International forum focuses on Tibet's sustainable development

China is welcoming the international community's constructive suggestions on the Tibet autonomous region's sustainable development.

The two-day forum in the region's capital city of Lhasa began on Tuesday.

"Tibet will never copy the development model that pollutes first and cleans up later," said Losang Jamcan, chairman of the autonomous region's government.

"The 3 million residents of about 40 ethnic groups in Tibet will carefully protect the heavenly environment and ecology in Tibet, just as they protect their eyes. Protecting the air, water, forest, snow mountains and grassland in the holy region is China's duty to the world," he said in the opening ceremony of the forum, co-hosted by the region's government and the Information Office of the State Council.

In a congratulatory letter to the forum, Yu Zhengsheng, head of China's top political advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said that Tibet has no choice but to pursue sustainable development, given its special natural conditions. "Tibet will further open up for more international cooperation in the process," Yu said.

Cui Yuying, deputy director of the State Council Information Office, suggested local governments should always put the people's needs first, as they have before.

"The good environment in Tibet today indicates its sustainable development will make Tibet not only an important ecological shield for China, but also China's big contribution to the globe."

Narasimhan Ram, chairman of the Hindu Group of publications in India, echoed the sentiment, saying that the modernization of Tibet greatly improves human rights conditions and brings tangible benefits to all residents of the plateau.

From 2001 to 2013, the gross domestic product of Tibet increased from 13.9 billion yuan ($2.26 billion) to 80.2 billion yuan. Urban residents' per capita disposable income was 20,023 yuan last year, 2.5 times that of 2001. The rural population's per capita net income was 6,578 yuan last year, 4.6 times that of 2001.

About 100 speakers from 36 countries and regions will deliver speeches on topics that include Tibet's sustainable development, environmental protection and cultural diversity.

Most speakers attribute Tibet's fast modernization to the Chinese government's determined abolishment of the serf system in the late 1950s, and the great efforts to build a citizen-based modern society in the 1.2-million-sq-km plateau, which had been romanticized by Western adventurers and missionaries in the 1800s and 1900s.

The fast-growing transportation system in the region is impressive to most foreigners.

Tibet was not reachable by automobiles before the 1950s. Today, Tibet has five airports. All counties and prefectures are accessible by well-maintained roads. The 1,956-km railway that connects Lhasa and Xining, capital of Qinghai province, completed in 2006, greatly improves the connectivity between Tibet and other parts of China.

The environment is a big concern, as most parts of China have the worst environmental pollution in their histories.

The speakers unanimously appealed to Chinese central authorities to better protect the local environment, culture, religion and historical heritages, and make the protections legally binding. Nearly 34 percent of Tibet's areas are natural reserves.

Tourism, modern agriculture and husbandry, the modern service sector, and special industries related to local specialties should be the main economic engines and job creators for Tibet, many suggested.

"Less-developed regions like Tibet also have their advantages. They can learn advanced technologies and management models from the developed regions, which usually came at huge environmental costs," said Zhang Yongsheng, a senior researcher of economics with the Development Research Center of the State Council in Beijing.

"The good ecology and rich cultural resources are the underdeveloped regions' scarce resources, and the spread of information technology, modern logistics and infrastructure construction system also lay the solid foundation for Tibet's rise," Zhang added.

After the forum, the speakers will visit Linzhi in southeastern Tibet in a field study of the protections of ecology and traditional lifestyles in the town, where the Yarlung Zangbo River meanders through valleys formed by three big mountain ranges - the Himalaya, Hengduan and Nyenchen Tanglha.

liyang@chinadaily.com.cn