Chinese walker

In 2003, China introduced a new programme, known as %26ldquo;retire livestock and restore grassland%26rdquo; (tuimu huancao), which called for grazing removal in order to halt and reverse severe grassland degradation. This scheme established various types of fenced zones, including those in which grazing is to be closed for several months annually (a form of rotational grazing), and those where grazing is to be banned for five or 10 years %26ndash; or in some cases, permanently.

The seasonal rotational grazing and seeding aspects of tuimu huancao resemble other grassland policies, which have been implemented since the 1980s due to concerns about widespread degradation. These have included a number of technical solutions, including the eradication of pikas (a type of rabbit), subsidisation of permanent winter homes, building of fences, provision of livestock shelters and planting of supplemental winter fodder.

In addition to stressing technical interventions, these policies included the extension of the household responsibility system %26ndash; which gave farmers rights to their fields %26ndash; from agricultural to pastoral areas. The rationale for promoting the privatisation of use-rights to winter pasture was based on the assumption that this would give herders the proper incentives both to better manage their land and also to become more efficient market producers, thus raising their standard of living. The possibility of having poorer families with fewer livestock rent their pastures to families with more livestock as an income generating strategy for the former is also considered a benefit in some areas.

As is the case with many policies, implementation of tuimu huancao varies widely. In the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), interventions in line with previous policies, such as seeding of grass, are stressed. Herders would prefer to use the fencing material provided by the project to reserve higher productivity alpine marsh meadows for use as winter or emergency fodder. However, officials %26ndash; who determine which areas will be fenced %26ndash; follow the policy of fencing off only lower-productivity alpine meadows and sandy areas, for various lengths of time, in order to improve them. This difference, stemming from different understandings of local grassland ecology, leads to a lack of local enthusiasm for the project, as does lack of compensation for loss of grazing areas, particularly where it has been promised to local herders.

Attempts at seeding appear not to be very successful thus far, particularly in the drier western areas of the TAR. In some parts of Sichuan province%26rsquo;s Ganzi prefecture, tuimu huancao has taken the form of distinctive concrete-post fencing along the highway, some of which does not even form full enclosures. However, local residents must guard the valuable fence from thieves, lest the fence goes missing when officials come to inspect.

While some aspects of tuimu huancao extend previous policies by focusing on technical measures to improve herders%26rsquo; management of their pastures, other components of the programme are quite different from previous policies, insofar as they seek to remove pastoralists from the land entirely. This dramatically different form has been implemented in the core area of the Sanjiangyuan (%26ldquo;the source of the three rivers%26rdquo;) National-level Nature Reserve in Qinghai, a region which has been dubbed China%26rsquo;s %26ldquo;water tower,%26rdquo; and is considered vital to the country%26rsquo;s ecological security. Here, tuimu huancao is being implemented in conjunction with ecological migration, with herders to settle for 10 years, or permanently, in towns.

According to provincial government plans, those who resettle voluntarily in groups and who permanently give up livestock herding are to be given 80,000 yuan (US$11,718) as compensation, as well as 8,000 yuan (US$1,172) of grain subsidies over five years; those who voluntarily resettle as individual households and who give up herding for at least 10 years are given 40,000 yuan (US$5,859) and 6,000 yuan (US$879) as grain subsidies; and finally herders who had moved ahead of project implementation because of deteriorating environmental conditions are to receive 20,000 yuan (US$2,930) compensation packages and 3,000 yuan (US$439) of grain subsidies per year.

Several different goals have been linked to the combination of tuimu huancao and ecological migration: a significant improvement in the region%26rsquo;s ecology, as well as the standard of living of the pastoralists. Furthermore, the State Council%26rsquo;s %26ldquo;White Paper on China%26rsquo;s Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change%26rdquo; explicitly lists tuimu huancao as a climate adaptation strategy. To what extent, though, are these goals likely to be met? Evidence to date suggests that the ecological benefits are questionable while the social costs are high.

For tuimu huancao and ecological migration to improve grassland degradation in any given area, several conditions must hold true: grasslands must be degraded; overgrazing must be a primary cause of the problem; and removal of grazing must be able to move the ecosystem out of its undesirable state. However, a number of scientists (for example, see Richard Harris, %26ldquo;Rangeland Degradation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau%26rdquo;, available here) have questioned sweeping statements about pervasive degradation across the plateau. Indeed, some of the data on which commonly cited statistics about the extent of degradation and the rate at which it is increasing is based, appear to be from undocumented and methodologically dubious surveys.

Recent attempts to more rigorously quantify the extent of degradation have had conflicting results. Thus, while overgrazing in the past or present is undoubtedly a key driver of vegetation change in some areas, other factors such as climate change %26ndash; and interactions between multiple factors %26ndash; may also play important roles. To date, few rigorous studies have been conducted to investigate these multiple interacting factors, or the extent to which ecosystems can transition to other states under conditions imposed by various interventions. Much work remains to be done in demonstrating the ecological effects of grazing removal in areas where it is being implemented.

Furthermore, there are reasons to believe that tuimu huancao in its various forms will not be a win-win solution for both rangeland health and climate-change adaptation. Large-scale boundary fencing, together with use-rights privatisation, reduces mobility across the landscape. (Although small-scale fencing for reserve pasture or fodder production is generally welcome). This could potentially increase vulnerability to devastating snowstorms, which climate-change models predict will become more frequent and severe. In addition, such fencing can have negative effects for migratory wildlife, as well as for local livelihoods, as a result of the uneven spatial distribution of rangeland resources.

A study conducted by Chinese scientists in Sichuan%26rsquo;s Ruo%26rsquo;ergai county found that the number of herders facing lack of water availability tripled after household rangeland allocation. (See Yan Zhaoli et al, %26ldquo;A review of rangeland privatization and its implications in the Tibetan Plateau%26rdquo;, available here). Furthermore, recent ecological evidence from warming and grazing experiments on the eastern Tibetan plateau suggests that the presence of moderate grazing actually helps control the expected effects of global warming on reduction of biodiversity and rangeland quality. Experimental warming leads to decreased species richness, including of medicinal plants, as well as decreased biomass, including palatable biomass. However, these effects are dampened in the presence of grazing (see articles by Julia Klein, available here). These results suggest tuimu huancao may not be adaptive for climate change.

Studies to date of those who have been resettled through ecological migration also suggest that the benefits of resettlement for improving the livelihoods of herders are overstated. Some who have voluntarily resettled have expressed regrets about doing so, saying they did not realise the extent to which everything in their new town-based lives must be purchased with cash. For many families, government compensation has been inadequate, especially as inflation drives up costs while subsidies remain the same. In one study conducted in Golok, the annual income of those resettled in towns was reportedly lower than their earlier subsistence income, while expenditures were higher; those interviewed also stated that their health conditions had declined after resettlement, because of changes in living conditions as well as diet.

Contributing significantly to the problems is the fact that the Tibetan ex-pastoralists do not have Chinese language and other skills needed to earn an income in the towns. While some are employed as unskilled construction labourers, or have found work in new income opportunities, such as breeding and selling Tibetan mastiffs, most are subsisting only on temporary subsidies and income from digging caterpillar fungus.

Those who do not have the labour power to dig caterpillar fungus are the worst off. Participants of skills training workshops have often still been unable to find work. Once subsidies run out, problems stemming from this unemployment and under-employment will be exacerbated. Indeed, social problems have already emerged, with resettlement areas quickly earning nicknames such as %26ldquo;robber villages,%26rdquo; purportedly because former pastoralists, idle and without income, have resorted to theft.

At the same time, in many parts of the Sanjiangyuan area, it is primarily those families with few or no livestock who have resettled. Some of their pastures are still being grazed by other families, thus undermining the original ecological rationales of the program. Given all of these factors, in many areas, tuimu huancao and ecological migration seem unlikely to be successful in living up to their worthy environmental and social goals. Instead, they may neither improve rangeland conditions nor enhance climate adaptation, while also having negative effects on local livelihoods.

However, much more rigorous empirical work remains to be done to examine the causes and extent of rangeland degradation, the socioeconomic and ecological effects of current policies, and the best measures to enhance local capacity to adapt to global climate change on the Tibetan plateau.

Emily Yeh is assistant professor of geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Educated at MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, she has conducted research on property rights, natural resource conflicts, environmental history, emerging environmentalisms and the political economy and cultural politics of development and land-use change in Tibet.

Homepage image by Ba Tu. Sign in Inner Mongolia reads tuimu, or %26ldquo;retire livestock%26rdquo;.

