China's environmental protection activists Friday donated 625,000 yuan (US$75,510) to the Aid-Tibet Fund to help farmers and herdsmen in the Tibetan Autonomous Region buy solar energy- powered appliances.

Last June, the Aid-Tibet Fund, founded in 1987, called on people from across the country to donate money to farmers and herdsmen living in remote areas in Tibet to buy solar-energy appliances, which can solve their difficulties in heating, lighting and bathing.

Pan Yue, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said this fund will both improve the living standards of the Tibetan people and reduce the damage to woods and vegetation in Tibet.

"Then the fragile environment in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau can be protected," Pan said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 4, 2004)