My cash register keeps guessing. This approach is what I believe in—the energy generated will be perfect. I’m going to have to be criss-crossing America raising the funds. But to do so I have something better than a skull. I will have a national park in the world’s highest mountains, not footprints disappearing in the snow.
RIDING HIS MAJESTY’S HELICOPTER, ROTOR BLADES TWACKING, this flight was arranged by Bishou as a training flight before carrying royalty the next day, so this day’s bill is just for the fuel. As we fly through the valleys, I look at the houses hung onto the hills, remembering how Wendell Berry summed up such tasks: ‘The forever unfinished work of our species … the only thing we have to preserve nature with, is culture: the only thing we have to preserve wildness with is domesticity’.1 Nature is not going to be set apart by what we are headed to do, rather people shall be rethinking how they live.
The helicopter is over Makalu Jungli Hot’l and, remembering the weather, I am chastened that my biggest risk may not be financial. Once we land, we might be cut off by the snow, and problems will escalate if I cannot get these people out. This conference could well become a front-page-news disaster. In organizing this meeting months ago, knowing that risk, I selected the week in the year I believed least likely to bring stormy weather. But it is impossible to predict the Everest/Barun weather.
Swinging through a steep turn, the helicopter lands. Pasang, Tashi, and Lendoop run to us. Two days before, after a two-week walk, they brought in a string of porters with food, field camp supplies, eight chickens, and dragging two goats over mountain passes. Tents are up, and they’ve been at work building a conference centre. The yak herder who arrives in a month will find his former hut with sweeping woven bamboo wings. One wing, twice as long as the other, has workers weaving bamboo into a conference table. A glance to the stream shows stones creating a pleasantly lined, very public washing area. Men will accept that, but will the women?
The next day a helicopter arrives, then a second. On landing, everyone’s head turns to the waterfall spurting out of the base of the fifth highest mountain in the world, the cliff Lendoop once described as: ‘Imagine a great mountain urinating’.
John Craighead spots something beyond. ‘Dan’l behind, is that smoke? Who could be building a fire that high?’
A thin wisp rises beyond the waterfall. John brings over the NASA satellite image he brought, indicating a large frozen depression behind the rock cliff. Around it are snowfields; these must feed the waterfall. The smoke seems to be coming from inside that depression … if it is smoke.
Twenty-one people, twelve senior Nepalis and nine Westerners, are in the Saldima Meadow; with them are six local government representatives. All of them are used to being busy with meetings augmenting tightly scheduled workdays. For people like that, a meeting such as this requires around-the-clock activities, morning bird trips, evening campfires, and snacks.
General Shushil Shumshere Jung Bahadur Rana, His Majesty’s uncle, opens the seminar. ‘As chairman of today’s session, it is my pleasure to welcome all. How unusual to have so many distinguished people.…’ Just then, Bill Garrett, Editor of the National Geographic Magazine, snaps a photograph of Scott McVay, director of the Dodge Foundation, squeezed on a hand-hewn bench between Nepal’s Secretary of Forests and the Chancellor of the Royal Nepal Academy. The flash slips immediately out of the cracks in the woven bamboo. The meeting continues, our chamber lit by pinstripes of sun slipping in.
‘So many distinguished people in such a humble setting, the conference table was lashed by villagers who cannot read, who have never seen wheels move a vehicle. Their skills differ from ours. But if they know the branches with which to build a table around which to talk, we hope they will bring knowledge about how to care for this jungle’. He turns to the local people respectfully sitting apart from the table, ‘Please join us at the table, and I ask you also to speak. As we talk ideals as well as ideas, let us remember we have come to design a park based on people. What more of an appropriate setting and how much more qualified a group. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome!’
In deliberations that followed, a member of the royal family carried food. The leader of the National Planning Commission went around camp picking up trash. Whatever the bear’s identity, the discussion had moved to the people. The politicians outline what might get through the government. The scientists tell what must not be forgotten. The bureaucrats wonder how to process the unfamiliar. On flip charts, a core zone of 300 square miles is designated connecting to the territory of Everest already protected. Circling it will be a conservation area open for non-destructive human use. An adjacent World Bank hydroelectric project is noted that must be considered. Rapid population growth of the surrounding villages is also noted, developing plans for how to deal with these communities who, as populations and ambitions grow, expect to move onto ‘now unoccupied’ land and displace the forests and animals we seek to protect.
