NGOs rally to address climate change

To relieve the grassland from herding, the NGO has helped residents find alternative ways to make a living, she added.

Through a small handicraft workshop it organizes for women, the center plans to register a cooperative to help local residents sell handiwork with local characteristics.

To assist herders tackle the lack of food for their livestock in winter, the center aims to introduce an initiative to subsidize local communities to buy foraging grass, Hu said.

Shi Xiangying, the center's executive director, said that since it started conducting the survey on the impact of climate change in sparsely populated Yushu in 2017, it has collected more than 300 questionnaires.

Despite two recent extreme weather events — drought this year and a heavy snowstorm in 2019 — the survey found that many herders lack awareness of climate change.

In addition to rising temperatures, the area has experienced significant fluctuations in precipitation, with more rapid downpours, Shi said. Such rainfall can have a negative impact on the grassland, and can cause water and soil erosion.

More shrubs are now growing in Yushu — perhaps due to restrictions imposed by the local authorities on felling trees, in order to enhance ecological conservation, Shi added.

"Another possible reason is that rising temperatures have resulted in expansion of areas where shrubs can grow," she said.

Herders have also noticed that snow has disappeared from some mountain peaks that used to be snow-capped, Shi said.

She added that the NGO is considering setting up communities with resilience to climate change, in an effort to help the government promote this issue on a larger scale.

Shi called for the authorities to pay more attention to climate adaption.

"Places that are comparatively vulnerable to climate change are either located in rural areas or in western parts of the country which are not that developed and have low income levels. Residents in these areas suffer more from the adverse impacts of climate change," Shi added.