Called the Earth’s Third Pole by scientists because only the North and South poles hold more glacially stored freshwater, the Tibetan Plateau is undergoing climate change twice as fast as the rest of the world. Glacier meltdown across Tibet is disrupting downstream water supplies, threatening the sustainable livelihoods of Tibetan nomads and villages, and putting at risk more than one billion downstream peoples and communities across south and east Asia.

Since invading Tibet in 1949, China has implemented land-use policies that have brought on region-wide famine, caused desertification on the grasslands and acute and chronic flooding in eastern China from clear-cutting eastern Tibet’s forests, and poisoned river and groundwater through unregulated mining. China has degraded Tibet’s ecosystems, displaced and impoverished Tibetans, and threatened Asia’s regional security.

The young monk shot here in Sikkim,  is a rimpoche; a most revered lama with spiritual attributes respected by Tibetan people, yet destroyed by Chinese politics. When a five year old reincarnation of unlimited compassion points a toy gun at you, is he playing a childhood game?