LADAKH: “Tibet is not a problem for China, it is rather a solution for the whole of Asia,” Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay, the democratically elected political leader of the Tibetan people, underlined at a conference hosted by Ladakh International Centre at Leh yesterday morning.

In his keynote address, Sikyong spoke about the environmental issues facing Tibet and its impact on Asia. He said that Tibet being the source of ten major rivers in Asia and a benefactor of fresh water across the Asian countries is not a problem for China. He said that 40% of fresh water in the Indus River comes from glaciers in Tibet, adding that the Yangtze River and Yellow river in China as well as the Mekong River in Vietnam, the Brahmaputra River in India and Bangladesh originates from Tibet.

Today, when billions of people are facing scarcity of fresh water, he said, that Tibet as the third pole is actually a lifeline for the Asia. He also mentioned-that Tibet have huge ice reserves and unlike the north and south pole whose ice reserve melts into oceans, Tibet’s ice melts and channels into fresh water across the Asian countries.

Shedding more light on the prominence of water in today’s world, Sikyong mentioned, “In ancient times,people fought over land, and in recent times it is over oil and soon there will be a time when they battle over water.”

In times where the environmental exploitation takes place in Tibetan plateau with excessive construction of buildings and dams, deforestation, rigorous mining,Chinese population transfer into Tibet results in chaos in the ecological system of the host country but also affects its neighboring countries.

Expressing his grieving concern over the imbalance eco-system in Tibet in the recent history he said, “a recent scientific study, which tells that the global warming in Tibet is double the percentage than rest of the world.

“Addressing the Tibet issue is not merely about Tibet but for the whole of Asia especially the Indian sub-continent. He urged that Tibet should not be looked simply as a problem of China, it should be viewed as a solution for Asia’s water woes,” Sikyong concluded.