A press conference on Saturday (October 4, 2003) followed by a brief demonstration on the top of Zugspitze to officially launch its postcard campaign “Save Kailash – Tibet’s holiest Mountain”, sought the attention of the international community to the task taken up by the Tibet support group based in Germany.
The campaign strives to gather enough support calling upon the Chinese Government and the UNESCO to put the Kailash Region on the list of World Nature Heritage.
The choice of the Mount Zugspitze as the venue was significant in that it is the highest mountain peak in Germany, with an altitude of 2962 meters above sea level and situated in the fantastic mountain panorama, and is fitting background to launch such a campaign. However, the great distance to the Zugspitze and the expensive cogwheel trains or cable cars to the peak did definitely deter many media people and supporters from attending the event.
Nevertheless, in addition to the six journalists of various media there were some 60 Tibetans and friends of Tibet from various German cities, the nearest being Munich with more than 100 kms and the farthest being Berlin with some 800 kms. A group also from Nuremberg, Wuerzburg and Bamberg (350 kms) arrived with a chartered bus.
The press conference which took nearly an hour was chaired by Elisabeth Jaeger of the Tibet Initiative Deutschland with Wolfgang Grader, Chairman of the Tibet Initiative. Dr. Joerg Eberlein (German Alpine Club) and Michael Proettel (Chairman of Mountain Wilderness) gave a brief statement and then fielded questions from the journalists.
With nearly 700.000 members in Germany, the German Alpine Club is the biggest mountaineering club in the world. Although the German Alpine Club is a non-political organisation, Dr. Joerg Eberlein saw no problem in supporting this campaign of the TID as it is in tune with the overall mountaineering philosophy of the club. Mr. Proettel from the Mountain Wilderness which has some conservation and reforestation projects in Pakistan and Afghanistan said that by turning the Kailash Region into World Nature Heritage it will enhance the reputation of the Chinese Government and as such the chances that this campaign will bear fruit is theoretically there.
Judging from the interest on this postcard, the campaign promises to be a big success. Within weeks the postcards campaign has gone into third reprint, totaling now to 40.000 postcards. The deadline for the return of the postcards is December 31, 2003 and the Tibet Initiative will handover the postcards to the UNESCO Germany in Bonn in the beginning of next year.
At the forthcoming 4th International Conference of the Tibet Support Groups in Prague the Tibet Initiative plans to present the project and solicit international support.
