Qinghai Tibetan Plateau is known as the ?third pole? due to its unique culture and ecology characteristics. It provides habitat for many important wildlife species and is the sources of three great rivers; Mekong, Yellow River and Yangtze Rivers. Its fragile ecology is hard to restore once destroyed. Ga Mai Community, Dongba Township, Nangqian County is located in bank of Kyichu River which is one of two major tributaries of Mekong River. It is home of 210 households with around population of 1000 Tibetans with income less than $2 per day per capita. Many local residents have been moved to Nangqen County and Yushu County for seeking better job opportunities and better education for their children.There is no electrical supply system in this community.

Due to impacts of religion and culture, Tibetans live on the mountain. They respect and live harmoniously with the nature. They believe in equality of every living being. In the past thousands of years, they rotate grazing seasonally. In recent decades, economic development has increased the demands on natural resources thus environment is severely destroyed for financial benefits such as using non renewable resources, mining, infrastructure construction and petroleum exploitation.

The project will help the local community to establish their ICCA and empower the local community to conserve biodiversity and develop sustainable livelihood.

Main Problems:
1)Community lacks of scientific information on biodiversity data and traditional conservation awareness among the younger generations has been disappeared.
2) Herders lack of awareness on garbage management.Therefore, the garbage has been piled up for many years which has severely polluted the environment especially forest biodiversity.
3)Local people over-harvest sabina przewalskii kom?Qilian Yuanbai) tree for fuel.
4)The environmental degradation intensified and pasture is gradually degraded and deforested due to over exploitation.

Solutions/activities:
1) Conduct a comprehensive survey on status of community biodiversity of forests, mountains and lakes. Establish community-based biodiversity patrol and monitoring team and start regular work.
2) Establish and manage CCA through local approach.
3) Explore eco-friendly livelihood including handicrafts making and eco-tourism development. And enhance the community herders biodiversity conservation and sustainable development capacity.
4) Summarize project results and share experiences with other Tibetan communities. Register with ICCA database.

Anticipated results/outcomes:
1)1000 sabina przewalskii kom(Qilian Yuanbai) trees protected and 18.3 tons of CO2 emission reduced
2) 10 species are under conservation
3) 10000 herdsman's awareness on biodiversity conservation improved
4) 30 people will directly benefited and the household income will increase $3934 per year.
5) Complete ICCA registry documents