The glaciers and snow-covered peaks surrounding the Tibetan Plateau hold the planet’s largest store of permanent ice and permafrost outside of the North and South Poles. The thousands of glaciers and seasonal snow melt form the headwaters for Asia’s most important rivers, directly providing drinking water, power and irrigation to more than 200 million people and supporting more than a billion people living in the larger river basins.
The Third Pole also contains a large variety of local communities, and a rich biodiversity of which the endangered snow leopard is perhaps the most iconic representative.
Source: GSLEP website