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China should implement a meaningful “ecological compensation mechanism” as quickly as possible in those areas where ecological value, ecological fragility, and poverty exist side by side. The Scientific Development Concept does not only need to rely on local governments for adjustment.

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70 years ago, the name “Shangri-La” was introduced to the Western world thanks to the popularity of British writer James Hilton’s book Lost Horizon. On 2 July 2003, the Three Parallel Rivers in Yunnan was inscribed on the World Heritage List with a high number of votes. It was very rare in that it fully complied with the four World Heritage List criteria based on geology, ecology, aesthetic value and biodiversity. Once again, this attracted the world’s attention. Naturally, its selection has proven that it is worthy of the name “Shangri-La”.

Only one year later, by July 2004 at the end of the 28th World Heritage Conference held in Suzhou, China, the Three Parallel Rivers World Heritage Site had already been faced with two inspections. The first inspection was carried out because the World Heritage Committee thought that the local people had overdeveloped the tourism industry and the second one was due to the fact that the World Heritage Centre had been informed that a Level 13 hydroelectric dam was going to be built on the Nu River.

It was evident that these two inspections were not treated with importance by the Yunnan authorities. Not long after the 28th World Heritage Conference had concluded, there was a constant stream of news emerging about the imminent construction of the Tiger Leaping Gorge Level 8 large scale hydroelectric dam on the middle and upper reaches of the Jinsha River.

As expected, at the 29th World Heritage Conference, held in Durban, South Africa, the third “Three Parallel Rivers” inspection was carried out. This resulted in a more strongly worded resolution. This resolution restated the influence that the dam construction would have on the global value and unity of the World Heritage and on the lower reach communities. It also indicated that this act would be likely to be used as evidence to put the “Three Parallel Rivers” on the endangered heritage list.

According to this resolution, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN (World Conservation Union) would organise an inspection team to investigate the “Three Parallel Rivers” heritage site in 2006. Meanwhile, the Chinese government was required to provide a comprehensive report about the proposed dam construction by 1 February 2006.

In April 2006, the inspection team arrived in Yunnan to carry out the investigation of the “Three Parallel Rivers” heritage site. Prior to their arrival, the World Heritage Committee received the report submitted by the Chinese central government. A sketch marking out the locations of the planned dam constructions around the Nu River was included in the report. The report also made it clear that there were no plans to construct dams that might influence the heritage site.

Shortly after the ten-day investigation, concluded in the company of the government officials, the inspection team produced an investigation report which stretched to 27 pages. This surprised a lot of people, as according to convention, once the inspection was carried out along the pre-arranged route organised by the local government, the inspectors wouldn’t be able to take anything useful from the inspection even if they were UN officials.

What was in the investigation report? Was its implied meaning acrimonious, suspicious, did it hit the nail on the head, or was it filled with bureaucratic ambiguity and vagueness?

“The accompanying officials repeatedly expressed to the inspection team that they would strictly execute the Chinese laws and policies to protect the heritage site. However, all sorts of signs indicated that the problem of the future integrity of this heritage site was worrying us more due to the invasion of the mining and tourism industry, the amendment of the boundary as well as the hydroelectric development plan and related environmental assessment report, the releasing of which to the public was delayed significantly. Meanwhile, the mining activity within the boundary of the heritage site also indicated that it possibly will be listed in World Heritage Endangered List.” These are the concluding remarks of the investigation report, which mentioned various elements such as the mining industry, the tourism industry, the redrawing of boundaries, hydroelectric development and environmental assessment reports. The whole 27-page report also expressed its questioning of and suspicion towards these elements.

The wording of this paragraph was rather delicate and subtle. However, the information conveyed in these few words made it clear that the “Three Parallel Rivers” World Nature Heritage Site had come to a vital crossroads — it was time for the choice to be made between maintaining the heritage site and continuing development.

In response to the above investigation report, a relevant Chinese government department quickly submitted a statement clarifying the statement “boundary amendment”. It also stressed that according to Chinese law, any amendment of National Nature Reserve or National Park boundaries must be approved by the central government. In the same way, the local government also has no right to decide on large scale exploitations of mineral resources.

