot continue through the winter for lack of warm tents... [Early snows fell in Suojia in October 1999, leading to the early closure of the school. Plateau Perspectives had offered to raise funds for winter tents as early as August 1999, but the county government had already made plans in connection with Children in Crisis. The latter organization purchased year-round tents in April 2000.]
In a similar way to Yaqu, the Muqu community has begun to mobilize itself, particularly over the last couple of months, to improve their overall living conditions. It is now planned that a “community center” will be established where children can attend school (a tent school), where adult training can occur (adult education in literacy, health care, etc.), and which also would serve as a base for research on sustainable animal husbandry, limited nature tourism, and wildlife studies in the local nature reserve located in Muqu. A small grant from The Tides Foundation, by way of the Global Greengrants Fund (GGF), will allow the environmental awareness and research part of this work to begin, particularly the purchase of several tents, desks, beds, a stove, etc. [Unfortunately, the early snows that fell in October 1999 slowed this work significantly, and it also took longer than expected for the community to decide where the tent school and community center should be located. However, with encouragement from the UYO, the local community reached an agreement in April 2000. Plans for the community center have expanded compared to last year, and Plateau Perspectives also agreed in May 2000 to match the seed funds provided by GGF at a 2:1 ratio. Hence a tent school and training center (with environmental awareness training) will begin in the summer or early autumn of 2000.]
A proposal was written in August 1998 (and funds obtained) to build a small clinic in Suojia, along with the provision of on-going medical training. [Unfortunately, it is unclear at this stage if and when this project will proceed; Plateau Perspectives was only an intermediary, and although we provided assistance in the design of the project, we do not have any direct control over the implementation phase of this project.]
Care and Share Foundation (CSF) organized an “Ecotourism and Community Development Project” in July and August 1999. Specifically, Plateau Perspectives conducted a bird survey in Bengda Nature Reserve, provided consultancy on ecotourism development in the surrounding area, and provided consultancy on health care provision in Dengke Township (in Shiqu County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province).
Nineteen children are being sponsored for two years to attend the Gande Tibetan Middle School (1998-2000), and two additional children are being sponsored for one year (1999-2000). This middle school received an award as the best middle school in the Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in 1998.