A man walks over rocks near to a glacial lake that has formed at the base of the Dagu Glacier which lies at 5100 metres on the Dagu Snow Mountain, on the south-east edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The glacier has been reducing in size in recent years, as a resulting of rising temperatures in the region.

SEAN GALLAGHER, FOR THE PULITZER CENTER

“Of course we are not happy with what has happened here. But what can we do?”

Dolkar (name changed to protect identity) looked out onto the tranquil water which disappeared between the valleys before him. Small waves lapped near our feet as we stood on the side of a huge reservoir that had risen up the mountain sides just two years before, changing the landscape forever.

On one side of where we stood lay a serene reservoir—on the other, the Maoergai Dam, a colossal 147 meter high, clay-core, gravel dam sandwiched between two mountains either side of it. A dry and gray channel disappeared off into the distance where the Heishui (Black Water) river had once flowed freely in the mountains of northern Sichuan, in the Tibetan region of Aba.

“Three villages had to be relocated because of this dam”, continued Dolkar, a Tibetan man from a village nearby. “There were homes, schools, a hospital. All are now under the water. People did not want to leave. They even went to Beijing to protest but the local police from Heishui went to find them and brought them back.”

It’s a familiar tale, as China’s rush to develop hydropower has seen the construction of over 25,000 dams across the country. With a recent focus on the rivers of the Tibetan Plateau, the environmental and social consequences of such projects in this region are increasingly becoming a source of friction between locals and the authorities.

Continue Reading »

Alukea, a local man of the Yi Minority, looks out from the valley-side onto the Hailuogou glacier below. “The glacier is not the same as before. The weather seems to get warmer every year”. Garze Tibetan area. Sichuan Province, China. 2012

Meltdown: Climate Change and Environmental Degradation on the Tibetan Plateau for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

“Watch out!” came the scream from behind me. As I turned around, people were scrambling for cover when a rock, the size of a microwave, plummeted towards us. Pressing ourselves quickly against the cold wall next to us, the rock landed at our feet, smashing noisily into the icy floor. “That was close,” laughed my guide next to me. The sounds of rushing water, ice cracking and falling rocks quickly reminded me of the dynamic nature of the place where I currently found myself.

I was standing inside a crevasse in the lower reaches of the Hailuogou glacier, a tongue of ice 15 km long, that plunges off the east side of the looming Mount Gongga (7,556m). Located in the Tibetan area of Garze on the southeast edge of the Tibetan Plateau, the glacier is one of China’s 35,000 which cover nearly 50,000 square kilometers in the west of the country. The area has been dubbed the world’s “third pole,” as a result of the significant volume of ice it contains.

This region has increasingly garnered scientists’ attention as changes in glacial cover have gradually become more and more apparent. During this time, all but a few of the glaciers on the plateau have shrunk, with the greatest retreat occurring since the 1980s, seeing shrinkage of more than 6,500 sq. km.

The Hailuo valley and its glacier, on the eastern side of Mt. Gongga in the Tibetan region of Garze on the south-east edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The Hailuogou glacier has retreated over 2 kilometres during the 20th Century alone. Garze Tibetan area. Sichuan Province, China. 2012

Flanked on either side by lush forests, the Hailuogou glacier is one of China’s 8,500 monsoonal temperate glaciers which make up nearly 20 percent of the country’s total glaciers. They are characterized as being found at lower altitudes of between 3,000 to 5,000 meters and are more sensitive to climate change than polar or continental glaciers.

Continue Reading »

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

I’m delighted to announce the launch of my new project for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, “MELTDOWN: CLIMATE CHANGE & ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION ON THE TIBETAN PLATEAU”, which just launched today on their website.

This project will take an in-depth look at many of the challenges facing the plateau and its people, as a result of warming temperatures and a changing climate in the region. Here is the project overview…

The Tibetan Plateau covers approximately 25 percent of China’s surface area, spreading out over 2.5 million sq. km in the west of the country. It is home to the largest store of freshwater outside of the North and South Poles, feeding water into Asia’s major rivers which supply water to over a billion people.

As a result of anthropogenic climate change, temperatures are rising on the Tibetan Plateau faster than anywhere else in Asia. The effects of these changes are becoming more evident in the form of melting glaciers, increasing desertification and degraded grasslands.

Forced resettlement programs have been introduced to relocate tens of thousands of nomads who are blamed for contributing to the deterioration of the plateau. Increased mining operations near so-called protected areas also fuel degradation on the plateau creating conflicts between native Tibetans and Han Chinese.

This project highlights the major challenges associated with climate change and the resulting social issues that have appeared in recent years. The vivid transformations on the Tibetan Plateau have important ramifications not only for China, but also for the rest of Asia as climate patterns change across the continent and fragile communities are further threatened.

I’m halfway shooting this project, so please stay tuned for many more updates from the field.

For realtime updates, find me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram!

Shi Kang - Wall Street Journal

If you happen to look at the Wall Street Journal today, keep an eye out for a few images of mine that are online and in print. I recently had the opportunity to spend the day with Chinese author, Shi Kang, on a shoot for the Wall Street Journal. The story has been published today. Read it here.

