On August 7, 2014, Greenpeace published the results of its detailed study of coal development in China prepared after its investigators made 7 separate trips. The report claimed to have uncovered a huge mining operation heart of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau covering an area 14 times larger than the City of London and at an altitude of over 4000 metres. It also released a photographs of the site taken by undercover campaigners from Greenpeace’s Beijing office and from satellites. Greenpeace says that the coal development operations by a group of private companies violates a number of water protection laws and local nature reserve regulations. The coal mining operations in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau which started in 2003, Greenpeace claims, has destroyed the pristine alpine meadows linking the glaciers on the Qinghai Mountains to the plateau, cutting off the channel feeding rainfall and melt water to the rivers.