The history of the forced removal of the Lakota Sioux from their lands, while it seems to have happened long ago, is vibrantly alive for the Indians living on the reservation today. Many of them can tell stories of how their parents were sent to faraway boarding schools and taught that their culture was inferior. The ban on Lakota culture and language was lifted only in 1971, well within the memory of many living adults.

The profound cultural trauma that these people have experienced has left many of them deeply hopeless and without a clear sense of their own future or destiny as a nation. Everywhere I went during a week I spent on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, I heard again the stories of the treaty of 1868, of the massacre at Wounded Knee, and of the theft of the sacred Black Hills which are held to be the origin of the Lakota people. I experienced the profound mistrust of outsiders, particularly white people. And I witnessed among some residents a sense of defeat far more profound than any I have observed in all my travels in less developed countries throughout the world.

On the reservation today, the only truly successful business is a gambling casino called Prairie Winds (Native Americans are exempt from state prohibitions on organised gambling). Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, many of those who lose money are themselves Native Americans. There is talk of developing wind power; so far these conversations have not led to substantial results. While there is also talk of oil and mineral resources, the Indians will not permit the sacred lands to be scarred with mines, and in a case of %26ldquo;environmental injustice%26rdquo;, new uranium mines off the reservation threaten to taint downstream Indian rivers with radioactive materials.

There are signs of hope, but these are few: two Native American brothers have been appointed to lead the Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore. An image of the great Indian warrior Crazy Horse is being carved a few miles away from the images of the US presidents. A sacred Black Hills mountain, Bear Butte, is being closed to non-Indians during times when rituals are most important, although its peace is also gravely threatened by the opening of a nearby rifle range, and the bars, campgrounds, and concert venues have greatly offended the local tribes.

A college, the Oglala Lakota College, has been opened on the reservation, where it offers advanced degrees in Lakota studies, nursing, business, information science, social work and other relevant fields. A %26ldquo;Lakotafund%26rdquo; has been created to extend micro-credit to small businesses such as beadwork and other traditional handicrafts. Some who have left the reservation to pursue advanced degrees and learn skills in other parts of the country have returned to try to make a contribution back home.

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, the National Museum of the American Indian, established in 1989 by an act of Congress in an effort to acknowledge the great wrong of our history, is managed by Native Americans, whose greatest desire is to convey the message that %26ldquo;we%26rsquo;re still here%26rdquo;. Whether the US president, Barack Obama, will encourage Congress to revisit the great question of ownership of the Black Hills, and whether there are symbolic measures that could be taken to help move the Sioux nation toward healing, remains to be seen.

What, then, are we to take as lessons from this horrific story, and what might be relevant for Chinese policy makers today? First, it is worth reflecting on the relationship between resources, land, nation-building, and power %26ndash; and reflecting seriously on the question of how to build a strong, prosperous nation while safeguarding justice for all citizens. Sometimes rigorous introspection and honesty may be required to discover whether one is using cultural superiority and stereotyping as a way to rationalise the seizure of other people%26rsquo;s land. In this case, resource extraction was a primary motivation for seizing Indians%26rsquo; land, but it was often cloaked in rhetoric about doing what was best for the Indians.

Second, good intentions can sometimes be highly destructive. The American missionaries and civilisers truly believed that in forbidding the use of Lakota language and the practice of Lakota customs they were doing the right thing %26ndash; even, perhaps, saving the Indians%26rsquo; %26ldquo;souls%26rdquo; and allowing them to find a place in heaven by converting them to Christianity. However, the deprivation of identity and pride has turned out to be devastating for the native people, who are now trying to recover some of their traditions by reviving rituals such as the Sun Dance and to re-learn their language in native-run schools.

Third, modern technologies such as the gun, the road and the railroad, and foreign diseases such as smallpox, were highly destructive to the native peoples, and created an %26ldquo;uneven playing field%26rdquo; such that the native peoples had little chance of preserving their way of life. As environmental historians such as Jared Diamond and Alfred Crosby teach us, the outcome of this sort of clash of cultures can be determined as much by technology, disease and introduced species as by more conventional measures of military superiority.

Fourth, one of the high prices of civilisation and resource extraction is often environmental degradation and ecosystem transformation. Instead of the buffalo, passenger pigeon and tall grass prairie, the central United States saw desertification and dust storms, especially in the 1920s, a heavy and enduring price to pay for our overly enthusiastic grazing and farming practices.

Finally, indigenous peoples%26rsquo; knowledge, while often not expressed in ways that modern %26ldquo;science%26rdquo; can hear and respect, nonetheless often can point the way toward more sustainable relationships with the land. Although some have warned against romanticising Native American wisdom and called %26ldquo;the ecological Indian%26rdquo; a myth, it is undeniable that the Sioux elders predicted that in the wasteful and over-consuming way of the white man lay ecological disaster.

I hope that this cautionary tale of the Pine Ridge Sioux provides fruit for reflection and discussion. Although there are obviously great historical differences between the United States and China, we have much to learn from each other, especially at this time when the gaps in our economic and social development are decreasing and we are coming more and more to resemble each other.

Judith Shapiro is director of the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development MA Program at the School of International Service, American University, Washington DC.

Homepage image by Serge Van Cauwenbergh

The Lakota, a division of other Sioux nations including Dakota and Nakota, were once a nomadic people who roamed prairies and plains, hunting buffalo over a vast area stretching from Wisconsin to the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, north into Canada, and south to Kansas.

Tribal legends traced their origins to the Black Hills of today%26rsquo;s South Dakota, and these mountains, where white people eventually carved the images of four US presidents into Mount Rushmore, are among the seized territories that are most profoundly regretted and contested in the US court system today.

The Lakota, the largest group of Sioux, were further subdivided into bands including the Oglala, Hunkpapa, and five others. When the reservations were established, all Indians had to %26ldquo;enroll%26rdquo; in a tribe, and today the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is the home to the Oglala Sioux.

The traditional diet consisted of buffalo, a lean, high-protein food, supplemented by wild turnips, chokecherries, and a few domesticated vegetables, such as corn and squash, acquired through trade with other tribes. Early contact with white people rested primarily on the fur trade; Fort Laramie was built in 1834 to facilitate the trade in buffalo hides after the beaver had been trapped-out. French-descended fur traders intermarried with the Indians and produced %26ldquo;half-breed%26rdquo; children, who served as interpreters and facilitated further fruitful contacts between whites and the Sioux.

By the mid-nineteenth century, however, buffalo began to disappear as whites armed with guns slaughtered them en masse in order to harvest their tongues, which were considered a delicacy. This deeply offended the Indians, who used every bit of the animal for food, shelter, clothing, and religious ritual. The Oregon Trail toward the Pacific Northwest passed through Fort Laramie and the influx of whites threatened Lakota sovereignty and livelihood.

A series of battles ended with the famous treaty of 1868, in which the United States recognised the entire western half of South Dakota (which included the Black Hills) as the Great Sioux Reservation as well as eastern Wyoming as %26ldquo;unceded Indian territory.%26rdquo; No Americans were to be allowed into these areas except to trade and conduct government business. Importantly, no changes were to be permitted to the treaty unless three-quarters of all adult Indian males signed and, today, court challenges to subsequent US seizures of Indian lands rest on this provision, since the signatures on documents that subsequently modified the treaty were incomplete.

As more gold was confirmed through General George Armstrong Custer%26rsquo;s famous 1874 expedition, the United States tried to purchase the Black Hills, and an enormous gold rush began. The Indians refused to sell, for they had no concept of land ownership; the leader Black Hawk commented, for example, %26ldquo;My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away.%26rdquo;

The Indians were pressured to relocate. Many of them did so, as the buffalo were nearly gone and there was little hunting. The US Army then ordered all Indians to go to their %26ldquo;agencies%26rdquo; or reservation centres, and those who refused were labelled as %26ldquo;hostile%26rdquo;. A series of %26ldquo;Powder River%26rdquo; skirmishes culminated in the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn against General Custer, which made leaders such as Crazy Horse famous. This was the last major victory for the Indians and the beginning of a precipitous decline in their fortunes.

In 1877, the Indians were forced, through starvation induced by the withholding of rations, to give up the Black Hills. Even then, most refused to sign the new treaty, and only one-tenth of the signatures were obtained, not the required three-quarters. By 1878, Pine Ridge and other reservations were well established, and later agreements forced upon the Indians permitted immigrant farmers and miners to colonise other parts of Indian lands.