Before long, at the 30th World Heritage Conference held in Lithuania, Chinese delegation officials clearly expressed that China would not carry out any large scale construction projects within the heritage site or in the surrounding area. At the same time, China had still not approved any formulated construction projects of hydroelectric dams on Jinsha River and Nu River.

Confusion over boundary amendment

The first stop of the united inspection group of UNESCO was Beijing. After seeking the opinions of every party involved, they set off to Yunnan to do the investigation. However, unexpectedly, the officials of the inspection group received a request from the Yunnan side to adjust the boundary of the “Three Parallel Rivers” heritage site. Since the map of the heritage site with its redrawn boundary was right in front of them, it was obvious that this was not a new topic.

If we compare the map of 2003, when the heritage site was reported, and the new map of 2006, we will find that the boundaries of most areas of the heritage site have been amended significantly. The suggested boundary amendment will result in a 20% reduction in the area of the heritage site. At the same time, however, two more areas, namely the Nantengchong Gaoligong Mountain Nature Protected Area and Dali Cang Mountain Nature Protected Area, were added. According to the relevant regulations of the World Heritage Centre, if the overall area of a heritage site is reduced by 20%, it might lose its heritage status. Therefore, we can see that these regulations have been fully taken into consideration in the above boundary amendment plan; the addition of the two nature areas mentioned above means that the reduction in the overall area of the heritage site will not exceed 20%.

Without amendment, the overall area of the “Three Parallel Rivers” world nature heritage site is 1.7 million square metres, consisting of eight areas: Red Mountain, White Horse, Meili Snow Mountain, Gaoligong Mountain, Laojun Mountain, Haba Snow Mountain, Laowo Mountain, Yun Ridge and Thousand Lakes Mountain. Prior to the heritage report, these eight areas had been selected as the most crucial and the most ecologically valuable protected areas after IUCN carried out their investigation, which was entrusted by UNESCO.

On the contrary, this time IUCN experts from the united inspection group maintained that it was uncertain that the Nantengchong Gaoligong Mountain Nature Protected Area and the Dali Cang Mountain Nature Protected Area, which were proposed to be added to the heritage site by the government of Yunnan province, complied with the criteria of level one and level two protected area set up by their organisation. According to the relevant criteria of IUCN, these areas can only be classified as level five or level six protected areas due to the fact that large parts are inhabited and are therefore in a state of constant development and exploitation.

Originally, the focus and purpose of the united inspection group’s investigation was to, “assess if the proposed dam will influence the heritage site”. However, now that the government of Yunnan province proposed the boundary amendment of the heritage site, the officials of the inspection group immediately realised that this was a very unusual step. Once the amendment plan was approved by the upper level government, it might substantially affect the value and unity of the heritage site. In the report submitted to the World Heritage Conference, the united inspection group stated, “this [the boundary amendment] is a fundamental problem that will affect the unity of the world heritage site.”

What amendments were made to the boundary?

Generally speaking, apart from the Thousand Lakes Mountain area, the boundaries of the remaining seven out of 8 areas in the “Three Parallel Rivers” heritage site have all been amended to varying degrees. Observation with the naked eye shows that the amendments to the Gaoligong Mountain and Red Mountain areas are the most obvious.

In the original map, the Gaoligong Mountain area was a narrow and continuous protected region which stretched along the border between China and Myanmar. However, after the boundary amendment this area was divided in two when its middle part was cut out and designated a construction and development region. The experts from the united inspection group argued that the problem caused by this amendment was especially severe, as it was originally a coherent national level protected area and scenic area as well as a crucial ecological corridor. Now, the boundary of the protected area has been cut back from the border between China and Myanmar, separating the northern Gaoligong Mountain, and the southern Gaoligong Mountain from the protected area inside the Myanmar border. This will result in the deterioration of ecological environment.

What is the purpose of this amendment? According to speculation from an expert who wished to remain anonymous, the construction site that was cut out is right at the north of the Gaoligong Mountain protected area. It might, therefore, be related to the construction of the Nu River Hydroelectric dam. However, this theory cannot be proven.

