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I just wanted to extend a big thank you to all of those who were able to make the opening of MELTDOWN at the weekend in Beijing. The opening was a great success and it was really encouraging to see so many people interested in this project.

A big thanks also to Southern Barbarian who were our hosts and put on a wonderful selection of drinks and delectible Yunnan-style food for us on the afternoon. The prints will be hanging for the next couple of months, so there is still plenty of time to see the show.

If you want to learn more about the project, please visit the Pulitzer Center site for slideshows and articles. There are a few more interesting developments with regards to this project coming soon, so please stay tuned for more news in the coming weeks!

MELTDOWN – Climate Change and Environmental Degradation on the Tibetan Plateau

Dear Friends, Followers and Readers,

I would like to invite you to the opening party for ‘MELTDOWN: Climate Change and Environmental Degradation on the Tibetan Plateau’, which will be taking place at Southern Barbarian in Beijing on Saturday 20th April from 3:00 until 6:00 p.m.

The exhibition will feature a selection of images from my travels last year documenting how climate change is affecting communities on the roof of the world.

MELTDOWN – Climate Change and Environmental Degradation on the Tibetan Plateau

On the afternoon, there will be free drinks and Yunnan-style snacks to sustain you as we enjoy a spring afternoon in the hutongs of central Beijing.

For more information and a map to the venue, please click here for City Weekend’s listing.

I look forward to seeing you there!

A stream is clogged with rubbish in a small Tibetan town on the Tibetan Plateau. Qinghai Province. 2012

Water pollution has been in the news a lot recently in China. The most notable story that has been circulating of late was the discovery of over 13,000 dead pigs in the Huangpu River outside of Shanghai. It’s another in a long line of stories that highlight the challenges that China faces in managing its waterways as the nation continues its rush to develop.

Reading the coverage of this story led me to think about some of the examples of water pollution I have witnessed in my 6 1/2 years criss-crossing China, documenting some of the country’s most pressing environmental crises. Polluted waterways have not been a rare sight on my travels.

So, here I present a selection of what I believe are some of the most severe examples of water pollution I have witnessed. From the Tibetan Plateau to China’s coastal cities, no region is exempt from the scourge of water pollution.

Explore the links between the images to learn more about the facts behind the water pollution crisis in China.

A man covers his face whilst passing refuse that has gathered on the surface of Dongting Lake, in Hunan Province. 2010

“In China, 320 million people are without access to clean drinking water and 190 million people are drinking water severely contaminated with hazardous chemicals.” – Greenpeace

A figure stands on the edge of a stagnant pool of water in a Tibetan relocation town in Qinghai Province, 2012.

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China Dialogue – 2013

A couple of quick links today to some recent published work. The first is on the excellent China Dialogue website. If you haven’t had a chance to view the CD website before, it really is a very good hub of all environment-related news from China, with contributors from all sectors. It is presented bilingually, therefore reaching a wide readership in both China and abroad.

They recently ran my story ‘Between the Glacier and the Dam’, looking at how climate change is affecting one community on the south-east edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

Deutsche Welle – 2013

The second publication was an interview with the German media organisation Deutsche Welle. I was interviewed about my recent work covering climate change on the Tibetan Plateau and some of my approaches to the project. Unfortunately, this interview is only in Chinese!

Hope you enjoy the links and have a great week.

“The most massive tsunami, perfect storm, is bearing down upon us.”

I came across this video yesterday that I felt compelled to share here on my blog today. The video is from the recent TED conference held in Long Beach, California and is presented by Allan Savory, a biologist who has been investigating new ways to help combat the increasing scourge of desertification.

Savory offers compelling evidence that one of the most successful methods for converting deserts and drylands back into grasslands is to use increased numbers of livestock in controlled grazing patterns that mimic the natural patterns of migrating herds of animals. It’s an idea which goes against your intuitive beliefs about overgrazing and land management, but from the examples of success that Savory has had with the communities he has worked with, this looks incredibly promising.

If you’re not convinced that desertification is as serious as is being made out to be, just take a look at the map below from Savory’s presentation.

Global Desertification – NASA

Now, almost two-thirds(!) of the world is classified as desert or drylands…and it’s increasing.

I first started looking into this subject matter in 2007 and began documenting the effects of desertification in north and north-west China the same year. I worked on this subject matter for over 2 years, travelling across the northern deserts from Beijing to the borders with Pakistan documenting the expansion of  drylands and the subsequent impacts on people throughout the country. To see more of the work, please go to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting website.

Desertification in China. Ningxia Province. 2008

I really hope that this TED presentation reaches as many people as possible (there are 165,000+ views and counting so far) because this is an underreported crisis that has been sneaking up on humanity for a very long time. It’s time that the issue was properly acknowledged in the mainstream media and hopefully Savory’s call to action will be heard by those who can make changes in affected communities throughout the world.

A Tibetan Plateau Diary

For the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. To view the full gallery of images.

“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us” — Oscar Wilde

I’ve never been one for keeping a diary. My parents encouraged me to keep one from a young age, but numerous half-filled notebooks are evidence of my failed attempts. Early on however, I realized that photography and the experience of looking at an image were much more effective in helping me to remember where and when I was at a certain place, but most importantly, what and how I was feeling when I was there.

This past summer and autumn, I traveled across the Tibetan Plateau, documenting some of the threats from climate change to the people and ecosystems of the “Roof of the World.” As I traveled, I carried with me my iPhone, along with my normal professional equipment.

A Tibetan Plateau Diary

For the past year and a half I have been taking pictures with my phone, mostly using it as a way to document smaller moments, or objects and things that I just wanted to record as a reminder for myself. This new tool has become my diary.

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A Tibetan nomad in the Amdo region of the Tibetan Plateau. 2012

For the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

“I was forced to move here three years ago. Before, I was a nomad. I’m not happy with what has happened,” explained Dhakpa as we stood on the dusty street corner. (Dhakpa’s name and those of other Tibetans in the story have been changed to protect their identity.) The wind swept through the valley in which we stood, dirt and sand swirling around our feet. Nearby, large piles of refuse started to shuffle at the edges as the wind picked up.

We were standing in the outskirts of the town of Zaduo, a bustling little Tibetan community in the southeast of Qinghai Province, on the border with the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Surrounded by mountains and rolling green highland grasslands, it was described in my guidebook as “one of the remote [towns] on the plateau.”

Before us lay dusty streets, flanked on either side by a series of one-story yellow buildings that made up a “relocation village” built a few years previously to house the new influx of Tibetan nomads from the surrounding grasslands.

Nestled deep in the Sanjiangyuan region of southern Qinghai, the grasslands are home to the sources of the Yangtze, Yellow and Mekong Rivers. In recent decades, however, the grasslands on the “roof of the world” have become progressively degraded, many scientists believe as a result of rising temperatures and drying caused by climate change.

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CNN Photo Blog

CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE TIBETAN PLATEAU – CNN PHOTO BLOG

Excerpt…

The majority of glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in central Asia are shrinking rapidly, according to a comprehensive study published this year in the Nature Climate Change journal.

Photographer Sean Gallagher recently visited the region to document how rising temperatures have affected the vulnerable communities and ecosystems on “the roof of the world.” …Read and view more on CNN

International Herald Tribune

INDIE FILMMAKERS FEEL HEAVY HAND OF BEIJING – INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

Excerpt… Independent filmmaking is tough anywhere in the world, but in China, especially, it is not a vocation for the faint of heart.

A recent attempt to hold a festival of independent film at a public art gallery in front of 500 people was thrown into chaos after a power failure in the middle of the first screening… Read more on the IHT website.

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.

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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.

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