Tsering Dhundup
DHARAMSHALA, May 30: A viral video footage from Tibet circulating on Chinese social media in the second week of this month has exposed the devastating environmental toll of government-approved mining operations in Drongri village, Tsonga Township, Markham County, Chamdo City. According to the London-based Tibetan human rights monitoring outlet Tibet Watch, the footage documents the villagers’ growing anguish over the environmental damage and hardships resulting from these activities.
The video, recorded by local villagers, shows alarming scenes of ecological degradation, including stripped hillsides, landslides, and damaged homes. A written note accompanying the footage highlights that the mining efforts have “severely damaged hillside vegetation and worsened landslides”, creating a perilous situation for the community. Villagers have reported that these activities have critically compromised the local ecosystem, leading to increasing and unpredictable natural disasters such as landslides and floods that directly threaten their lives and livelihoods.
The note further details the scale of destruction and disruption, describing how the mining has led to damage to agricultural land, causing flooding and soil quality loss, deposits from hillside erosion that degrade grasslands, and damage to homes from repeated flooding incidents. The villagers also note that the broader environment has suffered, with waterways obstructed and drinking water contaminated.
In the footage, a senior villager expresses deep frustration at how government authorities and mining companies have prioritised their own interests over those of the local community. “The miner informed us that the excavation of the mineral mountains and road construction to the mining site was approved by party leaders, presenting us with documents authorised by county and township governments,” the villager says. “They ignore the views and hardships of the local population and overlook the environmental damage and risks. The mining contracts show that these operations only benefit the miners, not the residents. This is merely a scheme to destroy the mineral mountains and local villages.”
Tibet Watch reports that Chinese miners have been active in the area since August 2020, with villagers forced to endure a string of environmental disasters since then. The villagers’ pleas for help, shared through the video, call on viewers to spread the word and support their efforts to defend their land and livelihoods. Due to strict information controls in Tibet imposed by Chinese authorities, further details about the mining company involved or any potential compensation for the villagers remain unclear.
The footage from Drongri village is not an isolated case. In April, a video titled “The Change of Amnye Machen” circulated widely on Chinese social media, drawing further attention to Tibet’s mounting environmental crisis. Produced by the Plateau Nature Conservancy in the so-called Qinghai Province in Tibet, the video describes how the snow of the sacred Amnye Machen mountain is melting at an alarming rate of 17 metres per year—threatening its very existence within decades.
The video, obtained by the Dharamshala-based Tibet Times, features a local Tibetan nomad who vividly recalls his first pilgrimage around Amnye Machen in 1986. Comparing historical snow coverage to present conditions, he estimates that up to 1,200 metres of snow have vanished from the mountain’s upper reaches, with at least 240 metres lost at the base. From 2017 to 2023 alone, the snow has receded steadily at 17 metres annually, he says.
This escalating environmental crisis is closely linked to Tibet’s mineral wealth. Often called the “water tower of Asia” for its abundant glaciers and rivers, Tibet is also rich in copper, iron, lead, zinc, lithium, and other strategic minerals. In 2001, China announced the discovery of vast copper and lithium deposits in Tibet—resources that are in short supply in China itself but abundant in the Tibetan Plateau.
While China’s appetite for these minerals has grown especially for lithium, a key ingredient in modern batteries mining in Tibet has come at an enormous cost to the environment and to Tibetan communities. Critics describe this as a “resource curse”, where resource extraction benefits external actors while leaving local populations to bear the brunt of environmental and social destruction.