Similar to the situation in Gaoligong Mountain area, the eastern and northern parts of the Laojun Mountain and Haba Snow Mountain areas respectively, had both been cut back to certain degrees. Coincidentally, the middle part of the two areas stated above is where the Jinsha River runs through. Furthermore, the site of the proposed Tiger Leaping Gorge dam is also within reach. Due to this situation, it is difficult to avoid speculating that there is a strong relationship between the boundary amendment of these areas, the construction of the Tiger Leaping Gorge hydroelectric station, and the resettling of displaced people.

It is not as if this action came from out of the blue. As early as the summer of 2004 when I was conducting the “Tiger Leaping Gorge Hydroelectric station investigation”, I learnt from information that came to me indirectly that a certain office had put forward many suggestions to an upper level department. The content of one of them was to implore the upper level department to delimit a clear boundary of “Three Parallel Rivers” as soon as possible so that the hydroelectric development of the Jinsha river valley would not encounter obstruction.

Do we want minerals or heritage?

As the united inspection group report stated, the UNESCO officials argued that one of the main reasons behind the boundary amendment is “hydroelectric development, mining industry and tourism industry”. This is despite the explanation given by Yunnan local officials that “the on-the-spot boundary delimitation in 2003 was not fully completed, therefore [we] were not able to publish the complete boundary delimitation plan at that time”.

On Oct 24 2005, the People’s Congress of Yunnan Province passed a document entitled “The Regulations Protecting the ‘Three Parallel Rivers’ World Nature Heritage Site in Yunnan Province”, which can prove the conjecture of the UN officials. A relevant document suggested that the boundaries could be amended to take some mining factories out of the heritage protected area. This would in turn prevent confrontation between the factories and the protection of heritage.

According to China News Agency report on 19 August, an official document published by Yunnan province showed that it had accelerated the implementation of the “special mineral-seeking plan in the Three Rivers”. As a result, the province had discovered twelve large to super scale mineral deposits, such as Deqinyangla bronze mine and Shangri-La Pulang bronze mine, on the “Three Rivers” mineral seam of the Nu, Lancang, and Jinsha Rivers. The potential value of the newly discovered mineral deposits, such as bronze, gold, silver, lead and zinc is estimated to be in excess of 440 billion RMB.

The boundary amendment of the Red Mountain protected area that was mentioned in previous paragraphs is a typical individual case related to mineral exploitation. According to “the Complete List of Mineral Resources in the Red Mountain Scenery Area Mineral Region in Shangri-La County”, we learnt that there are 16 medium to large scale mineral areas, such as “Pulang Bronze and Multi-Metal Mine”, in the Red Mountain Level One and Two protected areas. However, apart from “Shadugele Tungsten and Molybdenum Mine” and “Red Mountain Bronze and Molybdenum Mine”, which were marked as “utilised” under the column marked “utilisation situation”, the utilisation situations of the rest were marked as “unclear” or “relatively clear”.

According to the “Distribution Map of the Minerals in the Red Mountain Area” that was provided by a work unit and through comparing the two “Three Parallel Rivers” maps before and after the boundary amendment, we can clearly see that the area that was cut out of the heritage protected area after the boundary amendment is exactly where most mineral deposits in Red Mountain are currently concentrated. In addition, the medium scale “Red Mountain Bronze and Molybdenum Mine”, which is currently under exploitation, is also located in the surrounding area. It is reported that Diqing Tibetan Minority Self-Autonomous Region belonging to Shangri-La County already has a plan to emphasise the exploitation of the Yangla and Pulang bronze mines and turn them into the largest bronze resource base in China. Of these two, Pulang is a large scale bronze mine in the Red Mountain Level One protected area. This obviously runs counter to the principles of world heritage protection.

The situation in the Red Mountain area is not an exception. It can be seen from materials such as the “Distribution Map of the Minerals in the ‘Three Parallel Rivers’ Area” and the “Complete List of Medium and Above-Medium Scale Mineral Resources in the Heritage Site and Surrounding Areas”, that boundary amendment of many areas within the heritage site is related to the exploitation of minerals. As a matter of fact, some areas in the west and the north of Chen are already treating the mining industry as one of the main forces for stimulating economic development. “Combining electricity generation and mining’ is a development path frequently encouraged by the government. According to words that were said by the main responsible person of Diqing Region when going to investigate the Red Mountain Bronze Mine, when accelerating the local industrialisation process, “the most suitable development direction is the combination of electricity generation and mining”.

