Riding a motor freely on the alpine pasture to herd cattle is one of the favorite things of Palyang, who is also known as Bayang. Since she was eight years old, she began helping her mom herd. Apart from her normal pastoral life, she is also a conservationist working at the Snowland Great Rivers Environmental Protection Association.
Since 2018, Palyang has been keeping an environmental protection diary, monitoring local species and changes to water sources, recording weather changes and observing plants. She was not the only one in her family dedicated to ecological conservation. Her father, Tashi Nyima, was also a member of a local environment protection group, and joined trash collection along the circumambulation road of a local sacred mountain in 2015.
Living in Nasuoni Village, Nangqen County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Qinghai Province, Palyang's family is the first in the village to lead a zero-waste life. By 2022, there were 138 zero-waste families in Nasuoni. They revive traditions, and use cloth bags and stainless steel barrels to replace disposable plastic products to prevent water sources from becoming polluted.
Yangtso is Palyang's good friend and co-worker at the association. Besides keeping the eco-diary, they also learn to make eco-friendly lip balm and soap using yak butter, and collect second-hand cloth to make canvas bags. These eco-friendly products are not only harmless to the environment, but also offer them a different means of livelihood.
The association also organizes various training sessions where Palyang and Yangtso learn the connection between climate change and the change of water and grass they see in their hometown, and learn how to protect water sources in the headwater region they live in.
For more:
Trailer: CGTN's documentary film 'The Call of Glaciers' coming soon!
One day to go for CGTN's documentary film 'The Call of Glaciers'
CGTN Environmental Documentary | The Call of Glaciers
CGTN releases documentary focusing on impact of climate change on Qinghai-Xizang Plateau
(All images stills from "The Call of Glaciers", designed by CGTN's Huang Ruiqi.)
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