MADOI, China: Former nomad Yanglo spent his youth tending yaks and sheep in the highlands of China's Qinghai province, but the Tibetan is now often found huddled over a sewing machine in his modest brick home around 160 km away stitching sheepskin coats.
China says the relocations have been key to saving the grasslands and helping Tibetans escape from poverty, but there is international concern the drive is coming at too high a cost, including the loss of cultural traditions and communities.The government was spurred into action at the turn of the century when the upper course of the Yellow River began drying up, depleted by agriculture, industrialisation and mining. The 5,464km river even failed to reach the sea in some years.
Yanglo, who like some Tibetans goes by one name, left his home on the shores of Gyaring and Ngoring, a pair of high-altitude lakes near the headwaters of the Yellow River, in 2003. Last year, he was given a brick house with a walled yard in a specially built village of about 1,000 homes.There is little in Yanglo's home to remind his family of their nomadic past. His three children were all born after he had left the grasslands.
For Tibetans, the natural world is more than a source of corporeal sustenance. It is also a spiritual landscape inhabited by deities and demons that demand respect and sacrifice. "In the grasslands, they are free and they are self-assured," said Meng Xiangjing, a professor in population and development studies at Renmin University in Beijing.
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