Tibetan NGOs lobby Indian MPs for Tibet's environment/ENG

2016. július 30./Phayul.com/TibetPress

eredeti cikk

By Tenzin Monlam

DHARAMSHALA, July 30: Tibet Advocacy Coalition, a group of four NGOs in collaboration with International Tibet Network (ITN) met with 23 Members of Indian Parliament during the ongoing monsoon session in New Delhi to ‘raise concerns about the impact of China building dams affecting India’s water security’.

The delegates advocated for a week drawing the legislators’ attention to the adverse affects of China’s failed Tibet policies. The group acquired signature of 13 MPs on a petition urging PM Narendra Modi to raise the Tibet’s river issue with President Xi Jinping during the G20 and BRICS summit later this year.

The coalition met with dignitaries including Shashi Tharoor of Congress, Varun Gandhi, Shanta Kumar, Anand Rao Adsul and Mani Shankar Aiyar.

“China’s mega-dams and water diversion projects are currently being built at a disturbing rate across the Tibetan plateau, and are set to seriously affect India’s already overstressed water supply,” said Jyotsna Sarah George, Campaigns Director of SFT (India), part of the advocacy coalition.

Tibet also known as the third pole has the largest deposit of glacial water after the two poles. The Tibetan plateau serves as the source of the major rivers of Asia with over a billion people in the continent depending on them.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration have voiced their concerns on many occasions on the need for a special care to protect the fragile environment of Tibet.

According to environmentalists, China has built over 87,000 dams including Zangmu Hydropower Plant over Brahmaputra River, which is not only the largest but dangerous too.

“We appeal to MPs to make a commitment to urge PM Modi to raise serious concern about China’s dam-building, and to press China to halt the irresponsible environmental policies in Tibet and cease in the construction of mega-dams on Asia’s headwaters,” said Dr. Manoj Kumar, Executive Member of the India-Tibet Friendship Society.

The other two organizations are Tibetan Women’s Association, Youth Liberation Front of Tibet, Eastern Turkestan, Manchuria & Inner Mongolia (YLFTM).