LHASA: Nagqu, China’s highest city at an average elevation of over 4,500 meters, has achieved the seemingly unachievable: it is no longer “the city without trees.”
Once a barren landscape where even survival was a challenge, this northern Xizang city has rewritten its ecological destiny through decades of perseverance, marking a historic breakthrough in high-altitude afforestation.
Perched on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Nagqu was officially reclassified as a city in May 2018. Its thin air, with oxygen levels just half those at sea level, and relentless winds have made it a place where boiling water barely reaches 85 degrees Celsius and packaged goods swell as if ready to burst. –Agencies
