西藏自治区潘得巴协会

Kinship Conservation Fellows is a ground-breaking environmental leadership program that emphasizes market-based solutions to environmental problems. Kinship’s dynamic global network of 191 Fellows in 47 countries and 6 continents is collaborative, entrepreneurial, and dedicated to effective conservation.

Mr Tsering Norbu, Executive Director of the Pendeba Society is selected as one the 18 Kinship Conservation Fellows this year, where along other fellows from 10 countries, he traveled to Bellinghan, Washington, USA for a month-long fellowship exploring market-based approaches to environmental issues. 

Kinship Conservation Fellows are mid-career practitioners with an interest in market-based conservation principles and a demonstrated commitment to leadership. From June 29 to July 30, the 2014 cohort of Fellows will take part in an exceptional learning community that prepares them to successfully implement innovative strategies in the field.

We are pleased to announce that the Pendeba Society of the Tibet Autonomous Region has been chosen as one of the winners of the Equator Prize 2014. The Equator Prize is awarded biennially to recognize and advance local sustainable development solutions for people, nature and resilient communities. As local and indigenous groups across the world chart a path towards sustainable development, the Equator Prize shines a spotlight on their efforts by honoring them on an international stage.

Following a global call for nominations, the Equator Initiative received a record-setting 1,234 nominations from 121 countries around the world. An extensive review process guided by the Prize’s Technical Advisory Committee of international experts was undertaken over the last several months, concluding with the announcement of the thirty-five winners.

While diverse in their innovations and areas of work, each winner demonstrates community-based, grassroots action to address environment, poverty and climate change challenges head-on. Twenty-six winners including a representative of the Pendeba Society will be supported to attend a high-level awards ceremony at Lincoln Center in New York on Monday, September 22nd 2014 as a contribution to the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit.

It is a great honor for the Pendeba Society as an Equator Prize 2014 winner, which shows a positive recognition and support of our work on the planet’s “Third Pole”. We will certainly keep up our good work. By this chance, we would also like to thank all those people who have consistently supported us and helped us grow. Tashi Telek!

More information about the the Equator Initiative: 

The Equator Initiative brings together the United Nations, governments, civil society, businesses and grassroots organizations to recognize and advance local sustainable development solutions for people, nature and resilient communities. The Equator Initiative seeks to:

• Recognize the success of local and indigenous initiatives,
• Create opportunities and platforms to share knowledge and good practice,
• Inform policy to foster an enabling environment for local and indigenous community action, and
• Develop the capacity of local and indigenous initiatives to scale-up their impact.
  

With generous support from LAO NIU Foundation, the Pendeba Society’s Conventional Sheep Corral Transformation project was awarded a Bronze Award at the Second China Charity Fair in September 2013, which was organized by the Ministry of Civil Affairs along with the Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce together with the Shenzhen and Guangdong governments. The project has now been jointly funded with 500 thousand CNY from the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China. The project aims to transform 80conventional sheep corrals, sized of 150 m2 each. The project will render multiple social and economic benefits. Firstly, conventional poorly constructed sheep corrals will be transformed into those of better and stronger quality, and it reduced local annual labor input to repair conventional ones. The new corrals will ensure better and safer environment for breeding baby sheep, reduce lamb death rate and increase local household income.  Secondly, better and stronger sheep corrals will help protect livestock from cold temperature and snowstorms, which then reduces death rate of sheep and other livestock during the winter. Lastly, this project meets the urgent needs of local villagers, and supports the region’s sustainable development, contributing to a better future of Tibet Autonomous Region of China.

Since March 15, 2014, with support from local governments and communities, the team from the Pendeba Society has set off to examine conventional sheep corrals status in Bangbu, Oumudu, Ciri and 9 other villages in Tingri, Nyalam counties. Through the field visit, the team has found that there are still many conventional sheep corrals, and neighboring wetlands and grasslands have been by and large damaged due to continued reparation of the corrals. To build such conventional sheep corrals, it requires lots of labor input, and large areas of grasslands and wetlands would be destructed by digging out earth blocks for construction materials. The destructed wetlands and grasslands would take years to restore, and some of them could face desertification risks without proper restoration measures. Even local villagers have realized the risks and damages to local ecosystems of building conventional sheep corrals, due to lack of initiatives and substitute resources, the conventional ways still prevail. In this case, the Pendeba Society would like to take the lead to call for more attention for sustainable management of Alpine wetlands and grasslands in the region, and create an environmentally friendly future for generations to come.

The Pendeba Society has noted the importance to transform the conventional sheep corrals. Though local government has issued certain regulations on preventing continued destruction of wetlands and grasslands for repairing corrals, the implementation is weak and local villagers lack certain incentives and substitute resources to change the situation. The Pendeba Society has therefore initiated the conventional sheep corrals project in selected villages, and all the participating communities have showed active participation in this project. At present, the Pendeba Society has reached collaboration agreements with certain villages according to project guidelines and local conditions. As per the agreement, some villages will complete transforming their conventional corrals by June 1, and some others will complete by October 1 considering local labor requirement of agricultural production activities. So far, the project is running in a very smooth way, and will complete as planned. The Pendeba Society would like to extend our gratitude to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, local governments and communities for their generous support and active participation.