Like all places in earth’s Anthropocene, this place is not ‘untouched’ by humans, and our discussion intends to steer human touching that will soon become more. As the planet adjusts to its most destructive animal, our ambition seeks to allow this place to be adjacent to human impact, a little more with natural influences.
Tirtha uses the phrase, ‘We must strengthen Nature’s beguiling natural mask, to make this place touchable’.
On the last night Bishou announces we’re going to have a bonfire. Three bottles of scotch have somehow appeared. To prepare for the party, three old friends leave the Saldima Meadow to fetch firewood from the jungle. John and Tirtha sit on a fallen tree in Nepal named after a man from Scotland, Rhododendron campbelli. I sit across on a rock, ‘Tirtha and John, are we starting an approach that can transfer?’
‘That we must see’, John says. ‘A park where Man is managed as one species, as part of the ecosystem sounds good, certainly better than a hundred years ago’. John is referring to how the US Cavalry rode into Yellowstone, threw out the native peoples, then with a military focus on borders secured the perimeter to create the Yellowstone National Park.
Tirtha follows, ‘We have involved the right people’.
‘And what must be kept is that sensation which feels bigger than the area itself’, John says. ‘Ecosystems are more than the land; they compress a wholeness into one place; they make you feel small’.
‘John, you’re sounding mighty Buddhist’, I chuckle. ‘What do you think Tirtha? Doesn’t that sound like finding the ocean in a single drop, except that now it is the earth through a single park?’
‘It is more complicated’, John says. ‘A grizzly bear is more than the animal. Locking it up in a cage sets it apart. The Buddhist explanation about that is reality in existence as reflection of others. The relationship between a caged and a wild animal is of wilderness and civilized. A grizzly in his home range outside the cage presents wildness bigger than the animal itself’.
‘Okay’, I break in as I want to change the conversation. ‘Here is a question. I recall one way to tell whether a meadow is pristine is to examine the proportion of grasses to sedges. Yes?’
‘Why ask that after just designing a national park?’ John asks, mystified.
‘John, usually when Dan’l asks strange questions he is thinking again of his Yeti’, Tirtha smiles.
‘Tirtha is right’, I say. ‘But please tell me about grasses and sedges’.
The botanist begins. ‘A pristine meadow usually has few sedges. Grasses are taller. So, if the meadow is not being grazed, the grasses block the sunlight the sedges need. In a truly pristine meadow you may find only fifteen per cent sedges. But when the meadow is grazed, especially with domestic animals, grasses are cut back, the hardier sedges come forward, and you may find only fifteen per cent grasses—as well as more wildflowers’.
John adds, ‘Fluctuating habitat seems to bring the hardier sedges’.
‘Sedges and grass, how do we tell them apart?’ I ask. ‘Both look like grass’.
14.3 Meeting in a Bamboo Hut to Plan the Makalu–Barun National Park: (from left to right) Bill Garrett, Editor, National Geographic; Beverly Osman; Scott and Hella McVay, Dodge Foundation; and John Craighead
Source: Author
‘True grass has round stems’, John replies. ‘Sedges have triangular stems and flower from one point whereas grass flowers from nodes along the stem’.
Tirtha continues, ‘The grass/sedge issue is interesting given the bioresilience idea you struggle with, Dan’l. Many people think pristine systems hold the maximum diversity of species. But pristine systems can climax out, and a dominant species takes over. Biodiversity is maximized usually where habitats are in flux, for example, forest and meadow, or the estuary interface between land and sea, as well as when people are responsibly using the land. Multiple niches exist at such interfaces, and multiple niches propagate biodiversity’.
‘I’m still working through how grasses and sedges could, in any way, relate to your Yeti?’ John asks.
‘Let’s pick up these dead limbs and return to camp’, I reply. Tirtha laughs and we drag branches up the cobbled trail, a trail used occasionally by smugglers taking the back way into Tibet.
