With an average elevation of 14,000 feet, the Tibetan Plateau is the highest and largest mountain plateau on earth. Towering above the vast Eurasian landmass, Tibet is the source of major rivers feeding India, China, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia. Exploitative and unsustainable development policies, coupled with escalating impacts from climate change, are exacting an alarming toll on this fragile and environmentally strategic region.

Under Chinese rule, traditional nomadic pastoralism has been replaced by intensive industrial agriculture unsuited to the arid conditions of the Tibetan Plateau. Over-grazing, soil erosion and the steady drying-out of the plateau due to climate change are turning the vast rangelands of Tibet to desert. These trends are destroying Tibet’s traditional rural economy and reducing theproductivity of one of the world’s most important rangelands.

With this once remote and inaccessible region now linked to China’s rail network, extraction of copper, gold, iron, chromite and other minerals required to keep China’s burgeoning economy afloat is accelerating, bringing with it a myriad of new environmental challenges. New large-scale infrastructure projects and a ten-fold increase in visitor numbers over the last decade are placing further strains on Tibet’s environment and culture.