Economic, policy, and climate changes have profoundly influenced pastoral social-ecological systems on the Tibetan Plateau. Climate change is believed to be leading to increasing extreme weather conditions such as snow disasters and droughts, putting a strain on the rangeland resources herders must have to increase income. Market-based economic reforms and interrelated development policies such as the Rangeland Household Contract Policy, the Ecological Construction Project, and herder settlement Initiatives have increased integration of pastoral regions into modern markets with promotion of tourism, expanded livestock markets, and marketing opportunities for rangeland resources. Although allocating common rangelands to households is the foundation of current rangeland management strategies to achieve these goals, it removes important technologies for coping with high variability in rangeland forage production from the traditional rangeland management portfolio on the Tibetan Plateau. These include shared risk, shared labor, seasonal and yearly herd mobility, and access to diverse areas of rangelands and multiple water sources. Field study of two villages in Guinan County of Qinghai Province, and Ruoergai County of Sichuan Province from 2011 to 2014 found that the villages responded to externally driven policy, economic, and climate changes with an innovative locally adapted quota-based grazing management system that preserves valuable management technologies, conserves rangeland resources, and provides individual opportunities for financial gain. In this way the village social-ecological system has exhibited considerable resiliency, maintaining a form of community governance that functions to manage the rangelands, improve well-being as indicated by livestock productivity, and, according to local perceptions, maintain rangeland condition. The community-based grazing quota system devised by the villages occupies a middle ground between common and individual models for resource use because it focuses more on how to equitably distribute services and utilities from rangelands, instead of how to distribute rangelands.
The increasing demand of livestock products and production efficiency of livestock husbandry, and restoration of grassland ecosystem have been inducing the rapid transition of livestock husbandry systems from pastoralism into intensive systems. Such transition has been resulted in changes in the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, though it is rarely studied, especially in the pastoral area of China. Aimed to address this question, on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau we selected Chanaihai village as the pastoralism system, and Guinan Grassland Development Limited Company as the combination of extensive and intensive livestock husbandry system, to compare the GHG emission between the two systems using life cycle assessment method. Our results showed that the GHG emission intensity both in per unit of area and per unit of carcass weight in the combined extensive/intensive livestock husbandry were higher than the pastoralism, indicating that the shift into the combined extensive/intensive livestock husbandry system increased the GHG emission. Such results could be attributed to the lower soil carbon uptake and higher GHG emission derived from the external inputs such as seed, diesel, and electricity in the combined extensive/intensive system. These findings demonstrated that the ongoing transition in the pastoral area of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau may be inappropriate Under the background of global GHG mitigation. As suggestions, we argued that reduction in the manure combustion and increase in soil carbon uptake could be effective measures to reduce the GHG emission intensity of livestock husbandry. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract Beginning in the early 1990’s, grazing lands once held in common were contracted to individual households in the rangeland regions of China. The resulting fragmentation of rangelands has led to ecological and social problems. As China seeks to address intractable poverty and rangeland degradation, attention has turned to rental, or transfer, of contracted grazing land as a market-based approach to re-aggregating grazing land into larger units that support economies of scale. However, given that many pastoral regions still maintain community customary institutions, what the relationship between market mechanisms and local customary institutions should be in rangeland management needs further analysis. This paper applies comparative case studies of two types of relationships between market mechanisms and customary institutions: (1) market mechanisms that replace customary institutions in the case of Axi village, and (2) market mechanisms that are embedded within customary institutions in Xiareer village. This allows contrast of the impacts of differing approaches on livelihoods, livestock production, and wealth differentiation among pastoral households. We found that there is a higher level of livestock mortality, lower livestock productivity, and higher livestock production cost in Axi Village compared to Xiareer Village. In addition, household asset levels are higher and there is less income differentiation in Xiareer Village. It is concluded that embedding market mechanisms within customary institutions has had notable benefits for the herders of Xiareer Village, because it is a better fit to the coupled pastoral social-ecological system. Based on these findings, we argue that in pastoral communities where the rangeland transfer system for contracted grazing land has not yet been implemented, it is critical to reconsider China’s current policy approach to pay greater attention to the innovative management systems being developed in local regions. Instead of considering market-based approaches as oppositional to traditional institutions, options that derive from the interaction of market-based and customary institutions should be considered.