The remaining patchwork of Indian reservations is but a shadow of the territory originally promised in the peace treaty of 1868. The buffalo have been decimated, the tall-grass prairies that once stood as high as a man%26rsquo;s shoulders has gone to desert through overgrazing and farming, the last of the passenger pigeons, which once darkened the skies for days through their great migrations, died in 1914 in a zoo. In the name of modernisation and the founding of a %26ldquo;New World%26rdquo; based on what were believed to be limitless resources, the ecosystems of the great American plains were utterly and irretrievably transformed.

By the late-nineteenth century, then, the Sioux Indians had lost all trace of their traditional hunting lifestyle. Their livelihood was gone, they were forbidden to pursue nomadic ways, and they were forced into complete dependency on the government for food, as legal wards of the state.

In the last years of the century, in what was perhaps a symptom of the profundity of the cultural depression, a prophetic mystical movement spread all over Indian lands, sparked by a visionary named Wovoka, a Paiute Indian. His vision was that Indians should dance a %26ldquo;Ghost Dance%26rdquo; that would revive their dead ancestors, bring back the buffalo, and remove the whites from America. The Oglala Lakota Sioux adopted this vision with fervour and added the idea that wearing a special %26ldquo;Ghost Shirt%26rdquo; would protect the wearer from white people%26rsquo;s bullets.

By 1890, hundreds of Indians were dancing. The whites panicked and tried to ban the dance, and the famous spiritual leader Sitting Bull, a supporter of the dance was killed. Tensions mounted, leaving some Indians to move into the badlands, where they were stopped by members of the 7th US Cavalry. Eventually, Chief Big Foot surrendered, and the group was escorted back toward Pine Ridge Reservation. As they camped at Wounded Knee Creek, shots were fired. Believing that the ghost shirts would protect them, the Indians failed to protect themselves and a great massacre of hundreds of Indian men, women and children took place. The December 29, 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee is considered the end of Indian efforts to resist the white man, and the beginning of more than a century of grief and loss of cultural identity.

Americanisation and forcible assimilation followed. Well-meaning missionaries from different Christian sects were assigned Indian reservations so they would not need to compete with each other; the Episcopal Church received rights to Pine Ridge when president Ulysses S Grant installed religious clergymen as government agents (thus departing from the principle of separation of church and state). Believing that they were doing the right thing for the poor heathens, they taught that their religion was best and the Indians were ignorant devil worshippers. They took Indian children out of the reservation to faraway boarding schools, where their long braids were cut and they were taught that their parents were savages. Children were forbidden to speak Lakota language in school. Eventually, many Indians internalised the message that their culture was inferior and developed a profound self-loathing that psychologists recognize as a form of massive cultural trauma.

Traditional government was replaced by that of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), which hired cooperative Oglala to enforce white people%26rsquo;s laws. Although land was supposed to be assigned to Indians, the Indians, as noted above, did not have a concept of land ownership and much of the land was tricked away from them. Subsequent generational claims made land-tenure rights impossibly complicated.

There were further twists in the history when, in 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act allowed tribes to write constitutions and the BIA stopped suppressing local culture. This policy changed once again in the 1950s, when the US government temporarily pursued a policy of %26ldquo;termination%26rdquo; or ending tribal life and encouraging relocation out of the reservation to other cities in the United States. Few Indians were equipped with the skills necessary to make it and most eventually returned to %26ldquo;the rez%26rdquo;.

Today, Indian males have little function as they are completely dependent on the government. Families have no tradition of going to work and holding jobs. The lands that they have been given are relatively unfertile and lacking in natural resources; the Black Hills lands, rich in minerals, were seized and in any case traditional Sioux beliefs would have forbidden digging into the earth. Tribal governments do not hold real power, but they are nonetheless factionalised and corrupt. In the 1960s, a militant group called the American Indian Movement embarked on a struggle against corrupt conservatives who were running the reservation. They marched to Washington and took over the BIA for several days; when they returned to the reservation, violent skirmishes among factions ended in a 1973 four-month standoff against Federal marshals on the site of the old Wounded Knee Massacre. Bitterness over these events lingers even today.

In 1975, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act allowed for greater self-government, including the right of Indians to run their own police force and to control the schools. Meanwhile, lawsuits pursuing land claims under the treaty of 1868 made their way all the way to the US Supreme Court, which ruled in 1980 that the Indians were entitled to compensation for the theft of their land, plus interest. They handed down a monetary judgment for the US$17 million (116 million yuan) initial offering price, plus interest, which today amounts to more than US$400 million.(2.7 billion yuan).

However, the Sioux have refused to accept the money, arguing that their land is not for sale and that they were not properly represented by their attorneys. To this day, many Lakota argue for the return of the Black Hills under the terms of the treaty of 1868 and continue to pursue legal and diplomatic avenues to get back their lands.

Judith Shapiro is director of the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development MA Program at the School of International Service, American University, Washington DC.

NEXT: A lesson for China?

Homepage image from Wikipedia shows the Battle of Little Big Horn.

In its current phase of rapid development, China often looks to the experience of western countries for inspiration. The development and nature-conquest of the western United States is sometimes seen as a model for China%26rsquo;s %26ldquo;Develop the West%26rdquo; campaign. The environmental clean-up that occurred after the western industrial revolution is often mentioned to defend China%26rsquo;s environmental crisis, in the hope that the emerging Chinese middle class will press for an %26ldquo;environmental Kuznets curve%26rdquo;.

However, using the west as a model for economic development and environmental restoration can be a grave mistake. In the United States, such development came at great cost for indigenous peoples and for the environment, damage that cannot be undone. The great wealth of the United States rests on an %26ldquo;original sin%26rdquo; of the theft of lands and resources of the millions of Native Americans who lived in America when white settlers arrived.

Today, legal challenges to that theft are still being contested in the courts, while the social and economic problems of the Indians who have been so profoundly victimised over the last two centuries remain an enduring stain on US honour and integrity and are a heavy and painful historical legacy. These injustices haunt our nation and cannot easily be rectified. Emerging economies aspiring to join a global community of civilised nations should learn from America%26rsquo;s errors.

A core theme of US experience in developing the west is the forcible relocation of Native Americans through atrocities such as the 1831 %26ldquo;Trail of Tears%26rdquo;, during which the Choctaw, Cherokee, Seminole and other nations were moved from the south-eastern part of the United States to what is today%26rsquo;s Oklahoma, thousands of Indians dying from disease and starvation along the way.

During the nineteenth century and early-twentieth century, the systematic effort to weaken and destroy Native Americans was official national policy. In the mid-nineteenth century, battles wiped out entire populations, including women and children, while %26ldquo;bounty hunters%26rdquo; were rewarded for each Indian scalp they produced. Other strategies involved eradication of traditional food animals such as the buffalo, theft and slaughter of horses (the Indians%26rsquo; transportation for hunting and defence), and the deliberate introduction of smallpox.

Later, after the defeated Indians were squeezed into reservations, Native American children were forced into boarding schools where they were forbidden to practice their own cultural traditions or speak their native languages. The natives were gradually relocated into smaller and smaller plots of inferior land until the territory that they retained was only a tiny fraction of their former empires. The story is long, painful and twisted. Many promises were made and broken, many treaties signed and abrogated. As the Sioux leader Red Cloud said, famously, %26ldquo;They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land and they took it.%26rdquo;

This is a classic story of colonisation and imperial expansion. Political scientists say that states expand their territories in order to capture access to resources, to gain territory for excess populations, and to secure markets for trade. The story of the Lakota Sioux is just that, a struggle over land and resources that changed as new resources such as gold and uranium were discovered on lands formerly conceded to the Indians.

A huge population wave of white settlers travelling from the east in search of new lives ultimately doomed the Indians, leaving Red Cloud to comment in 1870, %26ldquo;The white children have surrounded me and left nothing but an island. When we first had this land we were strong, but now are melting like snow on a hillside, while you are grown like spring grass.%26rdquo; He further begged, futilely, %26ldquo;I have two mountains, Paha Sapa (Black Hills) and the Big Horn Mountains. I want the father (president) to make no roads through them.%26rdquo;

This is also a story of cultural genocide as white people, who claimed that they knew what was best for the %26ldquo;uncivilised%26rdquo; and %26ldquo;savage%26rdquo; nomadic peoples, forced the Indians into reservations, where they were made to give up their hunting culture. Above all it is a story which has resulted in six generations of complete dependency on the US government, decimation of tradition and identity and deep problems of unemployment, alcoholism, gangs, depression, factionalised tribal leadership and unfulfilled longing for justice and a return to former glory.

While I may seem critical or even biased, the US Supreme Court validated these criticisms in its 1980 decision on restitution for the illegal taking of the Black Hills, and the broad outlines of this history are commonly accepted. Unfortunately, many young Americans are not taught this history in their schools and many Indians today feel as if they are forgotten or invisible.

