Working with a women’s cooperative in Tibet to reduce community fuelwood collection (photo essay)

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Working with a women’s cooperative in Tibet to reduce community fuelwood collection (photo essay)

Rare Planet Yobo Member
June 3rd, 2010

Lindsay Hower, Rare’s Director of Individual Giving, reports on a recent field visit to China. Rare’s China Director, Shiyang Li and Rare’s China Pride Program Manager, Wang Yu led the trip bringing Rare Pride to life throughout Yunnan province’s beautiful peaks and valleys.

Tibetan communities + women’s cooperatives + Golden monkeys = community-based forest protection in China’s Baima Nature Reserve

This field visit focused specifically on the activities and progress to date of The Nature Conservancy’s Rare Pride campaign running in Baima Snow Mountain Nature Reserve. The campaign is working to reduce fuelwood consumption and targeting a few specific audiences, including farmers who use fuelwood to prepare cooked food for livestock and women’s groups who lead fuelwood collection for the purposes of cooking in villages. Sina Zhuoma, a reserve staff member, is the courageous and lovely campaign manager overseeing this campaign and partnering with these key audiences to make an impact. This is part of a series of blog posts about Lindsay’s visit to China. Click here to start from the beginning.

Wednesday afternoon. Following an action-packed morning at the Xiaruo school, complete with dancing kids, a Golden monkey mascot, barley liquor, and Tibetan songs sung over multiple toasts, our group was on the road again. Now we were heading to Cikatong village, where campaign manager Sina Zhuoma had been collaborating with the women’s cooperative to reduce community fuelwood collection by encouraging adoption of solar heaters.

Above, members of the Cikatong women’s cooperative greet our group upon arrival to this mountaintop village.

After warm welcomes and more barley liquor offered, we followed our hosts into a small community space where they provided a few traditional dances (and even included us in the dancing, see below).

Above, my friend and colleague Wang Yu dances up a storm in Cikatong!

Bearing the Pride pin with the Golden monkey icon, these women were great partners to Zhuoma throughout her Pride campaign. During welcoming remarks and a few dinner toasts – all of which needed double translation time from Tibetan to Chinese to English, and then in reverse – my Rare colleagues and I were proud of Zhuoma and her obvious knack for connecting with this community and so many others. Our China team really had found a star in Zhuoma, as evidenced in observing her partner, translate, and work with the community members we saw in Cikatong and earlier in Xiaruo.

Below are some shots taken throughout the afternoon and they include some of the women we met, remarks of gratitude from Nicole, and more.

Above, Cikatong women come to us with white scarves, a symbol of welcome and the same colored scarf we received when we arrived at the Xiaruo school.

Above, Campaign manager Zhuoma (standing) translates from Tibetan to Mandarin a series of welcoming remarks from the chief of Cikatong (man seated to the right of Zhuoma). We sat and listened to the multiple languages swirling around our heads while eating sunflower seeds and drinking yak butter tea!

Above, our Tibetan friends marvel at digital photographic technology and the photos our group took of them and their children. This was taken during a meal that the community offered, which consisted of the first fish we encountered on the trip; barley liquor-soaked chicken, rice, chilis, and bok choy stir fry.

Above, one of our travelers (right) thanks the people of Cikatong for their gracious welcome, dancing and dinner. At this point the local ladies have changed from the traditional costumes that greeted us to everyday wear.

Following a short walk around the village with a herd of cattle and the two chiefs (one male, one female, both elected by their respective genders!), we were on the road again. It was a quiet, sleepy drive but before we hunkered down for an afternoon rest as the vans moved along the rocky roads, we managed a few shots along the way (below).