OUR LAST MORNING IN THE CAMP. DAYLIGHT HAS BEEN WITH US for an hour and there has been more activity than on any morning before. Clothes are being jammed into duffels, sleeping bags stuffed, breakfast hurried. Scott and Hella McVay slip off for a last walk. I lean against a rock, writing notes and look again at the Saldima waterfall thundering out of the rock face. Today, wisps also rise from behind us. Is it smoke?
But uncertainty hangs over the camp. When will the helicopters arrive—if at all? Worry is not here in Saldima for there is blue sky above. In Kathmandu, November mornings are heavy with fog, sometimes not lifting until nine. The flight here takes an hour and ten minutes. The bottles of scotch last night got everyone talking.
Bob Davis comes over. ‘Dan’l, the pattern is holding: look down valley. As we said last night, this valley is clear until about nine-thirty. Then that cloud down there starts rising’. Bob points to the lower end of the valley. ‘The cloud now is at 6,000 feet. Those choppers not only must get in by nine-thirty, but since we need a shuttle to position people outside, they must get in twice. So the fog in Kathmandu must lift by eight’.
‘Hot tea, sahib?’ Pasang holds two steaming mugs, then turns to the hut he’s made his camp kitchen. Fatigue in his voice tells he’s ready to leave. Cooking for so many dignitaries, and each with likes and dislikes, having few resources, was a strain that everyone has ignored but he’s managed to carry. People like Pasang get noticed only when something goes wrong.
As he steps away I ask, ‘Pasang, how many more days of food do you have?’
‘After today’s breakfast, three more meals, but sugar for only two more teas’.
Twenty-one dignitaries, six local officials, three kitchen staff, and twelve porters kept as backup in case of trouble—in all thirty-seven people. When planning, we brought what we calculated would last eight days (five days of meetings plus three of reserves; it turns out we have a day and a half of reserves). I sip my tea, Pasang as always made mine extra sweet. Others must have also gone and asked. Sixty pound of sugar were used.
Bishou comes over, ‘We are successful. Our idea has the soldiers now’.
‘Bishou, we don’t know if friends of today will stick when they return to their offices’.
‘Yes, we do not know who we can trust’, he replies. ‘But I think we have enough. Look. Have you ever seen so many powerful Nepalis together for such a task?’
Dan Vollum, a conservationist from the Pacific Northwest who is also a helicopter pilot, walks up. ‘That chopper better slide in soon. Flying up the valley among those clouds will be like navigating up the belly of a snake—curving walls ready to smash the bird at every turn’.
Bishou smiles. ‘Mr Vollum, don’t worry, General Shushil is here. He is in charge of the Royal Flight Wing. The pilots will come even if it is to fly up the belly of your snake’.
The cloud is almost on us. Maybe the chopper can hop over it. But just then, from inside the cloud comes an unmistakable thwack-thwack-thwack.
Dan Vollum points, ‘See, there!’ Following his finger, I see a giant bird, made in France, flying in the Himalaya at ground level, not in the cloud but below it, not flying fast but bush-by-bush; disciplined pilots coming for their general.
That chopper will soon exit out the blue hole above. One group will get out. Then we see a second chopper wallowing in behind. People surge towards them. Our rations just increased by two-thirds. The Nepalis step aside for General Sushil. I rush up, waving my arm to speed the departure. ‘General, please. It is time for you to leave.’
The pilot looks expectantly. Brigadier Sushil motions the others on board and pulling me away says, ‘Dan’l, I stay. You are low on sugar, I think’.
MAY 1990. MANY OF US MEET ACROSS THE BORDER IN CHINA near the northern bases of Makalu and Mount Everest. We’re in Shegar, Tibet, in the People’s Republic of China to launch a nature preserve that adjoins Makalu–Barun National Park in Nepal. This Chinese preserve is ten times larger than Makalu–Barun, three times bigger than Yellowstone; or, as our Chinese colleagues point out, larger than the island of Taiwan. This is the largest preserve yet conceived of in Asia. China likes big.
