{"id":901,"date":"2014-08-11T16:34:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T11:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tibetnature.lhasocialwork.com\/en\/?p=901"},"modified":"2014-08-11T16:38:26","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T11:08:26","slug":"illegal-coal-mine-encroaching-nature-reserve-north-west-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/illegal-coal-mine-encroaching-nature-reserve-north-west-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal coal mine encroaching on nature reserve in north-west China"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jonathan Kaiman [The Guardian]<\/p>\n

Coalfield 14 times the size of the City of London turns alpine meadows into craters in Qinghai, Greenpeace investigation reveals a Chinese coal company has been operating illegal open-pit mines in alpine meadows on the far-western Qinghai plateau, potentially endangering one of the country\u2019s largest rivers, a new investigation has found.<\/p>\n

Four opencast mines on the Muli coalfield, operated by the private corporation Kingho Group, could seriously endanger a fragile ecosystem high on China\u2019s far north-western Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, according to an investigation by Greenpeace East Asia released on Thursday. The coalfield is 14 times larger than the City of London, Greenpeace said. Two of its mines overlap with a protected nature zone, making them illegal, and another two are preparing to expand into the zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina\u2019s natural reserve law says you shouldn\u2019t be doing any large-scale operations within national parks,\u201d said Li Shuo, the organisation\u2019s climate and energy campaigner. \u201cThis is a clear violation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photographs taken by Greenpeace show alpine-green meadows suddenly falling off into massive black and ash-grey craters. Glacial melt from the Qilian mountains \u2013 an 80 sq km protected zone abutting the coalfield \u2013 runs directly into a tributary of the Yellow river, China\u2019s second-longest waterway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Muli coalfield is a growing cancer on an otherwise intact alpine ecological system,\u201d said the Greenpeace report. \u201cThe opencast coal mining over years has destroyed the alpine meadows connecting the glaciers on the mountains and the plateau, cutting off the channel for rainfall and melt water to feed into rivers. As a result, the water-holding capacity of the landscape is significantly compromised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is rooted in China\u2019s reliance on coal, which accounts for approximately 70% of the country\u2019s energy. As China\u2019s energy demand rises \u2013 and levels of air, water, and soil pollution in the country\u2019s overcrowded east become unbearable \u2013 the central government is slowly shifting heavy mining and industrial operations to the country\u2019s sparsely-populated west. Yet environmental groups say that authorities have not developed an adequate regulatory framework to keep the environmental impact of the new projects in check, creating a risk of mass water shortages and desertification.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Datong river Basin, where the Jiangcang mine is located, has ample water sources, providing much of the Yellow river\u2019s headwaters. Photograph: Wu Haitao\/Greenpeace<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Coal extraction is a highly water-intensive process. Yet \u201cif you look at water management [policies] in China, there aren\u2019t any strong points on coal and energy development \u2013 the regulations are quite weak,\u201d said Zhong Lijin, senior associate and China Water Lead at the World Resources Institute. The central government has approved 16 \u201ccoal power bases\u201d (pdf) for construction between 2011 and 2015, most of them in the country\u2019s interior. Their combined output \u2013 3.5bn tonnes of coal per year will eventually compromise 80% of China\u2019s coal consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the bright side, you can see the central government is paying more attention to this issue,\u201d Zhong said. She said that national energy authorities have recently adopted new rhetoric, urging provinces and cities to use caution when approving water-intensive energy projects. On Monday, Beijing\u2019s Environmental Protection Bureau said that the municipality will completely abandon coal by 2020, and instead prioritise natural gas.<\/p>\n

The Kingho Group began developing the Muli coalfield in 2003, lured by government programmes to attract business and investment. According to Greenpeace, the company has built a \u201ccomplete coal industry chain\u201d in the area, including a coal chemical plant 90 miles away from the mines.<\/p>\n

Environmental experts completed an environmental impact assessment report for the coalfield in 2010, according to the report, and found that two parts of the coalfield overlapped with a buffer area of the nature reserve. In 2011, the ministry of environmental protection told local authorities that they should ban mining in the area and contain the coalfield\u2019s scale. Despite the words of caution, the mines are moving ahead with plans to expand.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace found that the company and government have not systematically assessed the projects\u2019 impact on the surrounding ecosystem. \u201cThe projects therefore went ahead before the long-term impacts of mining were fully studied,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jonathan Kaiman [The Guardian] Coalfield 14 times the size of the City of London turns alpine meadows into craters in Qinghai, Greenpeace investigation reveals a Chinese coal company has been operating illegal open-pit mines…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":906,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions\/906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}