more news from Kham  | kham aid home

Kham Forestry News and KAF Programs Report

December 1, 1998

Dear Friends,

I've just come back from two months in eastern Tibet and there's a lot to report.

First of all, the biggest news in Kham is a total ban on logging in Ganzi, Aba, and Liangshan prefectures, enacted by the government and effective Sept 1, 1998. This is their response to serious flooding of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers this past summer. Loggers are allowed to remove already-felled timber until June of next year. Then the forestry industry will grind to a halt. Ganzi Prefecture is looking to tourism as a source of income to replace logging. They have asked the central government to open Ganzi to unrestricted travel by foreigners. This is great news for those of you who have been wanting to go, but are daunted by the permit process and don't want to use a travel agency. We don't know exactly when the opening will take place, however. When it does, rest assured you will hear about it from me.

In the meantime, roads are being improved all over the prefecture. Pavement has been laid from Kangding to Litang, and also to Luhuo. Work is continuing on the tunnel that will bypass the treacherous Erliang Shan Pass. Next year the tunnel will open, and they will lay asphalt all the way to Maniganggo. In the meantime, however, travel is VERY slow, and traffic frequently halts for hours at a time.

Here is some Kham Aid Foundation news:

We are developing a new web site at http//khamaid.org. There is already material posted here, although some of the links don't work yet. Please bear with us as we upload more reports and photos to this site. When it's done it will be quite enormous a resource for activists, scholars, and travelers interested in Kham.

Our Books for Schools program resulted in the delivery of some 10,000 Tibetan language books to needy schools around Kham. This program was sponsored by the Pforzheimer Foundation. The books were selected by Baden Nima (on our Board of Advisors) who is the first Tibetan ever to earn a doctorate in education. The books are products of the nationalities publishing houses in Sichuan, Gansu, Beijing, and Lhasa. More than one hundred schools were targeted. The books were delivered by two Tibetans who spent weeks on the road traveling to all corners of Ganzi.

Can you imagine growing up without books? Until this program, children at these schools had nothing to read except their Tibetan language textbooks. Teachers lacked dictionaries and other reference materials. Now they have a chance to enjoy the richness and variety of Tibetan literature, and develop a greater appreciation for their language. Part of program funds are going into translation of a science book for children into Tibetan.

In October I brought Canadian architect and environmental planner William Semple to Kham. We did two weeks of interviews and field surveys of Tibetan architecture, and also investigated forestry in the region. We are currently raising funds in Canada and the U.S. for tree-planting in Tibetan areas of Sichuan. Because of last summer's flooding due to erosion on formerly tree-covered slopes, this effort is both necessary and timely. We are seeking to develop a total program that considers environmental, economic, and human needs, not one that merely puts trees in the ground, and will coordinate our work closely with government-funded planting.

Baiya Monastery, whose murals were restored and main temple repaired by the China Exploration and Research Society and Kham Aid Foundation, is now back in business, and I witnessed the return of Baiya Rinpoche to his traditional seat. Check out the program web site at http//asianart.com/cers. We are now planning a training program in thanka conservation for aspiring Tibetan conservators, and researching what other monasteries in Kham have important murals worthy of world-class conservation. We are also continuing to support repair of Palpung Monastery. A grant of rmb40,000 was delivered to the monastery this year, and an art conservation team went there in April to rescue nine murals painted by Situ Rinpoche that were threatened with destruction as the building was collapsing around them.

In September I led a group of six on a three-week journey to, and around, Dege. We stayed in monasteries, saw dance and music performance, visited a Tibetan medicine factory, rode horseback across the high plateau, met several rinpoches (stayed on the home of one and was treated to a feast by another), pulled a truck out of the mud, sampled Tibetan and Sichuan cuisine, made new friends--a grand time was had by all.

Unfortunately, there won't be any future trips organized by Kham Aid Foundation because the IRS has disallowed tours as a fund-raising activity by 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations. It seems that the practice was being abused by others (notably alumni associations) who offered fancy tours and allowed clients to deduct the entire cost of the tour, not just the amount in excess of actual expenses, as we have been doing. Although we won't publicly advertise any more trips, we will continue to take our valued sponsors to Kham on individually-arranged journeys. If any trekking outfitter would like to organize tours to Kham, and donate the proceeds to KAF, we will be more than happy to work with them.

On the education front, we have received pledges of support for several schools $5000 from a private donor for Gyalten Rinpoche's Private

Charitable School, and $7000 from the American Himalayan Foundation to build a new dormitory for the Kyagen Primary School. In addition cash was delivered to the administrator of the Athri Village school. The latter was the subject of a report earlier this year. It was founded by Akong Rinpoche and Pentsok Rabten, and was badly in need of a second teacher and funds to buy equipment. Thanks very much to Victoria Finlay, Jeff Cobb and Amy Corns for their support.

Best wishes to all of you during this holiday season,

Pamela Logan
President, Kham Aid Foundation