A TREE GROWS IN EXILE: Reinventing the Tibetan Environmental Tradition Jennifer Rowe Emory Tibetan Studies Program 1 August 2010 Jennifer Rowe AKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks go to the many people who helped me in my research and writing of this paper: my advisor, Dr. Tara Doyle and my guide to the Tibetan environmental movement, Tsering Yankey. I am also indebted to the wonderful people who gave me their time and words, including Tsering Choekyi, Ven. Geshe Lakhdor La, Tenzin Choedon, Tenzin Tsundue, Pasang Tsering, Gen. Yangdon La, Tenzin Palmo, Jigme Norbu, Tenzin Daedon Sharling, Ngodup Dorjee, Tsering Lhamo, Tashi Yangzom, Tenzin Jamyang, Inpa Loden, Lobsang Yiken, Sonam Shine, Tenzin Shagya, Tenzin Daedon, Dhondhup Gyalpo, Tenzin Jamyang, Karma Tenjong Wanpo, Lobsang Dechen, and His Holiness the Karmapa. Finally, I must thank Sonam Dolma for letting me stay and work in her room for three weeks, Lauren Galvin for sharing Zanskar with me, my cousin, Sarah Michaels-Cassidy for putting up with me disturbing her morning sleep in countless cities across Europe, and my sister Meghan for her patient support. PREFACE I conducted the ethnographic research on the environmental movement in the Tibetan exile community while in Dharamsala and surrounding settlements and then in Tungri village, Zanskar. I made use of semi-structured interviews with people involved in various environmental and ecological projects including members of NGOs, the monastic community, the Central Tibetan Administration, and the schools. I also conducted an extended participant-observation of TesiEnvironment Awareness Movement while volunteering for the organization and a shorter participant-observation of Gen. Yangdon La and Gen. Tenzin Jamyang La‟s classrooms. Finally, I supplemented this information with written material on the history of environmental thought in the exile community and printed and online material made available by various organizations. 2 Jennifer Rowe INTRODUCTION What sets the plight of Tibet apart from that of Palestine, Rwanda, Burma, Northern Ireland, East Timor, or Bosnia is the picture of Tibetans as a happy, peaceful people devoted to the practice of Buddhism, whose remote and ecologically enlightened land, ruled by a god-king, was invaded by the forces of evil. Daniel Lopez, from Prisoners of Shangri-la [Lopez 1998:11] Although Tibetophiles, Tibetologists, and the Tibetan exile community may all be criticized for overusing the fabulously ambiguous word “unique,”1 the aura of mystery and enchantment surrounding their cause does make them distinctive among refugee communities. The portrayal of Tibet as an ecological paradise prior to the Chinese occupation has proven captivating to Westerners and has become an important component of pro-Tibet political strategy. Much intellectual banter surrounds the debate about whether Tibetan society was as environmentally benign as Tibetans and Tibetophiles would have us believe2. For all the interest in their past ecological qualifications, less thought has turned to how Tibetans in exile have confronted environmental problems. Tibetans are quick to admit that their lives in exile are far from the ideal of sustainability this stereotype implies. Nevertheless, the many folds of created and experienced reality make for a singular backdrop, against which plays the Tibetans‟ modern struggle to live up to their ecological reputation. In exploring the new form of environmentalism that has blossomed in exile, we could learn how a community, abruptly forced from its traditional, sustainable lifestyle 1 The word is used to describe Tibet’s plateau (Tsultrim 2007:Back Cover), its national, cultural, and religious identity (DIIR Information Sheet 6), its educational needs (Tsultrim 2007:49) and the economic system government officials hope to enact in Tibet (DIIR 2010:9) 2 See Bradshaw 2007 for a positive portrayal of Tibetan ecology and Huber 1991 and Duo et al. 2006 ‘Paleoecological and Experimental Evidence of Former Forests and Woodlands in the Treeless Desert Pastures of Sourthern Tibet.’ Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology: Vol. 242, 18th May, p. 54-67 and Anon. (2006) ‘Tall Trees Once Topped Tibet’ New Scientist: Issue 2579, 25 November, p. 18 for alternative viewpoints (Bradshaw 2007:139). 