Trees for Tibet: Trees for Tibet Trek continues....

Friday 7 August 2009

Trees for Tibet Trek continues....

Hello, today is day 14 and we are in the village of Itero de la Vega, in the Meseta.We have passed through the Basque country where we were lucky enough to see a running of the bulls and meet some wonderful locals. Then it was through Naverra, La Rioja full of vineyards and now it is the Meseta. Many people warned us of this area, it is the Spanish flatlands with golden cornfield as far as the eye can see. It can get scorchingly hot and mercilessly provides no shade. But is is very beautiful with wild deers and an ever-changing light. Today we got up at 5am to walk in the fullmoon, it was very special. We have met some wonderful people on this trek from all over the World and the way everyone looks after each other has been one of the highlights of this trek Today an Austrian man I have never met performed a mini-surgery using a scissors on a blister of mine that had become infected, no questions asked ! Some days this trek has been very difficult, such a mental and physical challenge but amzingly rewarding at the end of each day when one reaches their destination, generally in pain and wrecked. A common discussion is around the question of why people are doing this, what is their main motivation and reason as it is clearly not a holiday in the conventional sense. For most it is an escape of some kind from daily life, personal problems etc. For me and Gema it is a fundraiser but undoubtedly time to sort out ones life and think about its direction.Hopefully by the time we arrive in Santiago we will have a few more answers.

Donations

Please send donations to my https://www.paypal-marketing.co.uk/sendmoney/send_to_a_friend.htm account using barleyhill2002@yahoo.ie as my ID.Also I have set up a bank account as many people have said they cant send money via paypal. One can donate through paypal or this bank account.
Barclays Bank
Acc name- Fiona Catherine Sheahan
Acc no - 43936686
sc- 209655
IBAN- GB72 BARC 2096 5543 9366 86
BIC- BARCGB22
I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you very much.

Trees for Tibet

Since the 1949 occupation of Tibet up to 50% of its forests have been needlessly destroyed which has led to the desert area of Tibet expanding to 500,000km sq in the past 35 years. 1,000,000 people are dependent on these grasslands for survival as well as numerous species of wildlife and their habitats.
This deforestation has led to increased sediment in the rivers and as 10 of Asias major rivers are sourced in Tibet eg Yangtze, Brahmaputra, this causes major environmental problems.Major flooding in the Bay of Bengal has been attributed to deforestation in Tibet.

Trees for Tibet project was set up to raise money to help the people of Lowah village in Amdo province, East Tibet. They live in an area called Mangra and 1000's of peoples livelihoods are effected by the increasing problem of desertification. Amdo is also an area which has maintained a very strong nomadic culture.

This Tibetan way of life is already under threat by new Chinese law restricting freedom of farming and the housing of nomads in towns and cities.If the nomads grasslands are also destroyed by desertification they will be further forced from their land in to Chinese cities. This results in unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse and the death of a proud and unique way of life already struggling to survive.

Since 2002 Pujah and the villagers have taken it upon themselves to save the grasslands by buying and planting Aspen trees each year, approximately 1,000,000 in total.This was aided by free seeds and saplings from the Chinese government at the beginning , as well as some financial support from Germany.But this support has stopped!At the beginning of this project the survival rate of the trees was 70% now it is 95% due to greater knowledge and experience.

Financially this is a huge struggle and Pujah is forced to take out bank loans which are a tremendous burden to pay. Sadly the family are often forced to sell their livestock to do so.£1 will pay for 8 trees, including transport, labour and fencing costs.The local government has given the family permission to plant 26,000mu(17km2 of land).They need to plant approximately 15,200mu(11km2)more ! There is still much work to be done.

The Tibetan people need to be listened to and given power to protect their grasslands, environment and culture. The Chinese Governments plans to resettle chinese people in Tibetan areas has led to over farming and increased desertification as they have no knowledge of the grasslands.

This is why Pujah and his fellow villagers need to be supported and given the power to decide their own fate as Tibetan people. Please help us to continue raising money to help these villagers fight to protect their environment and culture.