The Lakota Sioux were moved to reservations in South Dakota, in the mid-western United States, after lengthy struggles of resistance. I spent a week on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in May 2009 with a group of American University students seeking to understand efforts to improve the lives of the local people. The 13,000 square-kilometre reservation was created in 1889, and is the second largest Indian reservation in the United States. Pine Ridge is larger than the state of Connecticut, in the east of the country, and has a population estimated at more than 30,000, though the official figure is only 19,000 because many are homeless or avoid the census-taker.

The reservation is today one of the poorest places in the country, with an average annual income of only about US$3,000 (20,500 yuan) per capita, and its people are faced with social and economic problems as profound as any to be found in the developing world.

The teen suicide rate is among the highest in the nation, twice the national average; infant mortality is 300 times the national average; diabetes and tuberculosis rates are eight times the national average; alcoholism is rampant despite the ban on liquor within reservation boundaries, and unemployment is at 85%. Life expectancy for a male living on the reservation is only 46 years and for a female it is 49. Many homes have no running water or electricity, and racist violence is routine in neighboring towns and in Rapid City, the nearest large town. Although the tribal government is supposed to be %26ldquo;autonomous%26rdquo;, major decisions are controlled by the federal government%26rsquo;s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

Dislocations from native lands and transformations of familiar landscapes were important ingredients in creating the deep social problems that the reserve faces today.

Judith Shapiro is director of the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development MA Program at the School of International Service, American University, Washington DC.

NEXT: The consequences of displacement.

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Homepage image by Sage shows a reservation flag.

[Download Kenneth Hewitt's full report here]

Glaciers and their immediate environs present many dangers for humans, such as crevasses and glacier mills into which one might fall, heavily crevassed ice falls, snow and ice avalanches from the side walls and, along the flanks, dumping of great boulders, ponding and floods from melt water. For these reasons, there are hardly ever permanent settlements on or right beside the ice. These are hazards mainly to mountaineers, hunters, travellers and military expeditions. The more serious dangers arise from processes in the glacial environment that may extend their impacts beyond existing glacial areas. The more serious tend to involve ponding of water that leads to glacial outburst floods, or releases that generate debris flows.

Heavily debris-covered ice, Panmah Glacier Central Karakoram, around 4,000 metres above sea level. Note that even the heaviest debris on active ice is rarely more than 2 metres thick. The relief of mounds and cones is almost entirely ice cored and the debris is constantly shifting around. (Photograph/Kenneth Hewitt, June 2009)

The risk of glacier lake outburst floods has received particular attention in other parts of the Himalaya, notably Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet. In Nepal, some 25 glacial lake outburst floods have been recorded since the 1930s, with especially destructive events in 1985 and 1991. Bhutan also has a number of dangerous lakes, one of which burst with disastrous consequences in 1994. Reports suggest all of these lakes and the triggers for outburst floods are related to climate warming and glacier retreat. There is also a history of such outburst floods from Karakoram glaciers. However, the problem here is also very different from that recently reported elsewhere in the Himalayas. In particular, the most serious threats involve, specifically, much larger impoundments by short-lived, unstable ice dams. Crucially, all recorded examples have been associated with advancing glaciers.

In fact, the Karakoram presents two rather different groups of outburst floods. The most frequent are relatively local events. Collectively, they threaten dozens if not hundreds of small settlements in the higher valleys and examples occur in most years. They involve a wide variety of dam compositions, forms and outburst types, including ice, moraine, and mixed-barriers. Conversion of outburst floods into debris flows is quite common, usually the more severe risk. For the upper Indus, these are the only types of damaging outburst floods reported in the past several decades. Moreover, they occur whether glaciers are advancing, retreating and relatively stable. Conversely, the larger Karakoram dams involve impoundment of a main river valley by a relatively large tributary glacier. Most important, in the present context, these dams only form from a vigorous forward push of the ice.

A series of ice margin lakes along Nobonde Sobande arm of Panmah Glacier, central Karakoram seen from Drenmang (4,500 metres above sea level). Some are behind old lateral moraines, others ponded against the edges of active ice. The glacier is about two kilometres wide here and 10 kilometres of the main ice stream are visible. (Photograph/Kenneth Hewitt 1994)

More than 60 glaciers of intermediate-to-large size (10 kilometres to 65 kilometres in length) have a history of advancing into and interfering with tributaries of the upper Indus and Yarkand rivers. Not all are known to have created actual dams, but at least 30 have done so and involved outburst floods of exceptional size and destructiveness. However, while there have been several large dams recently on the Shaksgam, on the Indus the last major ice dam was in 1933. %26ldquo;Major%26rdquo; refers to outburst floods that were large enough to register hundreds of kilometres downstream at the river gauge at Attock, where the river leaves the mountains.

The most urgent questions today involve some Karakoram valleys whose glaciers created ice dams and catastrophic outburst floods in the past and that are advancing right now. Will they impound the rivers again? Three locations require special attention; the Shaksgam, upper Shyok and Shimshal valleys.

The Shaksgam is a tributary of the upper Yarkand. According to satellite imagery, five glaciers that have formed ice dams in the past are advancing at present. One of them, the Kyagar, has created several recent dams. An outburst from the one in 1999 caused severe damages along the lower Yarkand River in Kashgar district. In the summer of 2009, Kyagar again impounded the river and a 3.5 kilometre-long lake was formed. Fortunately it drained slowly but was close to dimensions that have led to disastrous floods in the past. There were great difficulties in obtaining satellite coverage and scientists were unable to visit the site and monitor the lake so as to predict its behaviour. This raises serious issues about what would have happened if a large outburst had occurred, and what will happen in future cases. It seems a new impoundment will form at Kyagar in 2010, and the four other glaciers are across or entering the river and may impound it.

The terminus of Yazghil Glacier, north-west Karakoram, where it enters the Shimshal River. This is one of several Karakoram glaciers on the upper Indus and upper Yarkand Rivers that have caused ice dams and glacier outburst floods in the past, and are presently advancing across the rivers. (Photograph/Kenneth Hewitt July, 1998)

On the Indus, three glaciers in Shimshal and three on the upper Shyok, that have formed ice dams in the past, began advancing about a decade ago. They have not yet reached positions where a dam could form, but could do so quite soon. Historically, the most dangerous have been the Chong Khumdan and Kitchik Khumdan on the Shyok. In 2009, satellite imagery revealed a sudden and large increase in thickness of the Chong Khumdan, and advance of its terminus into the river. Between 1926 and 1932, this glacier formed a series of large ice dams. At least four outburst floods were reported that caused appreciable rises in the river 1,100 kilometres away at Attock.

The 1929 event was the largest on record, and did great damage throughout the mountains and to the Indus Plains. The lake reached over 15 kilometres in length but drained in less than 24 hours. The Kitchik Khumdan also formed large ice dams in the nineteenth century, and its terminus is back in the river and has advanced across the river which passes beneath the ice. However, 2009 satellite imagery suggests it is beginning to waste back again. Conversely, its immediate neighbour the Aqtash Glacier which has also formed dams in the past advanced across the river in 2008 and 2009 and seems to be advancing very rapidly.

These glaciers highlight problems of security and the legacies of conflicts that exist in many parts of High Asia. They are in a militarised zone disputed by China, India and Pakistan. Apparently the Khumdan glaciers fall under the control of Chinese forces, but the dangers from the outburst floods are primarily in Indian and, especially, Pakistan-controlled areas. Given existing tensions, including the India-Pakistan %26ldquo;war%26rdquo; on the Siachen Glacier nearby, it is unclear how necessary studies, monitoring and warning systems can be set up.

Other hazardous phenomena

The focus here has been on glaciers, but it needs emphasising there is a range of cold climate or cryosphere phenomena that may become hazardous through climate change. Communities, infrastructure and related activities confront changes in snowfall, snow-on-the-ground and permafrost, specifically ground ice. They will also be affected by changes in distribution and intensities of freeze-thaw, the quantities and timing of surface and ground waters and their quality (water temperatures, turbidity and dissolved matter, for instance).

The accumulation zone of Biafo Glacier near Hispar Pass (5,150 metres), showing the development of cornices along ridge lines due to wind action, avalanched steep walls and heavy build up of snow on gentler slopes. (Photograph/Kenneth Hewitt, June 1999)

The entire mountain area is covered by seasonal snowfall, varying in duration and depth with elevation. Its melting provides about half of stream flows in an average year. Permafrost %26ndash; perennially frozen ground %26ndash; at intermediate altitudes is much more extensive than glaciers and includes hundreds of ice-cored rock glaciers. Freeze-thaw cycles affect even larger areas, as do erosion and deposition forms created by snow avalanches. All of these are affected by climate change. Their responses interact physically, and in ways that modify the scope or significance of glacier-related risks.