What are conventional sheep corrals?

Conventional sheep corrals are those made out of wetlands or grasslands earth blocks.  There are no measures to reinforce these conventional corrals and the mud does not bind tight. When there are heavy rains in summer, these corrals would fall apart easily. It is very difficult for grassland of high altitude to restore balance, not to mention that these grasses were eradicated. Hence, damages due to these conventional corrals are lasting and irrevocable. In the meantime, rebuilding and repairing these corrals also require much labor input from local communities, which may repeat year after year. 

Tingri County is rich in tourism resources and also home to Mt. Everest. The number of tourists coming to QNNP is increasing rapidly year by year. Tingri County town and neighboring villages like Baiba are on the way that tourists go to the base camp of Mt. Everest. Food and beverage and hotel service is one of the biggest income sources for local economy. Although the number of restaurants and hotels is increasing, local people can only find basic jobs such as dishwashing and labor work. Additionally, local people’s capacity of running restaurants and hotels is also low; they lack of specialties to attract tourists compared to businessmen from inland China. Therefore, enhancing local people’s capacity in cooking and service skills becomes important, and it is also one of the key components of project funded by LAO NIU Foundation. 

Social organizations help governments in many a way, and they also contribute to building a harmonious society. Endorsed by the Tingri County Chief, Mr. Dunzhu, the Pendeba Society partnered with County Human Resources Bureau to organized a one-month tourism service and cooking skill training since July 3, 2013. On the opening ceremony, Mr. Nidun, County Human Resources Bureau Chief, addressed the importance of the training, encouraging the participants to cherish the opportunity, learn carefully and gain experience to increase income, and change their life. In the meantime, the participants will also contribute to the human resources pool for the county’s tourism development. To ensure training outcomes, the Society has invited well-known chef Mr. Mima Tsering as the trainer. Mr. Mima Tsering once worked for the 10th Panchen Lama and also served as trainer in the past trainings held by the Pendeba Society. Mr. Mima Tsering, with decades of experience, is very responsible and hard working in passing on his experience and expertise to our participants, and we were happy to have him to be our trainer again. In terms of participant selection, we also demanded high and have carefully selected 20 tourism practitioners in QNNP for the training. The training was extended to a month from original 10 days. With previous experience, we aim to equip our trainees with pragmatic skills and know-how, hoping to bring positive outcomes for the tourism development as well as increasing employment in Tingri County. During the training, the participants also learned about ecotourism and hospitality service manners. This will contribute much to the tourism human resources pool for the Mt. Everest National Park, fulfilling the strategic goal of putting people first. 

From June 14 to 18, 2013, the Pendeba Society organized a five-day training on capacity building for local QNNP community leaders - the Pendebas. The training was held in the Pendeba Training Center in Tingri County. 10 village leaders and 10 women leaders from wetlands project-concerned villages participated in the training. In order to better conduct the training and ensure training results, we applied participatory method and open-ended forum, where participants could have free discussion and share experience and success stories with each other. 

This training has continued previous modules, aiming at promoting sustainable and participatory community development, and increasing village leaders’ capacity in ecological conservation, public health, proposal development, project monitoring and evaluation and HIV/AIDS prevention. Pendebas are mediators between the Society and communities, and also are implementers of the specific projects, representing the Pendeba Society in their respective communities. During the implementation phase and follow-up management, Pendebas are the catalysts that continuously help promote sustainable development in QNNP. 

The residents of QNNP are both protectors and stakeholders of the preserve. A better conserved QNNP cannot develop without active participation of local people. And they need to be familiar with the environment where they reside. Therefore, the Society has arranged a component to introduce QNNP in-depth to the training participants, and have them express their ideas on how to address issues and problems facing QNNP at present. The projects, implemented by the Society, such as sheep corral transformation, farmlands and wetlands conservation projects, have produced positive impact on reducing conflicts between natural resources conservation and community livelihoods development. Though traditional wetlands-block built sheep corrals are still prevailing, the Society has successfully mobilized local communities to transform traditional corrals into rock and stone-built ones. The transformed corrals are environmentally friendly and endurable. Villagers do not need repeated labor input for rebuilding/reinforcing the traditional ones. The projects have received support from local people and also attained the goal of environmental conservation. During the training, we took the projects as an entry point to explain and illustrate the importance of environmental conservation. By using actual cases and stories, it was easier for the participants to understand and raise their awareness of environmental conservation, which achieved a bottom-up conservation results.  