What is the “combination of electricity generation and mining”? How can the “combination of electricity generation and minin” be carried out? Late in May 2003, the main responsible person of Shangri-La County Diqing Region went to the same place, the Gezan township Red Mountain Bronze Mine, to hold a live forum. His speech explained the development model of “combining electricity generation and mining” in the “Shangri-La style”. First of all, there are rich mineral deposits in the chain of mountains in Shangri-La. It is located in the connected region of the Three Rivers fold and the Yang Zi delta, where the conditions are conducive to forming minerals. As a result, there are abundant mineral resources. Second, there is great potential in the water flow for generating electricity. The flow path of Jinsha River within Rao County is 375 kilometres and there are 13 level 1 tributaries. Theoretically, the amount of hydropower contained is 2.0984 billion kilowatts, of which 1.162 billion kilowatts can be generated. Thus, hydroelectric resources are very plentiful. Third, the location is excellent, as the region itself connects three provinces (districts). Its geographical conditions allow it to be built into a thoroughfare connecting Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet. An industrial production base can be built here, where the main industry will be bronze production with lead, zinc and metal alloy as supplements, and various mineral resources will be exploited. This place has water, electricity, and minerals. Water can be used to generate electricity which can be used to smelt minerals. Add in its excellent location with roads leading in all directions, and everything is in place. All that remains is to invite businesses and attract investment.

Let’s take another look at Gezan township Red Mountain Bronze Mine. Its full name is “Shangri-La Heavenly Mountains and Waters Mining Industry Development Company Red Mountain Bronze Mineral Factory”. The name “Heavenly Mountains and Waters” can literally be seen everywhere in Shangri-La. I was doing interviews in the local area in 2004 when I learnt that Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yulong Snow Mountain, Baishui Tai and lots of scenic spots along the road were under the Heavenly Mountains and Waters Company’s administration. Heavenly Mountains and Waters Company was jointly established by the Yunnan Huaneng Luancang River Hydroelectric Company Limited and the People’s Government of Shangri-La County. Meanwhile, Yunnan Huaneng Luancang River Hydroelectric Company Limited is subordinate to the Huaneng Organisation, which is the main party undertaking the construction of the “Level 8 Hydroelectric Station on Tiger Leaping Gorge Reservoir 1” as reported in the media.

Large scale hydroelectric projects, mineral production and development, and tourism development are several links in a chain of relations with “Heavenly Mountains and Waters” as its centre. It is impossible for the public to learn the truth about the complicated inside interest relationship.

All in all, the “Shangri-La style” industrial approach is not special at all, as nowadays most cities or counties in mainland China that are rich in mineral and water resources are following the approach of “combining electricity generation and mining”. This is where China’s crucial problem lies: high energy consumption industries continue to heat up, and energy consumption per unit of GDP remains high. However, the damage caused by mineral development to water resources, pasture and forests, the poisonous pollution of the waters, the influence on the livelihoods of people in the local half-pastoral half-arable minority areas, and the worsening poverty of ordinary people in mountain areas are seldom taken into consideration by the government.

One can imagine that local officials, and even some scholars who advocate a “traditional industrialization path”, could bring out any number of reasons in defence of the current high reliance on resources development model. However, in the current climate, a choice must be made between mining and heritage.

The World Heritage Committee has already issued an ultimatum. It requested the Chinese government to submit a report by 1 February 2007 clarifying the situation regarding the “Three Parallel Rivers” heritage site border amendment issue, and requested that a geological map and relevant detailed information about mineral production and development within the heritage site be included. It also requested clarification on whether or not the final approval of the dam is consistent with World Heritage site protection standards, whether or not it would degrade the value or destroy the unity of the “Three Parallel Rivers”. This report will be examined and discussed at the 2007 World Heritage Conference.