High elevation conditions on Karakoram glaciers: rockwalls, ice falls, avalanches of Broad Peak (8,050 metres), part of the watershed of Baltoro Glacier. (Photograph/Kenneth Hewitt, 2005)

Retreating glaciers and warming permafrost are associated with destabilised slopes. They can lead directly to landslides, or reduce the strength thresholds for, and the likelihood or size of, slope failures due to earthquakes or storms, which trigger most of the more destructive landslide events. For example, a dangerous landslide occurred on January 4, which blocked the Hunza River in the central Karakoram and probably involved destabilisation by changing moisture and temperature conditions in the slopes. The lake has already grown to 5.5 kilometres in length, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents. Moreover, the lake behind a similar landslide dam in 1858, immediately upstream of the present one, lasted seven months then burst with catastrophic effects all the way to the Indus plains. Meanwhile, slopes exposed by reduced ice or snow cover may dry out and become useless. Conversely, some may also become vegetated and economically useful for timber, firewood, for pastoralists and even for cultivation.

The more immediate glacier hazards and response needs in the region involve communities and activities in the high mountains. Only the Andean highlands rival inner Asia in the numbers and diversity of settlements close to and at direct risk from glacier change. However, for the broader national and international contexts, the major issues raised concern water resources and their reliability.

Some caution is needed here. A commonplace of recent reports is to say that the lives and livelihoods of in excess of 1.5 billion people are critically dependent upon the glaciers in the headwaters of the largest Asian rivers. This is a misleading generalisation. Yes, such are the numbers of people living in river basins with tributaries coming from glacierised mountains. However, in most cases the glaciers are a tiny part of the river flows, notably in the most heavily populated areas of China, India and the south-east Asian mainland.

Snowfall affects much vaster areas than the glacier cover, and is more critical. For the vast majority of these populations, rainfall and ground waters are far more important than snowfall. Glacier change can have impacts on these other parts of the hydrological cycle or may compound changes in them, but the processes are mostly indirect and too poorly known to make such generalisations. Whether and how far there are significant risks for most of these populations, even from the %26ldquo;disappearing%26rdquo; glaciers%26rsquo; scenario, is far from certain.

The Indus and Yarkand basins do involve large populations directly, or potentially, dependent on the glaciers. Even here, however, there have been exaggerated or misleading claims. Yes, glacier melt waters comprise more than one-third of the flow of the main stem of the Indus, snow and ice together providing over two-thirds. It has the largest ratio of melt water to population of any river, anywhere in the world. At the moment, however, nearly all the glacial melt water goes to the sea. It happens to coincide with the heavy monsoonal rains, making flooding the greater problem, and Pakistan lacks the capacity to store much or any of the melt waters at that time.

More exactly, the key roles of glacier melt waters have little to do with the total size of the ice cover, total melt water yields, or trends. Rather they turn upon demand in just a few weeks of the year and, in rare, extreme cases when the winter rains or monsoon are very weak, poorly timed, or fail. Even for Pakistan, the main dangers for the country as a whole are, therefore, potential rather than actual, and not so much in relation to glacier change as to planned and possible water resource developments. These seem to be being undertaken with inadequate understanding and assessment of how climate and glacier fluctuations will affect them.

This will become increasingly acute for all countries of the region and raise important transboundary concerns. There are the huge commitments being made now, to hydroelectric power, irrigation, urbanisation and other developments for which water from snow and ice will become increasingly crucial. More than 100 existing dams depend partly on glacial melt waters. Several hundred more, and some of great size, are under construction or planned for China, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan.

Given the present state of monitoring and scientific understanding, it is hard to believe any of these have adequate or accurate assessments of climate- and glacier-change impacts. For the Karakoram it is of singular concern to determine whether, as global warming continues, there will be a return to glacier retreat as some believe, or if the factors responsible for the present advances will intensify. Either way, there are serious implications for how communities in Pakistan, China and India, especially, are affected and need to respond.

The importance of climate change is not in doubt, but research and policies should be based on actual evidence. Where unavailable, that should be acknowledged, not %26ndash; as has happened with glacier change in the Karakoram %26ndash; simply replaced by supposition based on developments or models from elsewhere. Much of what is being said fails to recognise the patchiness of past research in space and time, and a nearly-total absence of glacier monitoring at elevations where the most critical ice and climate changes occur.

The limited evidence surely reflects, in part, the sheer scale, diversity and logistical difficulties of scientific work in much of the region. Now, as more resources become available to investigate these problems, it is important to identify what sorts of information are needed, where and how they can be best obtained. Science and information systems and regional cooperation need to address the complexity and diversity of the greater Himalayan region. Some practical suggestions being promoted by new programmes include the following:

* To set up improved monitoring systems that combine remotely sensed and automatic station measurements with ground control related to basic glaciological and hydrological research;

* To expand comprehensive, multi-disciplinary research that addresses environmental and cultural complexities in the region;

* To pursue regional cooperation in data sharing, risk and resource assessments; and

* To actively involve local communities in the mountains, so that their ecological knowledge and practical concerns inform understanding and help to shape appropriate development.

Kenneth Hewitt is professor emeritus in geography and environmental studies and research associate at the Cold Regions Research Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada.

Homepage image by Kenneth Hewitt shows icefalls descending to the main glacier at Kaberi-Kondus Glacier, east-central Karakoram in 1998

[Download Kenneth Hewitt's full report here]

China%26rsquo;s National Audit Office (NAO) recently published a report on the last seven years of efforts to deal with pollution in the Liao, Hai and Huai rivers and the Tai, Chao and Dianchi lakes, known collectively as the %26ldquo;three rivers and three lakes%26rdquo;. According to the report, 91 billion yuan (US$13.3 billion) in government investment and bank loans was spent between 2001 and 2007 on 8,201 separate water-pollution projects, including environmental infrastructure in urban areas in the river and lake basins, ecological construction and general improvements. Yet the water quality remains very poor.

Almost 100 billion yuan were spent and 515 million yuan (US$75 million) were wasted on false reports and embezzlement. The ecological crisis, the public suffering and the constantly changing plans for megacities along these rivers and lakes all make one fear for the future of China%26rsquo;s environment and its cities.

I started researching the pollution of Dianchi Lake, in Yunnan province, as an investigative journalist and later completed a doctoral thesis on the matter, looking at the lake from an ecological and anthropological perspective. I focus on the paradoxes and conceptual risks at the heart of how China handles the ecological crisis %26ndash; in particular, the costs of foresight. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck was the first to propose the concept of the risk society, where decisions increasingly produce unforeseen future hazards. These hazards proliferate and can eventually overwhelm safety systems. A nation may fall into crisis due to a loss of foresight.

The NAO said that management of the rivers and lakes had failed because of inadequacies in these areas: environmental examination and approval; environmental compensation; water pollution statistics; assessment indices; implementation of pollution control plans; enforcement of environmental law; and treatment of urban waste-water. It also pointed to a lack of environmental concern in economic development zones.

But none of these are the crux of the issue. Faced with an unprecedented environmental crisis, the real danger arises from a contradiction between awareness and systems. The systems that exist for managing and investing in the environment perpetuate the pollution.

For instance, the authorities in charge of Dianchi Lake decided to bring water in from the Jinsha River to help control pollution in the lake and water shortages in the city of Kunming. By 2010, Kunming%26rsquo;s population will reach nearly 3.5 million, by 2020 almost five million; the urban area will expand from 201.5 to 470 square kilometres. Meanwhile, Yunnan%26rsquo;s government is working on creating a megacity, one part of which is the idea of a third land bridge between Asia and Europe. This %26ldquo;bridge%26rdquo; would run from China%26rsquo;s eastern port city of Shenzhen, through Kunming to Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. It would end up in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, after passing through 21 different cities %26ndash; a distance of around 15,000 kilometres (3,000 kilometres shorter than the sea route).

Yunnan %26ndash; a water-poor, inland province, with a rich yet fragile ecology %26ndash; has not yet developed an effective or intelligent environmental management system. Nor have policy-makers thought about how to create sustainable cities for the province, preferring to simply propose expansion. Hence long-term plans about land bridges and megacities are unpersuasive.

In dealing with pollution, solving social issues created by urbanisation and searching for sustainable modes of development, there is still a tendency to focus on technological fixes. But these do not clarify our plans for the future of cities or necessarily make them more scientific or advanced %26ndash; in fact, they often continue to create problems.

