Three female Yak, or dri, produce enough milk to feed one person!

The vast nomadic grasslands of Tibet are only habitable thanks to the lumbering yak. Virtually everything that a nomad family has or needs springs forth from their dependable herds. Beyond meat and wool, the yak - or more accurately the female yak, called "dri" in Tibetan - produces a rich milk used in making cheese, yogurt, and, of course, the ubiquitous yak butter, its smell prevalent throughout Tibet. Yak caravans still reach out to the remotest areas of Tibet and - where farmed - yaks are the plateau's tractors. yak bones make jewellery and tent-fastenings, and yak dung is used to fire the otherwise fuel-less stoves of the Tibetan plateau.

It costs just £85 to sponsor a yak, and help to preserve a tradition!

The nomadic way of life, unchanged over centuries, is increasingly under threat from changing social and environmental conditions. In 1995-6, devastating blizzards ravished the eastern Tibetan plateau, killing hundreds of thousands of animals, and leaving many nomads destitute. Although the life of a nomad is hard, the alternative - migration to the cities where they are unqualified for more than manual labour - is almost always much worse.

http://www.tibet-foundation.org/