Volunteers spearhead plateau conservation

On a cold spring day earlier this year in Zhidoi county, Qinghai province, the Tongtian River remained partly frozen. At an altitude of more than 4,500 meters, the sky was a deep blue and the wind cut across the open plateau.

Shortly after noon, Jamwen Phuntsok and a dozen volunteers drove upstream toward Sokya township, a wetland-rich area near the source of the Yangtze River. They split into three groups, each carrying a litter picker and a woven sack, and began walking across the grassland.

Jamwen Phuntsok, wearing a cap and a green armband bearing the logo of a local environmental association, did not stand out in the group. He is of average height and speaks plainly. When asked what his work mainly entails, he smiled and said, "Picking up garbage."

For Jamwen Phuntsok, a Tibetan auxiliary police officer with the Zhidoi county public security bureau, those words describe a commitment that has spanned 16 years. Since 2010, he has spent much of his spare time cleaning grasslands, rivers and wetlands in Zhidoi, known as the "first county of the Yangtze River".

Located in the core area of Sanjiangyuan, the source region of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers, Zhidoi has an average altitude of more than 4,500 meters.

It overlaps with Three-River Source National Park, the Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve and the Hoh Xil World Natural Heritage site, making it part of one of China's most important ecological security barriers.

But when Jamwen Phuntsok first began collecting waste, the county had no modern garbage treatment plant or regular waste transport system. Plastic bottles, old clothes, glass shards and food packaging were often left on grasslands, along the riverbanks and in hollows.

"It made me uncomfortable," Jamwen Phuntsok said. "There were bottles on the hillsides, insects trapped inside them, and garbage floating along streams. Sometimes cattle and sheep died after eating plastic, or their hooves were cut by glass."

That discomfort ignited a sense of purpose. He began carrying a woven sack after work, spending an hour or two collecting waste near the county seat. A lack of tools and suitable transportation did not deter him. He bought gloves and bags, and used his own vehicle to carry out the task.

The work was hard and often isolating. In winter, his hands cracked in the cold. In summer, with the sun beating down on him, his skin peeled off. Some people laughed at him and asked whether picking up bottles could earn more than digging caterpillar fungus.

Jamwen Phuntsok usually shrugged off the mockery.