Xinjiang Glacier Protection
Another positive note on the environmental front from Xinjiang – the glaciers in the Tangri Tagh mountains which supply the region with valuable drinking water have been closed to tourists.
BEIJING (Reuters): China has closed melting glaciers in its northwestern Xinjiang region to tourists who littered, polluted and even drove across the ice that provides water to millions, the official Xinhua agency said yesterday.
The glaciers in the Tianshan, or heavenly mountains, supply 2.3mn people in the regional capital Urumqi with drinking water but are shrinking by around 8m a year due to global warming and human activity.
Travel agencies had been offering unauthorised tours that drew around 2,000 visitors each year for as little as 20 yuan ($2.53) per person. As well as driving across the ice, careless tourists had damaged research equipment on one of the country’s most closely studied glaciers, the report added.
Glaciers covering China’s Qinghai-Tibet plateau, known as the “roof of the worldâ€Â, are also shrinking by 7% a year.
Photo credit: A scan from a 35mm transparency which Simon Garbutt took on the South Inylchek Glacier in the Tien Shan mountains in Kyrgyzstan in July 2002. The mountain is Pik Gorkogo (Gorkiy Peak) (6050 m) on the north side of the glacier, opposite the Inylchek base camp.