Tibetan's Environment Protection Activities

 Every morning at 7, a group of 20 cleaners gather together and walk about 3 hours up to mountain at the height of 4500-meter mountain to pick up litters along the way.

They are the "mountain cleaner" and also the environmentalists made up by local Tibetan villagers aging from 17 to 67-year old in Shangri-la, the mystery and holy Tibetan-inhabited area in Yunnan Province.

The mountain is called Shika Snow Mountain, regarded as the safety God by local Tibetans, is also treated kindly like "mother". It is a popular tourism destination for its beauty with an attitude of 4,500 meter.

"With more and more tourists climbing the mountain, garbage like bottles and boxes are left on the mountain. I feel sad when seeing my 'mother'-Shika Snow Mountain is polluted," said by a local Tibetan boy named Larong Niangzha.

Therefore, the cleaner team is set up totally voluntarily by the local residents. One of the cleaner, a Tibetan girl Qilin Zhuma said "Everyday, I normally pick up 3-4 kilograms' garbage."

According to the manager of Shika Snow Mountain scenic spot, these local cleaners clean up the hills and at the same time, they also spread the ideas of environment protection to the tourists, "They are like gardener of Shangri-la."

However, there is a great challenge on world peak for cleaning garbage. Twenty Nepali climbers set off to the Mount Qomolangma to try and remove decades-old garbage from the mountain in the world's highest ever clean-up campaign in April, 2010.

Many foreign and Nepali climbers have cleaned Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, in the past, but Namgyal Sherpa, leader of the Extreme Everest Expedition 2010, said no one had dared to clean above 8,000 meters (26,246 feet), an area known as the "death zone" for the lack of oxygen and treacherous terrain. Some 300 lives have been lost there since 1953.

Namgyal Sherpa who has climbed the world's tallest peak-Mount Qomolangma and his team of seasoned climbers, carrying empty rucksacks and special bags, will risk the zone's thin air and freezing temperatures to pick empty oxygen bottles, gas canisters, torn tents, ropes, and utensils lying between the South Col and the 8,850 meter (29,035 feet) summit. It is the first time we are cleaning at that height above 8,000 meters, in the death zone. It is very difficult and dangerous.

"The garbage was buried under snow in the past. But now it has come out on the surface because of the melting of snow due to global warming," the 30-year-old said. "The rubbish is creating problems for climbers ... Some items of garbage are from Edmund Hillary's time." (On 29 May 1953 at the age of 33, he and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest.)

From: China Tibet Online