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Cui Yanhu
Abstract:
In the past decades, although many measures have been taken to reduce poverty
in the grassland areas of China by the Chinese government and local governments
concerned, the poverty is still a serious challenge to the livelihood of herders in China
and to the social development of the grassland areas of the country.
The present paper, starts with a description of government programs to address
dryland poverty in China. Based on the data from the field surveys of the writer, the
paper then describes the poverty situation of herders in North and North-west China,
analyses the complexities of the poverty situation related to environment, social and
cultural dimensions of grassland societies and the successful and unsuccessful
aspects of the measures that have been taken to reduce poverty in the areas. The
paper also describes the increasing complex impacts of environment changes and
climate changes on the poverty of the areas (very good), and it also points out that
poverty should not be merely understood as an economic phenomenon of the
grassland areas of the country, and the social and cultural factors should be
considered in in the strategies for poverty reduction. (very good; can you elaborate
on this a bit)
It is suggested that it is important to take a true sustainable development
strategy with a spatial approach to poverty reduction in China’s grassland areas. In
realizing this, it is essential to understand the issues such as the local social and
cultural conditions, local active participation in poverty reduction policy-making and
the design and implementation of integrated development strategies for grassland
development, in which grassland environment protection and restoration should be
placed on a key position with overall consideration of the local eco-environment
cultures.
Key Words: poverty climate change grassland environment North and Northwest
China
Introduction
In the North and North-west China, including the western part of Inner Mongolia,
Xinjiang, the western part of Gansu Province, Qinghai and Ningxia, lies vast areas of
grassland, where live about 70 million people, of which about 7-8 million are herders,
settled or nomadic. And these vast areas are also the major part of dryland of China
and the average annual precipitation of the areas ranges from 20 mm to no more
than 200 mm. And it is noted that in the past 50 years and more, there have been
drastic changes in the eco-environment system of the two areas due to ongoing
drought and rising of the climate temperature, unreasonable human activities and un-
sustainable development strategies.
This paper gives a brief description of the situation of changes of the environment of
the areas, and focuses on the environmental changes caused by climate changes
and their consequences to the poverty of the herders and farmers living in there, and
it also reports the measures that China and the local governments have taken in the
past years to reduce the impacts of the climate changes on the environment and the
production of the livelihood of the people. Finally, the paper makes some proposals
for further policy-making and actions on how to meet the challenges of climate
changes on the eco-environment and poverty of grassland and dryland areas like
that of the North and North-west China.
From this, it is clear that the most serious desertification exists in the grassland
areas of North and North-west China.
The vast grassland provided the herders with basic natural resources: hay and
fodder, wood and water. In order to obtain and make a successive use of the natural
resources, The herders practiced a seasonal migration strategy, that is, they would
move their animals from one pasture from another for grass and water. In the case of
Xinjiang, nomadism remained the major form of subsistence for the above said ethnic
groups. Even during the People’s Commune era (1958-1984), the pastures were still
collectively owned under the “Commune”. The nomads were organized into
Production Brigades under the Commune and tended the collectively owned herds
on family basis in exchange for daily necessities. At that time the nomads would drive
their herds from the winter camp (or “winter home” located in valleys or basins) to the
spring pasture for lambing. When the lambing is over, they would move on to the hill
pasture and then further onto the high mountain/summer pasture. After spending 2 or
3 months on the mountain pasture, they would move back to the autumn pasture
following the same route (in many areas, the spring and autumn pastures are the
same) before the snowfall. They would sell the marketable animals at the autumn
pasture and then return to the winter pasture (in late October or early November).
The nomads would stay for 5 months on the winter pasture through the cold winter
and leave in mid March in the following spring. It is a yearly cycle that is familiar to
them since ancient times.
The nomads’ animal herds are normally composed of four species: sheep (or goats),
horses, cattle and camels. Sheep and cattle are the most important sources of
income and food (e.g. dairy products, which are indispensable in the nomads’ diet).
