A new railway linking China with Tibetan capital Lhasa is putting the region's traditions and wildlife under threat, according to Tibetan Buddhist monks.
An influx of tourists, predominantly Chinese, are taking full advantage of the new access provided by the one-year-old railway, reports Mercury News.
Buddhist Monk Renzin Gyaltso told the newspaper: "In the past, this was a very comfortable place to come for Buddhists."
"You could see a lot of lamas and Tibetans in this place and it made you feel like this was a place for your faith," he added.
More importantly holy and pilgrimage sites, such as the Potala Palace in Lhasa, are now overrun with tourists with a daily limit of 2,300 needing to be imposed, the monk suggested.
"There is a real danger that the Tibetans will be reduced to an insignificant minority in their own homeland," warned the Dalai Lamar recently.
According to the Xinhua news agency, development in the new city of Liuwu will see 110,000 new houses built by 2009 to "protect rural relics" in Lhasa.
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