As the economy develops, migrant workers are increasing year by year, which increases the chances for them to get exposed to HIV/AIDS risks. Therefore, during the training, we also introduced knowledge about HIV/AIDS prevention. Most participants have little knowledge about HIV/AIDS. Two out of 20 participants have heard of HIV/AIDS prevention, and the others have never heard of the disease. It becomes significant to give introduction of HIV/AIDS prevention know-how to local villagers, and have them conduct relevant campaigns to educate more villagers about the disease. The participants discussed their strategies and steps to conduct such campaigns with the help of experts. At the end of the training, the participants have gained much knowledge about community health education and HIV/AIDS prevention. The expert also emphasized the significance of using social catalysts to address social issues, which shows the important role of social organizations in HIV/AIDS prevention and environmental conservation. 

On February 8, 2013, the Pendeba Society has successfully received support from the Ministry of Civil Affairs to implement a project that offers medical support including precious traditional Tibetan medicine to local villagers living in border areas in QNNP. As a grassroots organization, the Pendeba Society is appreciative of the support from the central government. Through implementing this project, we aim to promote the role of social organizations in serving the society, increasing social services, improving livelihoods, and promoting socialism and building harmonious society. 

In order to better implement the project, fulfill its expected results and ensure fair benefit, the Pendeba Society, together with local government and community leaders, started the project on May 16th, 2013 when the busy agricultural production season can be avoided. Tsering Norbu, Executive Director of the Society and Gingko Fellow of Narada Foundation, led the implementation of the project. The project aims to address difficulties in medical treatment and facilities for pour local villagers living in remote areas.  

During this project, the Pendeba Society invited Mr. Tashi Tsering as chief doctor. Mr. Tashi Tsering is the former director of Nyalam County Hospital/Nyalam County Health Bureau, who holds 38-year experience in practicing medicine. The Society also brought many famous and precious traditional Tibetan medicines to the project sites for local villagers who could come for medical diagnose and consultation. 

Mr. Tashi Tsering carefully diagnosed each villager who came for medical consultation and medicine.  For those who could not move easily, the project staff would come in their home, and gave them medical check and medicine. Many villagers came for medical check. In order to ensure fair treatment and effectiveness of the project, the Society has made relevant lists to record the medicine distribution history. Many villagers have expressed their gratitude to the project. “I have only heard of some of the medicines since I was born, but I have never had them before,” one old man murmured, “now you sent these medicines to my home, and finally I could see and have them. How could not I be so excited?!”

After 10-day arduous traveling, the Society has provided medical check service and medicines for over 2500 villagers in 10 villages in QNNP. The project has better addressed some difficulties of local villagers to get medical consultation and medicines, and gained much praise. The Society has traveled more than 4000 km so far for the project, and will continue the project in Gyerong, Tingkey and Tingri Counties, offering service for over 3000 villagers in the region. 

In order to better promote the project, the Society has made posters in both Chinese and Tibetan, and before each service, the staffer also introduced the background of the project to have local villagers better understand the project. The Society will keep updating the project activities through various means including website and Weibo, letting more people know what is happening on the ground. 

The Second China Social Innovation Award 2012 announced its Awardees on December 22, 2012 in Beijing. After presentation and debate, based on application materials and survey report conducted by the organizers, 10 projects were conferred with China Social Innovation Award 2012, with other 14 projects as finalists. 

The Ceremony was chaired by Prof. He from China Central Compilation & Translation Bureau. Deputy Director of the Bureau, Mr. YU Keping, and Deputy Director of Civil Organization Administration Bureau, Mr. LIU Zhenguo addressed on the ceremony. Around 200 representatives from government, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, awardee organizations, and other organizations attended the ceremony. From the start of the Award program in July 2012 to the deadline of the submission on September 30, 2012, the organizer has received 249 applications from 30 regions and provinces across China. And the project submitted by the Pendeba Society, “Pendeba Nature Conservation and Community Development” has won an excellence award. Tsering Norbu, Executive Director of the Society went to Beijing on behalf of the Society to present the project and received the Award. 

“China Social Innovation Award aims to discover and encourage innovated actions to address social issues, meet social needs, create social values and promote social progress,” said Mr. YU, “and it can draw lessons from and disseminate good practices of China’s social innovation, and promote social fairness and good governance. This Award has attached great attention from across the nation and receives support from the civil affairs departments and social organizations.” 

The list of 2012 Ginkgo Fellows was announced by the Narada Foundation in Beijing on Oct. 12th, 2012. Tsering Norbu, Executive Director of the Pendeba Society, and other 16 outstanding NPO leaders became the 2012 Gingko Fellows. In the next three years, each of them will get 100,000 RMB of funds per year as the personal growth funds which could be used to improve their personal life and expenditures for learning and business trip. They will also get support such as regular overseas tour, peer collaboration, experts mentor resources.

The Ginkgo Fellow Program is started in 2010 by Narada Foundation. It is a long-term program aiming to help young people overcome obstacles in self-development and become leaders to promote certain charity fields in the future. Narada Foundation planned to invest some 100 million RMB in next 10 years on this program. The main beneficiaries are leaders or founders of grassroots organizations, scholars, media professionals, individual activists. Future leaders of NGOs are also included. This program also advocates that the whole society to support talents in public sector and to build up supporting system for them.