One Response
TIBET IS F##D! The country is under brutal ruthless Chinese communist military occupation! Since 1951 after Tibet was forced to sign the infamous “17 point Treaty” between the independent Government of Tibet and communist China, Tibet has fallen into the depths of a dystopian hell! The occupier is the most violent and most virulent hater of Tibetan Buddhism. It has vandalised, desecrated, demolished and ran sacked every monastery, stupa, statue or murals on walls of thousands and thousands of monasteries. They murdered an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans in a frenzy of communist orthodoxy mixed with Chinese racism and Han chauvinism that is hell bend to destroy everything that is Tibetan! Tibet was plunged into a nightmare of endless terror, starvation and mindless killing of monks, nuns and ordinary citizens. Thousands of Tibetans committed suicide including whole families by jumping from roof tops and into the nearest river to escape the terror of the most brutal regime on earth. Tibetan monasteries and schools faced floodgate of Tibetan refugees escaping the horror of Chinese occupation in the 1980s as Deng’s short liberal policy gave the chance to flee the hell that was occupied Tibet. As thousands of Tibetans fled the country, it made the evil regime nervous! It must have reminded them what happened to East Pakistan when it was invaded by west Pakistan and exodus of millions of refugees sealed the fate of East Pakistan in 1971. In any case it was an embarrassment for the regime who claimed to have “liberated” Tibet and “brought earth shaking progress”! The regime payed millions of dollars to the Nepalese to patrol the Tibet-Nepal border and trained Nepalese police to carry out arrest of Tibetans fleeing Chinese persecution. The Nangpala murder of an innocent 17 year old nun, Kelsang Namtso exposed the brutality of the Chinese regime which was filmed by Romanian cameramen Sergiu Matei. Since then, Tibet has been locked behind the Himalayas and the key thrown away! TODAY, TIBET IS THE GAZA OF THE HIMALAYAS UNDER EXTRAORDINARY BRUTALITY BY THE NAZI CCP REGIME! Tibetans are reduced to slaves of the regime with no rights to their land, their property, their children and even marriages are fixed by the Chinese regime! On top of this grim reality, Tibetans are removed from their ancestral homes, while their monasteries, homes, pasture land and farming lands are swallowed and submerged by Chinese damps to benefit the Chinese colonisers. Some 160 Tibetans mostly monks and nuns have self-immolated to highlight the unimaginable oppression perpetrated by the Chinese regime. Hundreds of Tibetans are languishing in Chinese jails just for speaking up for the preservation of Tibetan language or protesting against illegal mining activities. Since the regime is corrupted to the core, there are hundreds or even thousands of illegal miners who bribe the officials to get a permit and then share the loot! Surely, we cannot remain silent when our brothers and sisters are treated with such barbarism. The most precious natural resources that Tibet is gifted with have been plundered the moment Tibet was occupied. Occupied Tibet has been the hen that lays the golden egg for the imperialist Chinese colonial occupiers! COMMUNIST CHINA IS A COLONISER AND AN OCCUPIER OF TIBET THAT WAS FORCIBLY TAKEN FROM THE TIBETAN PEOPLE! It is known that communist China gets 40% percent of its natural resources from occupied Tibet. It is plundering every natural resource available which runs in the hundreds from occupied Tibet, exclusively for the use of the Chinese coloniser without the slightest consideration for the environment or benefit for the local Tibetan population! ITS A COMPLETE RIP-OFF OF TIBETS TREASURES! TIBET IS SCARED BY CHINESE INSATIABLE MINING ACTIVITY! The rivers are polluted, the earth is polluted by putting sodium cyanide which is used to dissolve gold from ore. Pre-1959, Tibet was one of the most pristine country in the world but ever since the Chinese communist occupation with its voracious appetite for plundering Tibets resources, it’s been turned into a cesspool of poison, toxic sludge and gaping holes across the country. The Tibetans are appalled and extremely distressed but they can do nothing! THEY ARE VICTIMS OF YELLOW COLONIALISM WHICH IS MORE INSIDIOUS THAN EUROPEAN COLONISERS! The yellow coloniser has no rules or limits to protect the environment. Chinese culture encourages exploitation of nature and not preservation. In their culture, everything is for human exploitation. That is why the yellow coloniser lays emphasis on conquering nature in order to benefit themselves! Tibetans must shout louder in order to get international scrutiny of the Chinese regimes plunder of Tibet’s wealth and mass disappearances of Tibetan activists to protect them from prosecution and imprisonment. As the animosity between communist China and America heats up over Taiwan, Tibetans should consider military training that might serve useful for America or even India. In war, man power is necessary and if we can help one power who sympathetic to our cause, that will give us leverage over them. The peaceful world that was envisioned by the Dalai Lama is falling by the wayside! We have wars going in Ukraine, Gaza and soon we might see war across the Taiwan Strait! Just as the SFF commandos bravery in the 1971 Bangladesh war helped to raise the profile of not only SFF unit but Tibetans as a whole in the eyes of Indians, If we can do the same in the future, that will keep our morale and standing high in the world and the world will see the usefulness of the Tibetans to embrace us and support us! We have to hitch-hike on the back of a powerful country to gain our coveted goal of independence! Those who are living in a world of defeatism, let it be known that communist China is not going to be there for eternity. No power remains for eternity. IT IS BOUND TO COLLAPSE!!!
C’EST LA VIE!