It remains to be seen if policy can be sensitised to securing the acceptance of local communities for resource development activities. This will essentially mean acknowledging that conservation and sustainable livelihoods of local people are inseparable. Some of these questions will also bring with them an eerie sense of déjà vu, particularly given that India’s Northeast is also negotiating many of these challenges. Many large projects are being planned in areas that are traditionally revered as sacred landscapes and groves. These concerns were brought out starkly, for instance, when China built a 108 km-long highway to the Mt Everest base camp last year to cut an easy trail for tourists and mountaineers. For the Tibetans, such acts defile the sanctity of sacred landscapes that need to be always preserved since “man should not walk in the house of a god”. Thus development projects that are seen as coming at the cost of traditions have little cultural resonance with communities. 

If handled well, these debates can help define sustainable resource use patterns and the limits of acceptable use. It is true that, while there is deep resistance to accepting any curbs on growth, there is an emerging consensus on the severe extent of environmental degradation. China has set itself a number of ambitious environmental targets for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010). President Hu Jintao also called for a policy reprioritisation when he recently noted, “Development and conservation are equally important — and conservation should be put first.” Environmental NGOs such as Friends of Nature and Green Watershed are expanding a small but growing organisational space to engage the state on the issue of environmental protection. No less significant was the recent decision taken to scale down proposed dams on the Nu River from 13 to 4 in the face of a highly organised campaign led by local farmers and environmental campaigners. New literature coming out of China, such as Cao Jinqing’s China along the Yellow River and The Blue Book brought out by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also makes compelling reading, especially for the increasingly frank treatment of complex social pressures. 

... contd.