The horses are for people to ride and camels the most important means of
transportation for moving the yurt and other belongings. However, an exception is
found in Kazakh or Kirgiz families who would slaughter one or two horses and leave
the meat to dry for food. Horsemeat is considered choice food by the Kazakhs and
Kirgizs while the Mongols and Tajiks never slaughter or eat horses. All the nomadic
peoples consume horse and camel milk and take it as premier delicacy.
Ecologically speaking, the nomadic way of working and living in Xinjiang is adaptive
to the local environment and sustainable in resource exploitation. Taking the winter
pasture for example, every Production Brigade would send a team of young and
middle-aged men from the summer pasture to make hay there in August for winter
use. In about 5 months a year, they wouldn’t graze animals there to let the grass
grow back. It is the same for the spring, autumn and summer pasture where the
grass has time to grow back up each year. The nomadic practice ensures that the
ecology of various pastures is preserved with the respite.
- Nomads give up their tradition and turn into crop farming with some
pastoralism practice;
- The local governments choose the location and builds permanent housing for
the nomads (the settlements are mostly located in valleys and basins and
plains where permanent water source is available);
- The local governments allocates farmland to each household as the
resources for the nomads’ new life (size of the plot depends on arable land
availability in the region. Information from investigation shows the size of the
plots the nomads received in different areas differ greatly, varying between
30 – 120 mu (2 – 8 hectares) on the average.
- A certain number of livestock is kept and fed with fodder from grass farming.
In the mean while, the local government built infrastructure facilities such as schools,
clinics and stores to improve the living standards and offered crop-farming training
courses to the nomads.
The number of nomadic households that have settled down varied according to
areas. In Inner Mongolia, almost all of the nomadic herders are settled down,
practicing both sedentary farming and animal husbandry production. By 2008, more
than 85% of the nomadic households in Xinjiang had turned into the settled lifestyle,
i.e. less than 25% (sic) and falling were still practicing nomadism (Xinjiang Statistics
Yearbook, 2009, China Statistics Press). In Qinghai, Gansu and Tibet, the numbers
are smaller with
the above two.
Though it is impossible to portray a panorama of the livelihood before and after the
Reform in Xinjiang, this author will try to offer an overview of the profound changes
through describing a number of cases of nomads going into sedentary lifestyle and
the process of social-cultural changes for the nomadic communities and people.
When we consider the poverty situation in the grassland areas of North and North-
west China, a historical perspective of both practice of nomadism and sedentary
production by grassland herders should be accounted for. On the one hand, poverty
exists among those herder households that still practice nomadism to some extent,
and in the areas where the grassland deterioration is serious, poverty situation is
serious, too, for the degraded pastures no longer provide the herders with enough
resources to keep animals as they hope for. And in the grassland areas of Xinjiang,
Qinghai, Tibet and Gansu, it has been a difficult dilemma for those households that
still move their animals from one pasture to another to increase their herd sizes as
the resources (pasture, grass and water) have become scarce due to the
environment changes. However, it means that they should stay where they are in
terms of income if they always keep the same size of herds. What is more, with the
fragmentation of the grassland with more and more pastures to be reclaimed into
farmland, which is believed to be one of the causes for further degradation of the
eco-environment system of the grassland, the traditional nomadic practice has been
experiencing more difficulties. On the other hand, as said in the above, those herder
households that resettled down and turned to sedentary farming practice as their new
subsistence form, it is a pain-taking process for them to adapt themselves to “learn”
how to farm, no matter what they choose, growing fodder or growing crops. And it is
pain-taking not only because it will at least take a long time for them to learn farming
technologies. It is observed in Xinjiang that it will take at least 5-7 years for Kazak
herders to do so. In other areas, the time for this may be shorter or longer, depending
on what training the local governments offer to them or how this training is carried out
and also depending on how well they learn them. Similarly, if there are some
environment restraints, such as lack of water for irrigation, the poor soil condition or
frequent drought, they have more difficulties in farming. According to the field
observations in Xinjiang and Qinghai grassland, the income of 90% settled herder
households obviously dropped after they settled down for the first year. And in Inner
Mongolia, some researchers noticed that most of the settled herders would
experience income-reduction in the first several years if the number of the number of
their domestic animals gets smaller and smaller due to difficulty in obtaining
resources to raise them.