This lack of foresight means that many areas in need of assistance have become host to manoeuvring by various power groups. There is a tendency to ignore future dangers and confuse their relationships to current pollution problems. In many cases of dealing with pollution, the influence of power is becoming more complex, and the allocation of resources and interests is changing.

A large-scale plan to build a city and scenic area surrounding Dianchi Lake is already underway. Historic villages and semi-urban areas are being flattened. Under that kind of %26ldquo;long-term%26rdquo; guidance, both natural and social sciences need to provide research and analysis. The combination of technology and power in urbanisation will no doubt lead to controversial projects, such as waste incineration, the transportation of water and the construction of clusters of cities.

Dianchi Lake has been given many names through history, from the %26ldquo;Pearl of the Plateau%26rdquo;, to the %26ldquo;Sick Lake%26rdquo; and the %26ldquo;Geneva of the East%26rdquo;. The question is: which one will prove true in the future?

Zhou Lei is a postgraduate anthropology student at Yunnan University and Chevening Scholar at the London School of Economics.

Homepage image from Wikipedia

UN-led climate talks drew to a close in Copenhagen on December 19. Although a weak outcome had been widely predicted, many were still shocked by just how little the conference managed to achieve.

The World Resources Institute had listed five indicators for success at Copenhagen: targets, timetables and actions for cutting emissions; funding for global climate action; common standards for tracking emissions reductions; a peer review mechanism for measurement, reporting and verification of cuts; and a legally-binding climate agreement. The conference failed on virtually all counts.

Al Gore may believe a carbon pricing mechanism can create a link between emissions reductions and incentives in daily life, but the negotiations achieved almost nothing in this regard. The only concrete achievements were the statement of intent on the need for urgent global action on climate change, and the US$100 billion (683 billion yuan) in aid from developed nations to the developing world and island nations to be disbursed from 2020.

The endless stream of proposals put forward at the negotiations %26ndash; and accompanying diplomatic onslaughts %26ndash; highlighted how much disagreement still surrounds four basic issues; namely, emissions cuts by developed nations; emissions caps for developing nations; assistance to poor nations; and a future emissions reduction deal. Clearly, there are still barriers to joint action on climate change.

There is a limit to the world%26rsquo;s capacity for greenhouse gases and the international community must curb the emissions of individual nations. But they must do so while taking into account economic growth, inter-generational equality and human survival. The result is tension between environmental capacity and development needs.

At the same time, if we are to slow down climate change, we need innovation in new energy sources and a technological revolution. These areas will affect any nation%26rsquo;s basic ability to compete and influence changes in the international system.

Climate change has gradually morphed from a matter of science and environmental diplomacy into one of economics and geopolitics. Developed and developing world camps have split into three groups: the European Union, the US-led Umbrella Group, and the Group of 77, a loose coalition of 130 developing countries, including China. Within these, there are further divisions %26ndash; eastern and western Europe; the United States, Japan and Australia; the African Union; island nations; and the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) group. The multiple dealings and checks and balances created by this system make for exceptionally complex negotiations.

In the past, the most prominent characteristic of climate talks has been to pre-empt the other side and make concessions, or to propose environmental protection measures %26ndash; with conditions attached. But all the signs at Copenhagen suggest the differing interests of small island nations and superpowers cannot always be settled by negotiations and discussion.

The Copenhagen talks have overturned some accepted beliefs; for example, that climate change is a classic, non-traditional security issue that can only be solved by global cooperation, and that doing so will create new areas of growth for all nations.

This idealistic thinking ignores the fact that action by sovereign nations is invariably driven by their own ecological vulnerability, the costs of emissions cuts and special interests. No nation will sacrifice its own welfare for the sake of the world%26rsquo;s %26ndash; even if it means disaster for others.

Realism may be cruel, but it makes clear that the existing system of international governance is powerless in the face of irresponsible superpowers; and that the current arrangements, above all, serve the interests of northern nations. People once believed that the election of president Barack Obama would lead to fundamental change in US climate change policy %26ndash; that the United States would start to consider its image as an international leader and the competitiveness of its green industries and thus commit to mandatory emission reductions and a return to multilateralism.

But during the negotiations, Obama and US climate representative Todd Stern showed that, while the US stance may have softened somewhat in line with international trends, the new administration has done little to set itself apart from George W Bush on the substantive matters of mandatory emissions reductions, necessary cuts from emerging economies, financial and technical support and the principle of %26ldquo;common but differentiated responsibilities%26rdquo;. Changes in US climate-change policy are therefore limited and, at most, merely alterations in attitude, intention and ideals.

From start to finish, US climate-change policy has prioritised its own national interests; it is designed to fight for the lifestyle of its citizens and national supremacy, even in the context of this global issue. The principle of sovereignty above all else still survives, even in the postmodern era.

Thanks to determined campaigning from developing nations, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, the Bali roadmap and the two-track negotiation mechanism were all upheld at Copenhagen. But the future direction of development trends also began to emerge %26ndash; developing nations will also gradually commit to emissions targets, and emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil should sign up to mandatory measurable targets and submit to international verification.

In the run-up to Copenhagen, China and many other emerging nations announced carbon reduction targets and used a meeting of BASIC nations to express support for the Copenhagen negotiations and their unshakeable diplomatic %26ldquo;red lines%26rdquo;. A string of incidents during the negotiation process showed that developed nations, on the other hand, were not prepared to accept and respect the interests and hopes of the developing world.

It is clear from these events that, in international climate diplomacy, the right to speak has to be fought for and this is how climate-change mechanisms are formed. We should not think that developed nations will surrender their own interests and provide finance and technology of their own accord, nor should we expect continued unity among developing nations when interests among them are so varied.

Developing countries will have to protect the just principles of climate negotiations and fight for even the smallest of interests. Climate change has become an accepted part of political discourse, but that does not mean, as some Chinese academics have suggested, that we should adopt mandatory emission targets too soon and surrender our development rights and future environmental capacity.

Emerging nations have already made remarkable efforts with voluntary emissions reductions, but it is hard to convince the developed world that these countries are already doing as much as they can. Red lines aside, emerging nations must let the climate diplomats know that we need, support and, as far as possible, will adopt measures to ensure humanity%26rsquo;s success in the battle against climate change %26ndash; but, crucially, we should not fear pressure and demands that are beyond our ability to meet.

Tang Wei is assistant researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences%26rsquo; Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development Institute.

Homepage image by Polska Zielona Sieć

If climate change were only an environmental issue, there would be a far easier solution. However, the interplay of national interests that are involved %26ndash; involving politics, economics and development %26ndash; places multiple strains on the prospects of an international agreement.

Many observers feel that the two-week climate-change conference in Copenhagen was a disastrous failure. The Copenhagen Accord, produced in closed talks by a small number of key nations, could not have been less substantive; it fell far short of most predicted goals and lacked any legal force. At least five nations tangled over issues of transparency and legitimacy. The angry language used by their representatives on the final evening provided a farcical finale for the conference%26rsquo;s global audience.

There is still disagreement over what really happened in those final 48 hours. Xinhua, China%26rsquo;s official news agency, reported that Chinese premier Wen Jiabao was not invited to secret US-initiated talks on the evening of December 17 and early the next morning, to China%26rsquo;s great displeasure. India%26rsquo;s climate envoy Shyam Saran also raised this matter in a press conference on the afternoon of December 18.

Mark Lynas, a British journalist and member of the Maldives delegation, wrote in the Guardian that he saw at first hand how China %26ldquo;wrecked%26rdquo; closed-door talks between the leaders of 20 nations. Wen Jiabao did not attend, dispatching instead a vice-minister from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Western media reports said that Wen Jiabao, unhappy with US insistence on international verification of China%26rsquo;s emission reductions, refused to join president Barack Obama at the meeting, blocking the negotiations.

Ed Miliband, the British secretary of state for energy and climate, told The Guardian that China had tried to %26ldquo;hijack%26rdquo; the Copenhagen Accord. UK prime minister Gordon Brown expressed a hope that China and the United States would show %26ldquo;they were doing more%26rdquo;.

Besides the rift between China and the United States over measuring, reporting and verification (MRV), the cited evidence of China%26rsquo;s %26ldquo;wrecking%26rdquo; behaviour was its firm opposition to inclusion of the target of global emissions reduction of 50% on 1990 levels by 2050, with developed nations making cuts of 80%.

