By Yubaraj Ghimire

Lhasa (Tibet)

This south west province of China is far ahead of other provinces in terms of environment protection and the nature conservation. A massive aforestation drive and continuous monitoring campaign is responsible for maintaining the pollution level well below the National standard.

In the Capital city of Lhasa, the carbondioxide density in the air is just 0.1 mg, while that in the rest of the provinces is around four times more. The major contribution to the carbondioxide traces in the air is made by the monasteries where ghee-soaked lamps burn round the clock consuming several hundred litres of ghee all over the province with majority of them in the capital.

Industrial or any other kind of polluters affects no part of nearly 240,000 hectares of cultivated land. The environment protection scheme and the enforcing agencies of the government have been active for decades to control the forest fire and give green cover to most of the once denuded hills. Even the wide and long roads in Tibet have far less motor vehicles, contrast to most of the South Asian countries.

According to the official information, in the past four decades, at least 80 million trees have been planted, and the state environment protection agency has been successfully bringing 140,000 hectares of mountains under the green cover each year. Environmental regulations also require major construction and industrial projects to have safety measures and devices simultaneously built in order to contain the pollution.

The clear blue sky, river water in its pristine form as well unadulterated aroma of nature in this plateau stand testimony to concerned agencies success in the field of conservation and pollution control. The Central Government built a natural environment monitoring station at the cost of 360 million rupees almost a decade ago followed by five environmental noise monitoring stations, around 30 traffic noise monitoring stations, six sample drinking water collection stations and three water quality monitoring stations.

The state has made special laws and created suitable conditions for maintenance and preservation of 13 nature reserves covering altogether 325,000 square kilometres, and comprises little less than 30 per cent of the total area of the province.

Hunting is prohibited in these reserves which house many of ‘protected flora and fauna’ numbering 164 species.

The area is believed to be the abode of more than 75 per cent of the ‘endangered’ black-necked crane - estimated to be little more than 5,000 in the whole world.

The capital city is much more pampered – a care and status that many capital cities enjoy in this part of the world. It is the greenest city in the whole of China showing with substantial green cover and tastefully decorated park area covering around 60 hectares, an impressive figure for the city with an area of 30,000 square km.