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Profile of Young Tibetan Environmentalist
[Sierra Magazine; November/December, 2000.]
Gyalpo Tashi is a Tibetan born in India. When this interview was conducted in the fall of 1999, he was 25 and working as the community education officer for the Tibetan Environment Network (TEN), a grassroots program in Choglamsar, India.
At school, we are taught that we should work with the Tibetan exile community, to keep the momentum of the struggle. But when I got out of university, there were no jobs. I had to wait almost two years to get a job in my own community.
Tibetans once lived in an ecological way, but they were pushed into modern times and close quarters in a refugee camp in Choglamsar, Ladakh, India. This rapidly growing community had no infrastructure. It had no dustbins and garbage was a huge problem until TEN helped organize monthly cleaning ups in the camp. Our next project is recycling, but that will take time. We are also trying to educate the tourists-who bring in money, but also leave behind rubbish-about the environment and Tibetan culture.
We have created solar-heated community centers and built greenhouses to encourage Tibetans to grow vegetables organically. This is a new idea for them, because they were nomadic before they came into Ladakh. We also bring a television around to show videos on ecology. They may not be interested in environmental issues, but televisions are rare, so they come out of curiosity.