The reason for China%26rsquo;s opposition was simple: it would restrict China%26rsquo;s development. Given the country%26rsquo;s rate of development and its economic and energy structure, the target would be a tough one for it to reach. L%26uuml; Xuedu, a Chinese delegate and deputy director of the National Climate Center, pointed out that global carbon emissions in 1990 were 21 billion tonnes, so a 50% cut by 2050 would mean emissions of 10.5 billion tonnes. In 2005, China emitted 6 billion tonnes of carbon. If the current rate of development continues, those 10.5 billion tonnes might not be enough for China alone, let alone the rest of the world.

China is concerned about domestic political and economic stability. It does not want international legislation restricting its development and is unwilling to see any language that may lead to caps on its emissions.

China did not suddenly arrive at this stance. It has held to this line consistently, particularly after the Bangkok climate talks in October. At that point the European Union%26rsquo;s position changed, and the crux of negotiations became whether or not to stick to the twin-track system of the Bali Roadmap, or merge the two tracks. Under a twin-track arrangement, China and other developing nations are not required to commit to compulsory reductions. But if the two tracks merged, China could face much more stringent restrictions. A worsening conflict between China and the major developed nations became a new piece in the climate-change puzzle.

However, it is unrealistic to believe that without China%26rsquo;s opposition a binding agreement would have been reached. Take the example of the Doha Development Round of WTO negotiations, which were initiated in 2001 but are currently stalled, in which China is not one of the major players. Prior to Doha, the US and EU could remain in control. But now that era has passed: developing nations have a larger say in world affairs. Multilateral negotiations can no longer be dominated by a single nation, or even a single group of nations. This is true for trade talks, and even more so for the more complex interests involved in climate negotiations.

Even if China had not said %26ldquo;no%26rdquo;, the reduction targets that the United States %26ndash; the other decisive force in climate negotiations %26ndash; were able to commit to would still make an agreement hard to reach.

The climate bill passed by the House of Representatives proposes that the United States make cuts of 17% on 2005 emission levels by 2020. Against a 1990 baseline, this is around 4%. This is nowhere near the 40% cuts proposed by developing nations, and far short even of the 20% to 30% goal proposed by the EU. But the United States continues to argue that its efforts are sufficient.

The US political system does not give the president absolute decision-making power. The last two decades has seen Congress become ever more partisan and any proposed bill will face strong opposition. Currently, the US climate bill is under discussion in the senate. Senator John Kerry is an active supporter of a climate deal and made a trip to Copenhagen to campaign for one. But it will not be easy for a bitterly divided senate to pass his proposal without significant changes. Therefore, the United States was unable to put forward stronger targets at Copenhagen.

In fact, the United States was happy to see a weak accord emerge from Copenhagen. Congress is not yet ready to accept any international binding agreement. The Obama administration needs to use greater wisdom and better tactics to ensure the climate bill passes the senate in the spring. Otherwise, any commitments the US makes at negotiations are simply bad cheques.

Other richer developing nations, such as India, are also unwilling to accept caps from the developing world. The Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh visited Beijing in August to discuss an alliance against western pressure. India%26rsquo;s emissions %26ndash; both in total volume and per capita %26ndash; are far lower than China%26rsquo;s, but it still has major problems in balancing development and the environment. China is not alone in opposing curbs on overall emissions.

Since Copenhagen produced a weak and non-binding political document, China bought more time for its development. But it is hard to say how long this expediency can last. International pressure on China is already building, and not just from the developed world %26ndash; it also comes also from the developing nations most at risk from climate change. China%26rsquo;s 30-year economic miracle has come at the cost of a rapidly deteriorating environment; this has not been sustainable development. China has no cause to avoid its responsibilities, either internationally or domestically.

The negotiations, I believe, will eventually have to move towards a single track. Any agreement which does not include China and the United States %26ndash; the world%26rsquo;s two largest emitters by volume %26ndash; will not achieve any meaningful result. In one sense then, the Copenhagen Accord at least has achieved something by putting China and the US in the same boat.

Cao Haili, formerly senior reporter at Caijing magazine, is a reporter for chinadialogue.

Homepage image from The White House

The Colorado River is one of the most dammed in the world. Over the last two hundred years, fortunes have been made harnessing its flow. But the Colorado%26rsquo;s role in supporting a unique and biodiverse ecosystem for long went unnoticed.

Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the area and see for myself its rivers, mountains, forests, grasslands and snowfields. But what made the greatest impression on me was the contrast between US and Chinese attitudes when it comes to dams and ecology; to development and conservation.

About 50 years ago, people in the United States realised that the country had made a huge blunder; too many dams were causing rivers to dry up, deltas to become deserts, and species to disappear, with many varieties of fish facing extinction. The idea of returning the rivers to nature took hold and, decades of hard work later, we are seeing the results: sluice gates opened according to the needs of fish; some dams demolished; nearby forests, grasslands and wetlands recovering; birds returning to their old haunts; and threatened alligator populations rising.

Unfortunately, the foolish errors made by the United States in the past are still happening in China.

The most important %26ndash; and last %26ndash; endangered fish reserve on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River is soon to be %26ldquo;moved%26rdquo; to allow the building of the Xiaonanhai Dam. Aquatic organisms unique to the river are, one after the other, being sacrificed, and this relocation of the reserve will prove a disaster for biodiversity.

Even more astonishing is a recent announcement by China%26rsquo;s Ministry of Environmental Protection. While construction of two dams on the Jinsha River, a western tributary of the Yangtze River, will cease, work is set to begin on a dam at Liyuan on the same river. This is close to Tiger Leaping Gorge, home to stunning rapids and the stretch of the Jinsha River least affected by humans. The Liyuan reservoir will partially submerge the Haba Snow Mountain nature reserve as well as Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and its celebrated scenery.

China%26rsquo;s rivers, lakes and wetlands are already in a sorry state. Despite the desperate pleas and unstinting efforts of scientists, conservation groups, the public and the media, the interest groups that thirst for profit from the rivers have not been stopped.

Robert Wigington is a freshwater conservation expert at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and is based in its Colorado office, in the city of Boulder. He says his organisation aims to have one million kilometres of river under protection and flowing freely by 2020.

TNC has 170 river and freshwater experts and runs over 500 river recovery and protection projects worldwide. In the United States, it works with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which is known for building dams, on ecology protection projects around 60 dams of particular importance for biodiversity.

According to Wigington, the Colorado River flows through many different ecosystems during its course from the mountains to the river basin, and is of huge ecological value. It irrigates some 23,000 square kilometres of farmland and provides water for many cities, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and Salt Lake City. Analysis of its 45 different ecosystems %26ndash; including comparative studies of soil constituents, fish, microorganisms and aquatic plants %26ndash; has shown that, while the upper reaches of the river are well-protected, downstream there are problems.

On the Colorado River, USACE and TNC have removed just one dam, concentrating instead on mimicking natural river flows. This allows fish to breed naturally and ensures the dams can continue to generate electricity and provide water for irrigation.

The next stop on the tour is the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah. Looking down from the 229-metre high structure, you can see five metres into the clear waters below and watch the huge brown and rainbow trout swimming around. The Green River downstream is said to offer some of the best trout fishing in all of the US. These are not farmed fish and the dam operators are not even allowed to catch them %26ndash; local bylaws state that fishing must take place at least one kilometre downstream of the dam.

John Morgan, an official at the US Bureau of Land Management, tells me about his work to protect the river%26rsquo;s four endangered fish species %26ndash; the bonytail, the Colorado pikeminnow, the humpback chub, and the razorback sucker. Images of these are two a penny in Colorado; found everywhere from newspapers and tourist brochures to restaurants, schools and even the family fridge. Their numbers are seen as a measure of how well the biodiversity of the Colorado River is recovering and they are a major part of the work of TNC%26rsquo;s Colorado office.

On the way to Flaming Gorge, we pass a 20-metre high dam on the Yampa River, which is now defunct. The structure reached the end of its working life years ago and is no longer needed to keep the river navigable, generate electricity or irrigate fields. But in response to TNC pleas, its operators have kept the water flowing to allow fish to pass through. Most importantly, the dam raises the water level downstream every spring in line with scientific advice, allowing fish %26ndash; including those four endangered species %26ndash; to reach their spawning grounds more easily.

The dam is said to have survived because the locals like to see it standing there; it has become a part of the landscape. Plus, it would cost US$2 million (13 million yuan) to dismantle. But, while it has hung on through the dams debate, some now say its days are numbered. One TNC project worker tells me it will be %26ldquo;demolished soon%26rdquo; %26ndash; the costs of maintenance and ensuring it is safe are now as much as the costs of demolition.

The Flaming Gorge Dam was completed in 1964, bringing 50 years of regular flooding to an end. Photos in its exhibition hall record two major inundations that killed dozens and left many more homeless when riverside towns and homes were swept away.

