The diversity of species in this little corner of the Tibetan Plateau is impressive, but under threat.
A naturalist today would be hard pressed to name a truly wild paradise, yet the rugged mountains, isolated valleys and steppes of the Kunlun Mountains, on the Tibetan plateau, are exactly thajtj The accounts of 19th-century travellers speakofthe fabulous wealth of wildlife on die plateau. On his first visit to Tibet in 1872, the Russian explorer Przewalski estimated that the southern slopes of the Kunlun Mountains may have supported millions of wild yak. After travelling across the Kunlun range in the 1880s, the American explorer Rockhill described the upper Yellow River as "the most wonderful hunting ground in Asia". Sadly, wildlife has since diminished drastically but for the most isolated areas on the plateau. Worse still, the survival of these few sanctuaries are threatened.
The Kunlun range, nearly as high and Ion ger than the Himalaya, defines the northern edge of the Tibetan plateau as does the Himalaya its southern border. Stretching almost 2000 km, from the Pamirs in the west to Mount Amnye Machin in the east, the Kunlun Mountains separate the Tibetan plateau from the desert expanses of the Tarim and Qaidam Basins. This immense mountain landscape is one of Asia´s largest wilderness and one of the plateau´s last refuges for wildlife.
Today, the best refuges for the great herds of wild yak, wild ass, Tibetan antelope and argali are in the Kunlun Mountains, west of the Golmud-Lhasa highway. This is the highest, most remote and inaccessible part of the Tibetan plateau, the so-called Changtang, or "northern plains", of Tibet. The Changtang steppe is a cold, arid grassland with a backdrop of rugged mountain ranges. Most of the region is above 4000 metres. It is virtually impossible for the urban eye to comprehend the magnitude and wildness of these grasslands. The Changtang covers some 600 000 sq. km, an area the size of France. There are no roads and habitation is limited to a few thousand herders living on the fringe of the wilderness.