In February, at the beginning of the Lunar New Year, repeated extensive snowfalls in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, led to snow disasters of different levels in one city and five counties. The Amity Foundation, together with the Snowland Great Rivers Environmental Protection Association, launched an aid project for the Yushu snow disaster areas in order to help the herding families pull through. Enough forage grass for the yaks for about 10 days was sent to the disaster-affected areas.
Zaduo County at the headwater of the Lancang River was the most affected by the disaster, with 60% of the area of the entire prefecture covered in snow, causing serious loss to the herding families.
Rapid assessment of Yushu snow disaster areas was provided by the project partner of the Amity Foundation and revealed that 5% of the domesticated yaks died of frost or starvation, and 20% of the domesticated yaks died in the most disaster-affected areas.
Herdsmen found that the cold weather and scarcity of food threatened the lives of the animals of which they were proud of. During the heavy snowfall, they carried the leftover forage grass up to the mountains for the wild animals. However, it was far from enough and so the lives of the blue sheep, the Tibetan gazelle, the white-lipped deer, and others are threatened. Surplus forage grass would be sent to these wild herbivores in the disaster-affected areas.
-Translated by Lin Changfeng