There may have been no floods since the dam was built, but there are a lot less fish. By the 1970s, monitoring data found that the populations of the four endangered species mentioned above had fallen by 99% %26ndash; and the remaining 1% was unsustainable.

According to fish experts, dams cause extinction by blocking routes to spawning grounds. They also create a steady, year-round flow of water, putting an end to the seasonal fluctuations that tell the fish when it is time to reproduce. And, as the waters at the base of a dam are very cold, the fish are forced to swim further to find warm waters in which to spawn.

After the last of these problems was identified in 1978, the way in which water is released at Flaming Gorge began to change, explains Morgan. %26ldquo;We realised we couldn%26rsquo;t just raise the sluice gate and let water out of the bottom of the dam any more, as that water is cold,%26rdquo; he says. %26ldquo;We needed to find a way to give the fish warmer water.%26rdquo;

Their solution was to install three extra gates in the dam, at different heights. During the spring floods, water is released from the top of the reservoir at about 18 degrees centigrade; the natural temperature of the river water and just what mating and spawning fish need.

A document put together by the US Bureau of Reclamation, TNC, and a number of conservation groups, says that water released by the dam in winter should be no colder than 6%26deg; Celsius and, in summer, no colder than 18%26deg; Celsius. Nor should the water released be more than 5%26deg; Celsius colder than the natural river temperature.

The fruits of this strategy are being seen %26ndash; the populations of the four endangered species have clearly increased and other, less endangered species are also benefitting.

China also has a story about endangered fish %26ndash; this time relating to three species %26ndash; but it has a very different ending. When dams were being built on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, fish experts and conservationists called for efforts to be made to save the Chinese sturgeon, Chinese high fin sucker fish and the Yangtze River dolphin, which are all unique to China. But one advocate for the dams summed up the response: %26ldquo;It%26rsquo;s just three fish! Are there not enough to eat in the fish farms?%26rdquo;

Zhang Kejia is a reporter for China Youth Daily

NEXT: Recognising the value of a nation%26rsquo;s rivers

Homepage image from Wikipedia

In the attractive Atlantic coast city of Savannah, where the river of the same name meets the ocean, we visited the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), famous worldwide for its work on dams and levees. USACE is the main builder of dams in the United States.

One hundred years ago, the United States was already building more %26ndash; and bigger %26ndash; dams than any other nation. The country manipulated its rivers to maximise human gains but, in the process, ignored other life forms such as fish, aquatic plants and microorganisms, not to mention the forests, wetlands, lakes, grasslands and animals that depend on the rivers. As Philip Fradkin writes of the Colorado River in A River No More: the Colorado River and the West, %26ldquo;A great river passing through arid lands has been wrung dry by man.%26rdquo;

Yet today, the US government, USACE, energy companies, conservation groups and the public all agree about the need to protect the rivers and each is doing its bit to help rescue river ecosystems. Few people in the United States now deny the true value of the rivers; it is recognised that only free-flowing rivers can ensure biodiverse, natural ecosystems, of which humanity is a part.

The International Commission of Large Dams defines any dam higher than 15 metres as %26ldquo;large%26rdquo;. In China, there are 22,000 such dams %26ndash; 46% of the global total and more than any other country. The United States has 6,575. Major dam-building projects, which can easily cost tens of billions of yuan, have played a significant role in China%26rsquo;s GDP growth.

There is a clear difference between Chinese and US attitudes towards rivers. In the United States, canoeing, fishing and hunting are popular outdoor sports; in China they are either a way to earn a living or hobbies for the rich.

Outdoor sports associations have played a crucial role in the recovery of US rivers. Fans of these pastimes will not stand by and watch the rivers being tamed, or the forests falling silent. Nature lovers are loyal partners of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and have a lasting enthusiasm for the cause %26ndash; along with plenty of good ideas. For the majority of US citizens today, the ecological value of rivers is much higher than their use for energy generation. Perhaps it is this that has ultimately allowed the rivers to be saved.

We drove upriver to see a dam near Augusta, also on the Savannah River.

The Savannah marks the border between the American states of South Carolina and Georgia. In a river basin stretching over 17,000 square kilometres, there is a wide range of ecosystems, supporting almost 100 rare animal and plant species and providing habitats for more than 100 species of fish; indeed, this stretch of water is home to more fish varieties than any other in the south-eastern United States.

Suddenly Megan, our TNC guide, stops the car %26ndash; she has seen several people pointing cameras at a pool in the river. An alligator is casually observing the people on the bank. It suddenly leaps out of the water, revealing its full length, and then falls back down, leaving only the top of its head exposed.

This is my closest encounter with a wild alligator but afterwards, as we follow the river upstream, we frequently come across them in the marshes and pools. Amazingly, birds and ducks float only two or three metres away from them, seemingly oblivious to the danger.

The Savannah River%26rsquo;s ecosystem was also once in danger.

USACE experts tell us that, sixty years ago, they built three dams on the Savannah. The Hartwell, Richard B Russell and J Strom Thurmond were constructed upstream of Augusta, in order to generate electricity, prevent floods, provide reservoirs for recreation and tourism and supply water. But the dams dealt a grave blow to the integrity of the ecosystem, altering seasonal fluctuations in the river%26rsquo;s flow and threatening the continued existence of crabs, oysters, shrimp and unique fish species. The dams also limited the growth of broadleaf trees on the floodplains, which further affected water quality and reduced survival rates among the fish, mammals and birds reliant on the river water and floodplain forests. Moreover, the dams prevented fish from returning to breeding grounds, forcing them to spawn elsewhere and causing populations to shrink.

In a bid to improve management of the Savannah River, in March 2004 USACE adopted a TNC strategy for operating the dams. The plan restored and increased the number of spawning grounds for fish, while periods of low flow improved growth of broadleaf trees and increased fish reproduction and survival rates. As more water was released, seeds of broadleaf trees and other plants were disseminated and nutrient levels in riverside soil recovered, providing habitats for birds and giving highly endangered animals and plants, such as alligators and floodplain vegetation, another chance at survival.

USACE was applauded for its actions. A good environmental image is crucial for any US firm or organisation and, with public encouragement, USACE is increasing its efforts to restore river ecosystems.

According to USACE hydrologist Stan Simpson, the organisation carefully plans the river%26rsquo;s flow in order to meet the changing needs of the fish; software provided by TNC calculates how much water to release according to the time of year and weather. In the process, USACE has discovered that it used to release the water too quickly for fish to pass through the dam. The team implanted tracking chips into a number of fish and found none were making it back to the river mouth. Where had they gone? Had they turned back? And would they use the shallows in front of dams as new spawning grounds?

%26ldquo;We analysed the relationship between water temperature and flow rates,%26rdquo; says Simpson. %26ldquo;Water from the base of the reservoir, tens of metres deep, can be too cold, and the fish don%26rsquo;t like it. Similarly, they don%26rsquo;t like it if you release the water at the wrong time. Some fish swim near the surface of the water, but trout swim near the bottom; you can%26rsquo;t just release water because you need to give the trout a channel they can use. They are very sensitive to the environment.%26rdquo;

He tells us that the previous winter USACE implanted tracking chips, costing US$250 (1,707 yuan) a piece, into 30 fish to observe how dry years affect their mating patterns. This was done in winter because the chips have he least impact on the fish at that time.

Simpson adds that the role of dams in human life cannot be ignored when planning the river%26rsquo;s flow. %26ldquo;We also need to take into account the dams need for water for electricity generation,%26rdquo; he says. %26ldquo;We need to find a balance between forestry, agriculture, fish, electricity generation, and urban water supply.%26rdquo;

Simulating the natural water flow needed by the fish is no easy task. Hundreds of scientists took two years to produce a plan for dams to release water in waves over different seasons %26ndash; a plan that is adjusted annually according to the weather, air temperature and changes in water quantity.

According to a TNC freshwater and river conservation expert, the acceptance of these conservation ideas and river restoration methods has prompted USACE into becoming more active in developing response plans. It has launched research programmes on a range of energy sources, including coal, nuclear and wind, to help it make better decisions about the most appropriate type of power to use and reduce the impact of hydropower on the rivers.

The Savannah%26rsquo;s future now looks brighter. But what about the prospects of saving China%26rsquo;s rivers? TNC%26rsquo;s expert argues that the Yangtze River%26rsquo;s situation is more complex than that of the Savannah and achieving the same aims will be more difficult. But, if all parties work together to improve dam management, she says there is still hope that bit by bit, stretch by stretch, China%26rsquo;s rivers can be revived.

Zhang Kejia is a reporter for China Youth Daily

Homepage image by brothergrimm