Across its 180-mile width, it adjoins five parks in Nepal, then with a brief non-protected gap, a park in India’s Sikkim, a series of national parks in Bhutan, and on to India’s Arunachal Pradesh, then Myanmar, connecting protected areas across a 500-mile expanse of the eastern Himalaya. One-third of the breadth of the Himalaya is being protected, a swath roughly 500 by 20 miles. In time, preserves in southern Tibet, collectively known as Four Great Rivers, will continue to link to preserves in Yunnan and down into Cambodia. Following the Saldima Meadow meetings, discussions spontaneously began in each country. Nepal changed its national park approach. China adopted a new concept. India and Bhutan started conservation rethinking—what drove this parallel discussion was prioritizing conservation for the local people’s benefit, not nature’s sake.
So actions began to improve both protection of the wild and people’s living. The easy-to-understand example of wild meadows growing more flowers when domestic animals graze parallels how nature can become more beautiful as people use it. The result is conservation unfolding at the landscape level. Protected nature is not only keeping places untouched (it is), but also a growing understanding of how to touch the world and help it grow.
Land in this now-evolving understanding is set into zones allowing protection and use, balancing zone-to-zone across a region that is now termed ‘landscape’ within which there are varying nature-sensitive management policies. One zone is the ‘core area’ with not-to-destroy guidelines, a second ‘buffer’ zone allows actions such as animal grazing but no human inhabitation, a third zone is ‘agricultural’ with fields yet also parameters of nature protection, a fourth zone is for denser human settlement (towns, even cities) where destructive impact to a pristine wild is confined and managed. From what the Government of China has called Qomolangma (Mount Everest) National Nature Preserve (QNNP), areas in Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Cambodia extend a concept for all of humanity.
Following the meetings in Lhasa we have just initiated, the Government of China has decided to make the QNNP a ‘national treasure’ on the same protection status as the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. Underway now is a growing international partnership. Here in the centre of where 40 per cent of the world’s people live and where the highest points of the planet stand now advances arguably the highest need on the planet: earth’s responsible care.
To push this forward, the partnership on this trip has come from four countries. While some in the larger world press for Tibet to be free from China’s rule, our actions work beyond today’s politics to build a platform to grow solutions for humanity’s longer problems: human life requires that the environment be protected.
On that base will grow economic growth, health, education, and governance. A participatory approach in conservation is our objective to grow bottom-up capabilities among people for later larger governance.
14.4 A Map of Thirteen Nature Preserves across the Tibet Autonomous Region/China that Followed from ‘Discovering the Yeti’
Source: Future Generations University
National Parks
1. Changtang National Nature Reserve
2. Se-lin-cuo Black Neck Crane Breeding Ground
3. Yalung Tsangpo River Black Neck Crane Transient Area
4. Qomolangma (Mt Everest) National Nature Preserve
5. Yalung Tsangpo Great River Canyon National Nature Preserve
6. Chayu Cibagou National Nature Protected Area
7. Mangkang Snub-nosed Monkey National Nature Preserve
Region Level Preserves
8. Riwuchi Chang-maoling Red Deer Nature Preserve
9. Bajie Giant Cypress Nature Protected Area
10. Gongbo Regional Nature Reserve
11. Lhasa LhaIu Wetlands Nature Preserve
12. Namtso Wetland Nature Preserve
Integrated Protection Plan
13. Four Great Rivers Ecological Environment Protection Plan
Key to 14.4 Names of Thirteen Protected Areas across Tibet Autonomous Region/China
To reach here, we drove across the Tibetan Plateau, at an altitude where the oxygen is one-third of the way to the moon. Without trees and only scant grass, the landscape indeed looks moonlike. Homes are made from lifting up and packing the surrounding dirt. Four of us sit in an ancient caravanserai. Until the Chinese completed the motor road we rode, Shegar was a halting place for Tea Road caravans between China and India. Outside the gate, to get to India from this caravan stop, take a right; to go to Lhasa then China, take a left.
The just completed meeting in Lhasa got the support of Hu Jintao, Governor of the Tibet Autonomous Region (later to be President of the People’s Republic of China). The decision that was made was rather than creating a separated management, protection for all four zones of the new national park will be through the local government. Parallel management structures for conservation and politics would not be set up; rather, one system will do both tasks so the result is people learning to live in an enduring way with nature.
Yeti- The Ecology of a Mystery Page 28