3 Jennifer Rowe to modern life, endeavors to reestablish an ecological way of life, a perspective with important implications for ecological movements the world over. I aim to explore how the undercurrent of environmental thought maps onto the cultural landscape of Tibet‟s exiled communities. In the course of this exploration, I will ask questions such as: has “traditional” ecological thought persisted in the exile environment and has the stereotype of the ecological Tibetan helped or hindered the Tibetan environmental movement? How has the memory of traditional ecology interacted with the modern, western environmental ideas? Are Tibetan environmentalists motivated by political maneuvering or genuine concern? And, what methods do they use to plant the seeds of ecological living in a foreign soil? In this quest, I found the Tibetans to be fellow adventurers, just as interested as I was in exploring their own mixed ecological inheritance. Despite inheriting an arguably fairy-tale version of their ecological past, I found them to be active agents in creating a completely non-fictional sustainably for the future. NATIVE HABITAT An understanding of the Tibetan refugees‟ environmental movement must be contextualized by the way they interacted with the environment before the diaspora. For over a thousand years, Tibetans maintained a lifestyle much lighter on the land than modern Western people. Tibetans and Tibetan sympathizers like to call their historical relationship with their land “unique.” This assumption must be problematized: many so-called traditional cultures appear to have evolved highly sustainable lifestyles and each was, in some sense, “unique.” That said, the Tibetan way of life was singular if only due to the distinctiveness of the land itself (Gyatso 2007 Five:10). 4 Jennifer Rowe According to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama3, “People are always looking for answers in our unique religion, forgetting that our environment is just as unusual” (Gyatso 1995:79). The Tibetan Plateau towers an average of 4,900 meters above sea level; as the “Roof of the World,” it is the highest and largest plateau on earth (Bradshaw 2007:134). And yet, in spite of its elevation, life abounds with surprising diversity: Tibet is home to ecosystems that range from vast grasslands to delicate alpine highlands to rich old growth forests (Bradshaw 2007: 135 and EDD 3). Ethnically and culturally Tibetan people also inhabit the entire plateau, which includes modern Bhutan, parts of northern India (Sikkim4, Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh), regions of Nepal, and the three Chinese-occupied provinces of Ü-Tsang,5 Amdo6, and Kham7 (Bradshaw 2007:135 and DIIR 2004). Learned Ecology And after living like this for hundreds of years, it has become difficult for any Tibetan to differentiate between the practice of religion and concern for the environment. Tenzin P. Atisha, founder of the Environment and Development Desk in Tibetan Approach to Ecology 1996, quoted in Apte. Living in a forbidding landscape with minimal resources and technology, Tibetans (like many native peoples) built their society upon the necessity of conservation. They fashioned simple livelihoods of nomadic herding of yak and sheep on hillsides and farming of barley and hardy vegetables on flat tracts of land lining the valleys (Apte:1). To match the scarcity of resources, 3 I will henceforth referred to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama as HHDL. 4 Sikkhim was once an independent Tibetan kingdom but was integrated into India in 1975. It is now predominantly Hindu with strong Tibetan Buddhist influences and hosts a Tibetan refugee settlement (Bradshaw 2007:135). 5 Ü-Tsang, the area of central and western Tibet, is currently recognized as the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China. 6 Amdo, in the northeast of Tibet, lies within Chinese Qinhai Province and Angsu Province. 7 Kham, in the southeast of Tibet, is split into the Chinese Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province. 5 Jennifer Rowe Tibetans kept population densities low through a combination of androgyny and monasticism (Galvin)8,9. Tibetans were constantly reminded of their dependence upon other life, a reality embodied in the yak. The yak made Tibet habitable, providing food, shelter, clothing and transportation (EDD 2009:17). Tibetans considered their yaks to be “like one‟s mother,” for the nomads were as dependent upon their yaks as children are upon their mothers (Apte:9). Likewise, the yaks‟ welfare hinged upon the health of Tibet‟s alpine pastures. Tibetan nomads acquired an integrated knowledge of pasture management, including seasonal migration10, mixed herds11, and splitting herds12, which they passed down through generations (EDD 2009:18-19). Therefore, although the Tibetan nomads had no numerical concept of carrying capacity, the ecological concept whereby a land can support only so many inhabitants, they achieved the same result: a steady, even grazing pressure balancing the need for forage consumption with the survival of pastureland (EDD 2009:19). With constant reminders that their survival was inextricably linked with that of other species, Tibetans internalized a strong ecological awareness (Apte:6). As the HHDL writes, “The people of Tibet for centuries have adhered to spiritual