All women expedition to Jinsha River

By Wu Jin
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, December 7, 2016
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An all-women expedition team set out on Dec. 7 to the Jinsha River known for its ferocious flows running at the upper course of Yangtze River.

Six members of Access Water, an all-women expedition team campaigning for the protection of water resources, set out on Dec. 7 to Jinsha River, the upper course of Yangtze River.[Photo/China.org.cn by Wu Jin]

Members of Access Water, an all-women expedition team campaigning for the protection of water resources, set out on Dec. 7 to Jinsha River, the upper course of Yangtze River.[Photo/China.org.cn by Wu Jin] 

Aiming at raising people's awareness of better protecting and preserving the local environment, the expedition consists of five female explorers. Norwegian Liv Arnesen, who became the first female explorer to ski the Antarctic alone; American Ann Bancroft, who is the first female explorer to set foot on the Antarctic and Arctic; Israeli Ulfat Haider, dedicated to undertakings concerning women and the peace of the world; Hu Jiaojiao, a Chinese aficionado of mountain climbing and drifting and Krushnaa Patil, the youngest Indian female climber to have reached the peak of Mt. Everest, will drift through Jinsha River from Dec. 7 to 21.

The aim of the expedition is to search for first-hand information about the local environment and expand eco-friendly curricula to the young people of indigenous families. Access Water, established by Arnesen and Bancroft in 2000, is expected to visit each of the water ways in seven continents every other year.

"Water is a basic (resource) for all cultures, especially the old cultures in Europe and Asia so that is why we focus on water," Arnesen said at the press conference held a day before their departure in Beijing.

However, the two-week trip to Jinsha River is an extra expedition inspired by Hu who invited her teammates to visit her home country when they finished their two-month drift along the Ganges River in India last year.

"It is very exciting to be at the other side of the Mt. Himalayas," said Patil, "All the rivers from the Himalaya as such as the Ganges River and Yangtze River are actually sisters."

The multicultural influence engenders aspiration for the team members to learn from different cultures and landscapes.

"Our job as an international team is to be ambassadors for our regions of the world as we learn about the new region of the world," said Bancroft, "in this case we traveled to China to learn about the complexities of your waterways and bring about the issues coming to play."

The expedition has been supported by China University of Geosciences, the alma mater of Hu. It was where Hu met Arnesen for the first time when the Norwegian explorer delivered her speech in front of the first reestablished mountain climbing team of the university in 2008. "That is where the dream started to grow," Hu recalled.

The scarcity of China's water resources, which is one quarter of the world's average, imposes an impending challenge for the country.

The expedition calling for saving and protecting water resources is, therefore, an important attempt to educate young people to be conscious about the preciousness of water, said Jiang Enlai, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of China University of Geosciences.

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