Avoid the trap of “high exploitation, low development”

As those UN officials went to the “Three Parallel Rivers” heritage site to conduct the investigation sighed, “if there is no clear boundary demarcation, there is no way of talking about these problems”.

“Although the Nu River area’s heritage site has an altitude boundary at 2000 metres above sea level, this altitude map has not been released to the public because of sovereign rights and safety issues.” Experts emphasise that, “without a comprehensive dam construction plan and relevant environmental impact assessment report, it is impossible for us to clearly judge whether or not the construction of the dam will influence this heritage site. However, the thing that makes people feel confused is that the correct location of this heritage site has still not been confirmed”. The implied meaning is that, if the boundaries are unclear, even if we have a comprehensive dam construction report and relevant environmental impact assessment report, how can we judge whether or not the dam building will influence the heritage site?

The same theory applies regarding tourism development or mineral production and development, and whether or not they would damage the heritage site.

In fact, relevant government departments in Yunnan province worried a lot about boundary demarcation both before and after the “Three Parallel Rivers” heritage site was reported. For example, at the Jinsha River, the “Three Parallel Rivers” World Nature Heritage core protection zone has been set at over 2,500 metres above sea level, and the high dam plan of Tiger Leaping Gorge Hydroelectric Station has been designed at 2,300 metres above sea level, which is just below 2,500 metres. In the same way, At Nu River, the Heritage core protection area is also set at over 2000 metres above the sea level, and the height of Maji Dam in the Nu River Plan is 300 metres. The dam site is set at 1,450 metres above the sea level, which coincidentally is also restricted just under the altitude 2,000 metres.

It is very clear that in the end, everything regarding the redrawing of boundaries, even including the altitude debate, points to one problem: the contrary argument between development and protection.

I once saw a very “unusual” letter — it was from Qi Zhala, the chief of the Diqing Tibetan Minority Self-Autonomous Region, to Bai Enpei, the Yunnan provincial committee secretary and Xu Songgkai, the provincial governor. Its signature date was the end of June 2003, only a few days before the “Three Parallel Rivers” application for World Heritage status was successful. In the letter, the writer stated to the upper level that the successful application for World Heritage status would possibly bring all sorts of limits to the economic development of the northern and western Chen, for instance, building roads, constructing power plans, mining, and tourism, etc. The letter also put forward the genuine request to “allow Diqing to withdraw from the Three Parallel Rivers World Nature Heritage area”, and even expressed its willingness that “if you can use the withdrawal of Diqing from the Three Parallel Rivers World Nature Heritage Area as an excuse to slow down the report work and guarantee the development of the northern and western Chen, Diqing would willingly be a scapegoat.”

It can be said that the letter writer did have far-sight and sagacity. The writer made a full assumption of the development restraints on the northern and western parts of Chen after the heritage application went through. The “Nu River Dam construction debate” and the “Tiger Leaping Gorge Dam construction debate”, which presented a headache to the Yunnan side later on, were actually emerging from this background. However, what this official did not take into his consideration was who should judge over the importance and urgency when the whole “Three Parallel Rivers” area and its upper reach area are related to China’s overall ecological safety.

Regardless of whether developing hydropower or mining, the development model recommended and supported by northern and western Chen is that of “bias towards reliance on resources”. From existing domestic and overseas development experience it can be seen that resource-based development cannot be equated with a region’s overall development. In contrast, this type of development model could cause the local economy to fall into the resource export “specialisation” trap of “high exploitation, low development”. At the same time, from the point of view of the government’s administrative levels, it could promote a bigger, more corrupt and less efficient bureaucratic system. Furthermore, a big project does not equal lots of employment, and “rich government” does not equal “rich citizens”.

Thus, the significance of “Three Parallel Rivers” surpasses one province and one place. For China and the world, it has an irreplaceable and incalculable value for ecological safety. Just as experts such as Zheng Yisheng urge, the country should take on its responsibility towards those areas which have the three phenomena of “ecological value, ecological fragility, and poverty”, and through high level comprehensive decisions and strategies, try to solve the difficulties and implement a meaningful “ecological compensation system” as quickly as possible.