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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!

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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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!

A quick post to let you know of a new multimedia production that I just launched late last week looking at the challenges facing China Forests. Followers of my work will know that I began work on this topic late last summer with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. I was very happy when the Asia Society’s China Green indicated their interest in helping make this become a multimedia project which we launched together recently.

Above is the video embedded fro YouTube, but I also encourage you to visit the China Green website and look around. They have some great work looking at various environmental issues in China. To watch the video in max. 1920×1080 HD quality (recommended!), head over to my Vimeo channel.

China Green - The Asia Society

China's Fragile Forests - New Multimedia

Followers here will know that last summer I embarked on a trip to China’s southern province of Sichuan, to report on the threats to China’s forests for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. In case you missed it, here is a link to the main reporting page on the Pulitzer Center website.

I’m delighted to be collaborating with the Asia Society and China Green again on a new multimedia piece which will be launching soon. My first collaboration with China Green was when we brought together seven multimedia pieces, focused on China’s wetlands. Our new multimedia will be bringing together stills, video and interviews from my travels last summer, highlighting the current state of China’s fragile forests.

Please stay tuned for more updates…

A quick post here to let you know of a new video that has just been released by the Asia Society, focusing on my work over the past few years on China’s environmental crises. It was put together by Shreeya Sinha, who is an excellent multimedia journalist in her own right, and recorded when I was in New York a few months ago. The video provides a pretty concise view of my work and what I have been trying to do whilst covering these issues in China. Hope you enjoy!

From the Asia Society Blog…

Beijing-based videographer and photographer Sean Gallagher has been documenting China’s environmental problems from various perspectives since 2006 — covering everything from wetland disappearance, desertification, air pollution, to endangered species like the giant panda. Often backed by Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Gallagher has raised awareness about the global impact of China’s rapid development.

Gallagher points to China’s desertification problem, which parallels similar issues in North Africa and Australia, as one example of a topic he’s covered that resonates worldwide. “These are issues affecting everybody and it’s incredibly important that we realize the impact we are having on our ecosystems and bio-diversity.”

The multimedia profile above encompasses the wide range of Gallagher’s reporting in photography and video, and offers a personal account of what it’s like to be a freelance journalist in China.