eTN Asia, 10-13-2006
As China battles to clean up its heavily polluted waterways and stave off water shortages across arid northern regions that have been exacerbated by waste and mismanagement, the authorities have decided to shut melting glaciers in its northwestern Xinjiang region to tourists.
It is being said that tourists littered, polluted and even drove across the ice that provides water to millions, the official Xinhua agency reported.
The glaciers in the Tianshan, or heavenly mountains, supply 2.3 million people in the regional capital Urumqi with drinking water but are shrinking by about 25 feet a year because of global warming and increased human activity, the report said. “Travel agencies had been offering unauthorized tours that drew around 2,000 visitors each year for as little as 20 yuan, or $2.53 per person. As well as driving across the ice, careless tourists had damaged research equipment on one of the country’s most closely studied glaciers, the report added. Glaciers covering China’s Qinghai-Tibet plateau, known as the “roof of the world,” are also shrinking by seven percent a year,” it reported.
