fred: ththen for two years, dr. luand her students used gps to map the sacred mountains in the ganzi district of western sichuan province. they found an average of three sacred mountains near each monastery in the district. in the united states, the protected area would be about the size of vermont and new hampshire combined. nearly one third of the land is in sacred areas. translator: who will protect the envivironment in the westt and in c china? it is governrnment respsponsibibilities. but the titibetans don't ink k f it that way. if you think of it that way, you are not buddhist. you are the protector. no matter if you are a newborn or 80 years old, you arere all protector. you have r responsnsibilities. all lives should be protected. fred: in some e districts, local gogovernments are recognizizinge sacreded mountains, and some a e en hiring tibetans to take care of the national nature reserves. translator: the cultural values of buddhism are very comforting to the scholars of conservation. i felt at last we found

dr. lu zhi is a conservation biologist at peking university.she's been working with tibetans in this area for many years. translator: during the 1990s, when i went to the tibetan area for the first time, i saw something that r really surprised me. ththere was a lot of loggiging going g on, but in some areaeas, the wild aninimals were not afraid of people. and there were very old trees, 600 or 700 y years old. the ancient forest wasas preserved. i asked the locacal people how is this popossible? people said this i is our sacred mountain. this was a big shock to me. just the concept of sacred mountain was good enough to preserve the resources. it's more powerful than the law or the preaching of scientists. totoday the systemem is still functioning. in the core area, nothing should be touched. then in a broader area, killing is notot allowed. no living bebeings should be haharmed. we did a survey on birds, and we discovered that wherever the belief in sacred mountains is strong, there is greater bibiodiversity. so this shows scscientifically ththe