Abstract In China, booming tourism is considered to be a win-win solution to fight both ecosystem degradation and poverty in pastoral areas. However, whether this alternative livelihood can reduce pressure on rangeland and improve livelihood of indigenous peoples has not yet been explored. To examine tourism’s impacts on pastoral communities, we conducted field surveys at Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang and distributed questionnaires in 12 provinces including most of the grassland areas of China. On the basis of fieldwork and national survey data, we found that different types of operations have different impacts on livelihood and ecosystem in pastoral area. Pastoralists involved in tourism can increase the income of pastoral households during the summer tourism season, but that pastoralism still provides the main guarantee of a sustainable livelihood. However, along with the development of tourism, business enterprises from outside the pastoral area may replace local herders in tourism operations. As a result, a large area of rangeland may be lost to local herders, who only receive money if they rent their pastures or serve as laborers; unfortunately, many residents lack the training to perform better-paid roles. In addition, we found that pure tourism that replaces pastoralism does not necessarily protect the rangeland, as it brings a variety of environmental impacts and disrupts traditional use that the rangeland may be adapted to. On the basis of our findings, we recommend that tourism managed by local operators who also engage in pastoralism should become the main direction for economic development.
Abstract Modernization has been regarded as the best way to solve ecological and poverty problems in many arid and semi-arid areas around the world, but is inevitably accompanied by changes in land-use patterns that can lead to new socio-ecological feedbacks. How people and ecosystems of an area respond to such feedbacks determines whether the changes sustainable or not. In this paper, we describe resettlement of nomadic pastoralists in Alxa Left Banner of western Inner Mongolia. We identified the dominant biophysical limiting factor in this region (water resources), and used amount and efficiency of water use as indicators of the ecological impacts of pastoralism before and after resettlement. We also conducted semi-structured interviews with households to collect information about household income, expenditures, and agricultural production risks caused by water shortages to analyze the impacts of resettlement on their livelihood. We found that resettlement greatly increased the usage of water resources, reduced the efficiency of water use, and exacerbated regional water shortages. Although household income increased after settlement, subsistence costs also increased because water shortages increased production costs and risks. Our results suggest that in this arid grassland area of China, ecological resettlement policy is ecologically and economically unsustainable, and may exacerbate local ecological and social problems.
In China, three major rangeland management policies have caused dramatic social, economic, and ecological changes for pastoral regions in the past 30 yr: the Rangeland Household Contract Policy (RHCP), Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects (RECPs), and the Nomad Settlement Policy (NSP). The impacts of these policies are greatly debated. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review of academic perspectives on the impacts of the three policies and the causes of ineffective and negative effects. The findings demonstrate that academics increasingly report negative impacts of RHCP on the ecosystem, animal husbandry, pastoralist livelihoods, and pastoral society. An increasing number of scholars, although not the majority, attribute the negative impacts to improper policy itself rather than incomplete implementation. Regarding the RECPs, most academics believe that policies have improved the rangeland ecosystem but with obvious negative impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and pastoral society; they attribute the problems to incomplete policy implementation. For the NSP, most academics report positive impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and animal husbandry, although recent researchers have identified negative impacts on pastoral society and the ecosystem. Although they are not in the mainstream, more and more academics attribute the negative impacts to improper policy. Finally, we apply the concept of coupled social-ecological systems (SES) to further analyze the outcomes of these three policies and propose a more flexible and inclusive land tenure policy that recognizes the diverse local institutional arrangements; an integrated RECP framework that considers coadaptation between social and ecological systems; and facilitating voluntary choice in nomad settlement and developing innovative approaches to provide social services for pastoralists who would like to remain in pastoral areas. As these three policy approaches are applied in rangeland management and pastoral development worldwide, this paper may provide useful implications for future policy development in pastoral regions on a global scale. (C) 2015 Society for Range Management. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.;ABSTRACT In China, three major rangeland management policies have caused dramatic social, economic, and ecological changes for pastoral regions in the past 30 yr: the Rangeland Household Contract Policy (RHCP), Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects (RECPs), and the Nomad Settlement Policy (NSP). The impacts of these policies are greatly debated. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review of academic perspectives on the impacts of the three policies and the causes of ineffective and negative effects. The findings demonstrate that academics increasingly report negative impacts of RHCP on the ecosystem, animal husbandry, pastoralist livelihoods, and pastoral society. An increasing number of scholars, although not the majority, attribute the negative impacts to improper policy itself rather than incomplete implementation. Regarding the RECPs, most academics believe that policies have improved the rangeland ecosystem but with obvious negative impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and pastoral society; the.; In China, three major rangeland management policies have caused dramatic social, economic, and ecological changes for pastoral regions in the past 30yr: the Rangeland Household Contract Policy (RHCP), Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects (RECPs), and the Nomad Settlement Policy (NSP). The impacts of these policies are greatly debated. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review of academic perspectives on the impacts of the three policies and the causes of ineffective and negative effects. The findings demonstrate that academics increasingly report negative impacts of RHCP on the ecosystem, animal husbandry, pastoralist livelihoods, and pastoral society. An increasing number of scholars, although not the majority, attribute the negative impacts to improper policy itself rather than incomplete implementation. Regarding the RECPs, most academics believe that policies have improved the rangeland ecosystem but with obvious negative impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and pastoral society; they attribute the problems to incomplete policy implementation. For the NSP, most academics report positive impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and animal husbandry, although recent researchers have identified negative impacts on pastoral society and the ecosystem. Although they are not in the mainstream, more and more academics attribute the negative impacts to improper policy. Finally, we apply the concept of coupled social-ecological systems (SES) to further analyze the outcomes of these three policies and propose a more flexible and inclusive land tenure policy that recognizes the diverse local institutional arrangements; an integrated RECP framework that considers coadaptation between social and ecological systems; and facilitating voluntary choice in nomad settlement and developing innovative approaches to provide social services for pastoralists who would like to remain in pastoral areas. As these three policy approaches are applied in rangeland management and pastoral development worldwide, this paper may provide useful implications for future policy development in pastoral regions on a global scale.;In China, three major rangeland management policies have caused dramatic social, economic, and ecological changes for pastoral regions in the past 30yr: the Rangeland Household Contract Policy (RHCP), Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects (RECPs), and the Nomad Settlement Policy (NSP). The impacts of these policies are greatly debated. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review of academic perspectives on the impacts of the three policies and the causes of ineffective and negative effects. The findings demonstrate that academics increasingly report negative impacts of RHCP on the ecosystem, animal husbandry, pastoralist livelihoods, and pastoral society. An increasing number of scholars, although not the majority, attribute the negative impacts to improper policy itself rather than incomplete implementation. Regarding the RECPs, most academics believe that policies have improved the rangeland ecosystem but with obvious negative impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and pastoral society; they attribute the problems to incomplete policy implementation. For the NSP, most academics report positive impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and animal husbandry, although recent researchers have identified negative impacts on pastoral society and the ecosystem. Although they are not in the mainstream, more and more academics attribute the negative impacts to improper policy. Finally, we apply the concept of coupled social-ecological systems (SES) to further analyze the outcomes of these three policies and propose a more flexible and inclusive land tenure policy that recognizes the diverse local institutional arrangements; an integrated RECP framework that considers coadaptation between social and ecological systems; and facilitating voluntary choice in nomad settlement and developing innovative approaches to provide social services for pastoralists who would like to remain in pastoral areas. As these three policy approaches are applied in rangeland management and pastoral development worldwide, this paper may provide useful implications for future policy development in pastoral regions on a global scale.; In China, three major rangeland management policies have caused dramatic social, economic, and ecological changes for pastoral regions in the past 30yr: the Rangeland Household Contract Policy (RHCP), Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects (RECPs), and the Nomad Settlement Policy (NSP). The impacts of these policies are greatly debated. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review of academic perspectives on the impacts of the three policies and the causes of ineffective and negative effects. The findings demonstrate that academics increasingly report negative impacts of RHCP on the ecosystem, animal husbandry, pastoralist livelihoods, and pastoral society. An increasing number of scholars, although not the majority, attribute the negative impacts to improper policy itself rather than incomplete implementation. Regarding the RECPs, most academics believe that policies have improved the rangeland ecosystem but with obvious negative impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and pastoral society; they attribute the problems to incomplete policy implementation. For the NSP, most academics report positive impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and animal husbandry, although recent researchers have identified negative impacts on pastoral society and the ecosystem. Although they are not in the mainstream, more and more academics attribute the negative impacts to improper policy. Finally, we apply the concept of coupled social-ecological systems (SES) to further analyze the outcomes of these three policies and propose a more flexible and inclusive land tenure policy that recognizes the diverse local institutional arrangements; an integrated RECP framework that considers coadaptation between social and ecological systems; and facilitating voluntary choice in nomad settlement and developing innovative approaches to provide social services for pastoralists who would like to remain in pastoral areas. As these three policy approaches are applied in rangeland management and pastoral development worldwide, this paper may provide useful implications for future policy development in pastoral regions on a global scale.;
The Chinese government has adopted Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) as a main approach for preventing or restoring rangelands perceived as undergoing degradation on a massive scale. Using the PES project, known as the 'retire livestock, restore rangeland' project in Alxa of Inner Mongolia as an example, the long-term ecological consequences of such projects is assessed, and the causes of the associated problems from the perspective of social-ecological system explored. Study findings demonstrate that PES, as used in the case study area, is unlikely to achieve the expected outcome of rangeland restoration in the long term. The root cause of such failure is that the PES approach focuses on end-point ecosystem services (outputs), while at the same time decoupling the feedbacks among social and ecological systems that are the key to generating such services. This drives the overall social-ecological system into an undesirable basin of attraction. It is concluded that a PES program for pastoral systems should aim to improve resilience of such a coupled social-ecological system to external shocks and changes, instead of simply maintaining ecological services without considering the origins of such services in the inter-relationship of humans and environment. It is argued that 'Payment for Ecosystem Services' should be displaced by 'Payment for Social-ecological System Resilience' in future policy discussions.;The Chinese government has adopted Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) as a main approach for preventing or restoring rangelands perceived as undergoing degradation on a massive scale. Using the PES project, known as the 'retire livestock, restore rangeland' project in Alxa of Inner Mongolia as an example, the long-term ecological consequences of such projects is assessed, and the causes of the associated problems from the perspective of social-ecological system explored. Study findings demonstrate that PES, as used in the case study area, is unlikely to achieve the expected outcome of rangeland restoration in the long term. The root cause of such failure is that the PES approach focuses on end-point ecosystem services (outputs), while at the same time decoupling the feedbacks among social and ecological systems that are the key to generating such services. This drives the overall social-ecological system into an undesirable basin of attraction. It is concluded that a PES program for pastoral systems should aim to improve resilience of such a coupled social-ecological system to external shocks and changes, instead of simply maintaining ecological services without considering the origins of such services in the inter-relationship of humans and environment. It is argued that 'Payment for Ecosystem Services' should be displaced by 'Payment for Social-ecological System Resilience' in future policy discussions. Additional keywords: Inner Mongolia, payment for ecosystem services, rangeland conservation, social-ecological system.;
In China, booming tourism is considered to be a win-win solution to fight both ecosystem degradation and poverty in pastoral areas. However, whether this alternative livelihood can reduce pressure on rangeland and improve livelihood of indigenous peoples has not yet been explored. To examine tourism’s impacts on pastoral communities, we conducted field surveys at Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang and distributed questionnaires in 12 provinces including most of the grassland areas of China. On the basis of fieldwork and national survey data, we found that different types of operations have different impacts on livelihood and ecosystem in pastoral area. Pastoralists involved in tourism can increase the income of pastoral households during the summer tourism season, but that pastoralism still provides the main guarantee of a sustainable livelihood. However, along with the development of tourism, business enterprises from outside the pastoral area may replace local herders in tourism operations. As a result, a large area of rangeland may be lost to local herders, who only receive money if they rent their pastures or serve as laborers; unfortunately, many residents lack the training to perform better-paid roles. In addition, we found that pure tourism that replaces pastoralism does not necessarily protect the rangeland, as it brings a variety of environmental impacts and disrupts traditional use that the rangeland may be adapted to. On the basis of our findings, we recommend that tourism managed by local operators who also engage in pastoralism should become the main direction for economic development.