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.

Nurturing nature

Growing up in Zhisai village in Zhahe township, more than 100 kilometers from the county seat, Jamwen Phuntsok was tasked with helping herd livestock after school. His father often told him that only when the grassland was healthy could cattle and sheep grow strong.

In 1994, when he was still in primary school, Jiesang Sonam Dargye, then a county official from Zhidoi, died while fighting poachers in Hoh Xil. Jamwen Phuntsok said it was the first time he realized that a person could give his life to protect wildlife.

"That story planted a seed in my heart," he said.

In 2010, after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Qinghai, Jamwen Phuntsok went to affected areas to clear rubble, broken glass and household waste from river channels and grasslands.

What began as an individual effort soon attracted others. Family members, friends, colleagues and herders gradually joined him.

The team grew from one person to a handful, then to dozens. It later turned into the Zhidoi Environmental Protection Volunteer Team and, after the establishment of Three-River Source National Park in 2021, it was upgraded into the Zhidoi Ecological and Environmental Protection Association, with Jamwen Phuntsok as its head.

Today, the association has nearly 200 volunteers, including herders, teachers, officials, students, retirees, ecological rangers and local business owners.

Over the years, they have cleaned more than 50 water source sites of the Yangtze River, organized more than 700 environmental education activities in schools and communities, made garbage bins, put up water source protection signs and reused plastic bottles as flowerpots and pen holders. Jamwen Phuntsok said the group does not seek money or fame. It accepts material support, but not cash subsidies, because he worries that money could change the original purpose of the work.

Some of the hardest waste to remove is old garbage buried underground. Plastics and cloth dumped years ago are sometimes exposed again by rain and erosion. Volunteers have to dig them out, clean them, sort them and pack them into large woven bags.

On the busiest nights, they used more than 100 bags. Without professional transport, volunteers pooled money to hire tractors.

Things are different now. Zhidoi's grasslands are cleaner, and many riverbanks are clear again. The association's collective garbage-picking activities have changed from daily operations to about once a week. But Jamwen Phuntsok's work has expanded far beyond litter collection.

As Three-River Source National Park deepened its management reforms, many local herders became ecological rangers under the "one household, one post" policy. Jamwen Phuntsok is also an ecological ranger and has participated in frontline data collection for the Sanjiangyuan snow leopard population monitoring and habitat protection project.

Saving wildlife

The project monitors not only snow leopards, but also dholes, Pallas's cats, wild yaks, white-lipped deer, black-necked cranes and other species.

It also combines anti-poaching, forest fire prevention, wildlife rescue, vegetation restoration and harmless waste treatment.

"Protecting a species does not mean protecting only one animal," Jamwen Phuntsok said. "It means protecting the other species that the animals live with and the habitat they depend on."

In March 2025, a severely injured snow leopard cub in Zhidoi, later named Ling Xiaozhe, drew wide public attention after rangers found it in critical condition.

They transferred it to a temporary rescue site and then drove about 1,500 km to Xining city for treatment. The rescue updates shared online became a vivid lesson in wildlife protection.

"For many people, wildlife conservation sounds distant and abstract," Jamwen Phuntsok said. "But when it becomes the story of one life, people can understand and feel it."

Jamwen Phuntsok has many roles — auxiliary police officer, association head, ecological ranger and volunteer organizer. He still answers emergency calls as a police assistant, even late at night when bears disturb residents or villagers need help.

But whenever he has spare time, he returns to the riverbanks. He does not describe this as a sacrifice.

"I grew up on the grassland. When I see the grassland and livestock, my heart feels settled," he said. "As an ecological ranger, protecting my home is my duty."

Over the years, he has seen the plateau transform. Grasslands have become cleaner, wildlife has become more visible, and more residents now pick up waste instead of throwing it away. Animals he rarely saw as a child now sometimes appear along patrol routes.

To Jamwen Phuntsok, protecting the Yangtze River does not always begin with grand words. Sometimes it begins with bending down, picking up a discarded bottle and placing it in a bag.

"What we do may look small," he said. "But it can spread like dandelion seeds, planting ecological awareness in more places."