28 BEIJING REVIEW MARCH 26, 2020 http://www.bjreview.com
OUT OF POVERTY
I
t’s March and the temperature is rising in
Shannan, Tibet Autonomous Region in
southwest China. It’s time for planting trees.
Farmers are busy leveling their fields, mulch-
ing, digging holes and planting saplings. Tashi
Palden and his men are among them.
The 27-year-old is president of Axinglang
Seedling Nursery in Gonggar County, Shannan,
a city 151 km to the southeast of the regional
capital Lhasa. Tashi Palden comes from a village
in Gyixong Township, which is on the bank of
the middle reach of the Yarlung Zangbo River,
the longest river in Tibet. Every winter, the river
dries up with parts of the riverbed exposed. The
sand on the dry riverbed and elsewhere on the
land is tossed around by the strong winter wind,
creating freTuent sandstorms. In the past, the
roads connecting Shannan and Lhasa were of-
ten buried by sand.
“I don’t want to see the crops, the fruit of
my parents’ hard work, ruined by sandstorms, or
the worried faces of the villagers. Only by Ķ xing
the sand can we enjoy a calm life in my village,”
Tashi Palden told Beijing Review.Staying the sand
So he began to rent desert land from villagers
and established a seedling nursery three years
ago. His plan was to plant saplings in the village
which would moor the sand to the ground with
their roots. It was not an easy job. He used all
his savings and in addition had to take a loan of150,000 yuan (22,053) from a local agriculture
bank. It came at a low interest, thanks to the
preferential policies of the county government.
Then he began to grow trees such as willows
and alamos, but in the beginning, over half of
the saplings died.
Still Tashi Palden soldiered on. He under-
went training in other nurseries to learn how to
increase the saplings’ survival rate and invited
experts to teach his employees. In 2018, 90 per-
cent of the saplings survived and 5,000 of them
were sold. In the following year, he enlarged the
nursery with more investment.
Besides greening the village and stabilizing
the sand, the nursery creates jobs for villagers.
From 2017 to 2019, he hired 45 villagers, 60Green Gains
Environment Srotection Sroves an effective way to
shake off Soverty in Tibet By Li Nan
Tashi Palden, President of
Axinglang Seedling Nursery
in Shannan, Tibet Autonomous
Region in southwest China, in his
nursery on October 16, 2019CH
OG
YAL