Shi Kang is a fascinating character. He writes mostly about the disillusioned lives of young Chinese and is now a household name, due to the success of his novels. I spent the day with him photographing his daily life and chatted with him a lot about his writings and his thoughts about modern China. Watch the video below, by Angela Yeoh, to get a further glimpse into Shi Kang’s life…

Hong Kong residents and tourists walk past the famous Hong Kong skyline. 2008

This weekend I head south to the amazing city of Hong Kong! It’s my first serious travel of the year and I’m looking forward to getting away from the bitter cold of Beijing, for the warmer climes of the South China Sea.

I last went to Hong Kong in 2008 and was really blown away by the energy of the city and the mix of east and west. As a former British colony, it still has many British influences, which obviously make me feel at home being a Brit myself.

I shall be speaking at the University of Hong Kong during my time in the city, dropping in to give a presentation to some of the students there. I’ll also be shooting around the city, adding some images to the National Geographic Image Collection hopefully. So, I have a few days to wander around the city and try to capture that energy which captivated me last time. Will try to post updates during my week.

If you have visited Hong Kong before and have some reccomendations of places that MUST be photographed, please do let me know. Happy to hear suggestions!

Asia Society - Giant Pandas

Last week saw a couple of interesting publications online that I wanted to share here. They are quite contrasting but are linked by their ties to environmental issues in China, which as readers of this blog will know, is a subject that I specialise in covering here in Asia.

The first is from the Asia Society who did an interview with me about the current state of Giant Panda populations in the wild in China. I really like collaborating with the Asia Society as they are very much dedicated to covering environmental issues and highlighting under-reported stories in the region. You can also view the 7-part Multimedia series on China’s Wetlands here that I produced with them and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting at the end of 2011.

Foreign Policy Magazine - The Smog That Ate Beijing

The second publication online was with Foreign Policy Magazine who published a series of images on the subject matter of Beijing air pollution, titled The Smog that Ate Beijing. At the end of last week I published a post with some extra images from this shoot and also some thoughts into how I made the images. That post was titled ‘Behind the Smog That Ate Beijing’ and you can view that here.

Happy browsing!

A view of air pollution over the CCTV building in Beijing, China. Wednesday January 18th 2012

I got a call on Wednesday from Foreign Policy magazine asking me to do a quick 1 day assignment. The brief? To travel around Beijing and capture the dense layer of smog that was sitting on top of the city. Beijingers and visitors will be all too familiar with this ‘fog’ which regularly descends upon the city. The story was published yesterday online and has become one of the most popular stories on the FP site (view here). I thought I would include here on the blog, a few shots that didn’t make the final cut and explain some of the challenges in photographing air pollution.

Continue Reading »

For regular readers who have stopped by over the past few weeks, I must apologise for the lack of posts recently. The past couple of months were busier than I expected and blogging kept getting pushed back further and further down my list of things ‘to do’. Needless to say, I am back and will endeavor to post as regularly as possible in the new year. This is a new year’s resolution at the top of my list!

First up is an interview that I did for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting recently, talking about my project from last summer on ‘China’s Fragile Forests’, looking at the current threats to China’s Forests. I hope it gives you some insights into my project and how I approached it. Stay tuned for more updates on this project in the new year!

NASA MODIS Rapid Response Team

If you were unfortunate enough to visit the east of China last week, you will have run into what was a very noticeable haze that descended on this part of the country. Residents and regular visitors knew all to well that this was the return of the dreaded vast swathes of air pollution that still hit this region of China. Levels were consistently over 300 on the AQI Index in Beijing last week, which according to the ‘AirNow‘ website… “”Hazardous” AQI greater than 300. This would trigger a health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected.”

The above image was released today by NASA’s MODIS Rapid Response Team and shows clearly a huge wave of pollution lingering in the east, amazingly stretching all the way from Beijing, through central China and down to the west of Shanghai. Incredible. According to NASA….

“Skies over eastern China remained hazy on October 18, 2011. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture the same day.

Over China’s coastal plain south of Beijing, haze forms a giant, nearly opaque arc that terminates over Bo Hai. Although agricultural fires probably play a role in the formation of the haze, it more likely results from urban and industrial pollution in this densely populated area.”

If you are concerned about the level of pollution during your visit to China, especially in Beijing, you may want to check out the air pollution monitor on Twitter which provides hourly updates in the capital.

For further reading, check out The Globe & Mail’s Mark MacKinnon and his recent report on what it’s like living with air pollution. Think China’s Air is Breathable? Think Again. 

Last week I visited two Chinese cities, Shenyang and Chongqing, for the British Council as part of their Smart Talk series. We had a great turnout in both cities, with over 500 people turning out altogether.

One of the highlights for me as a photographer is to connect with my audience and be able to talk about my motivations and reasoning for carrying out my work. I feel many photographers often close themselves off and retreat from interaction with their audience. I embrace it. I feel it’s part of my responsibility to communicate  these issues further though dialogue. These environmental issues are vitally important for us all to understand.

I recorded the second of the talks, at Chongqing University’s Film school, so that you can listen in. I broke the audio up into different parts, so that you can dive straight into the part that interests you the most, or just pick and choose which you listen to.

I have also uploaded the presentation (above) so that you can scroll through and follow what I was showing on-screen to those in attendance.

Continue Reading »