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Global warming threatens Tibetan environment

Chinese climate experts have expressed concern that global warming is threatening the ecology of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, state media reported on Wednesday.

"The warming climate has caused more meteorological disasters than ever in Tibet," the report quoted Song Shanyun, director of the Tibet Regional Meteorological Bureau, as saying.

"Problems like receding snow lines, shrinking glaciers, drying grasslands and desert expansion are increasingly threatening the natural eco-system in the region."

The reported cited Song as pointing to two major natural disasters in 2000, which it said caused total losses of 1.4 billion yuan (US$189 million). In April 2000, a landslide in southeastern Tibet blocked a river and created a pile of debris 100 metres high.

Flooding in Xigaze city in southern Tibet affected more than 60,000 people that same year, the report added.

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