Kawakarpo in Various Eyes
 Spokespeople: Renqin Duoji (Tibetan), Stefan Kratz, Guo Jing
Organizations: The Kawagebo Museum in Yunling Village, Deqin
TNC China program
BAMA Mountain Culture Research Institute
E-mails: skratz@tnc.org.cn azara55@yahoo.com.cn
Web: www.nature.org www.bamamount.org
Mount Kawakarpo (Meili Snow Mountain), located in Deqin County on the Yunnan-Tibet border, rises 6,740 meters above sea level. Before the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet made it a holy mountain, it was already revered in the Bon religion. From 1987 to 1996 many mountaineers from Japan, China and the U.S. tried to climb to its summit, but all failed. On January 3, 1991 all seventeen members of a team of climbers from China and Japan perished in an attempt to conquer Kawakarpo, putting the mountain in headlines around the world.
Since then, the mountain has been referred to as Meili Snow Mountain in the media and has endured the impact of the so-called civilized world as tourists, businesspeople, conservationists, international development program managers and anthropologists flocked to the mountain, the tip of the glacier, the gorge and surrounding alpine forests in search of precious environmental and cultural resources.
In 2003, over 10,000 Tibetan people circumambulated Kawakarpo, expressing their religious beliefs and respect for the mountain. In order to voice the concerns of his fellow Tibetans regarding ethnic culture, Renqin Duoji, a local Tibetan scholar, founded the Kawagebo Museum, which showcases illustrations and scale models introducing the holy sites of the sacred mountain.
Stephan Kratz and Guo Jing have conducted research on the environment and culture of the area. In this presentation, they use DV films to share their experience of Mount Kawakarpo and describe their impressions of the holy mountain.
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