Surveys
Altay Steppe Kazak herder 32 19 Non- 2
Settled:30
Settled: 17
2
West Tianshan Kazak and 24 21 24 0
Mountain Mongolian
Herders
19 2
Ordos, Inner Mongolian 18
Mongolia Herders
18 0
Kezilesu, West Kirkiz Herders 28 23 27 1
Tianshan
Mountain
19 4
Yushu, Tibetan 16 12 16 0
Qinghai Herders 11
Gannan Tibetan 20 20 20 01
Gansu Herders 18 2
The Field survey conducted in 2007, 2008 and 2009
* Those who answered” changed but not obvious” were all young herders under the 30 years old
No matter whether they are still herders practicing a kind of nomadic herding to
some extent or they are settled to turn to farming, the surveyed herders have a
common knowledge about the climate changes in the grassland areas in the four
provinces or regions. And most of them consider that climate changes have
happened and they have “seen” the impacts on them: the rise of temperature and the
continuing “dry” in the grassland and the shrinking of rivers and lakes in their areas
where their ancestors lived and they are living now. During the interviews, some of
the herders expressed their worries about the impacts of the changes on their
livelihood as the grassland environment will be changing greatly if the climate
changes continue.
Case II-1: Jinser, a Mongolian herder of Handgarte Mongolian Town, Altay Steppe,
Xinjiang:
“Handgarte is a hilly pasture area of Altay Mountain area and it was cool in the
Past years. But we have a feeling that it is getting warmer and warmer now. In the
past there was a lot of snow in the winter and we used sleighs as a means of
transportation, but they are gone as there is no much snow on the ground. And the t
ime for snow to stay on the ground is much shorter than before (How long has this
been so?). Well, about 15 years. What is worse is that the water in the river is less
and
less and the there are no fish at all now. And grass growing in the spring pastures
around here is shorter and thinner and many springs from which we get drink water
have dried up. In the past we were worried about too much snow but now we are
worried about too little snow.
Case II-2: Losang Redi, a Tibetan herder of Gannan grassland, Gansu province
“In spring there are too much dust both in the air and pastures now. In the past
When we were on horseback, going in the grassland, there was no dust. (Why is it
so?) Too dry with less and less rain and snow! In the past we wore our traditional fur
cloths in spring and summer but now it is too hot to wear them. The temperature is
rising and even in winter, it is warmer than the past. If it is going on like this, we will
lose the grassland! Where we can live without grassland?
Case II-4: Hishankhan, a Kazak herder of Oyimok Town, Altay Steppe, Xinjiang
(Before the interview began, the old man showed me to look at his high mountain
pastures which are about 3000 meters high above sea level and grass was
yellowish and very short, his sheep were very hard to graze on the ground.-mid July
2008)
“I am 72 years old but I have never seen this scene before. Of the four seasonal
pastures, the summer pastures here are usually very abundant with high-quality
grass, usually 40 cm high. But you see, there is no grass at all on the slopes and the
top of the mountain. We have not had any rain since March and most of the streams
are dry without water. My sheep and other animals have had a very hard time here,
and this is what I have not experienced in my life. I am worried about my animals
because two months late we will move them down to our autumn pastures, but there
are no grass on the way and how they could walk down there without anything to eat
on the way? This year I lost 4 cows because they ate poisonous grass which there
are too many here in the mountains this year1
1
In 2008, in the two counties of Altay Steppe area, more than 200 big domestic animals died of poisonous grass,
and the number was much higher than that of the the previous years. The local herders attributed this to the
serious drought of the year.
The climate is changing a lot in recent years but in this year it is extremely obvious
and it is very unusual, very unusual.
What the herders perceived in climate change in the areas is confirmed by the
local authorities that manage the animal husbandry production.
Mr. Jumader, deputy head of Burjin County Animal Husbandry Bureau, Altay
Prefecture, Xinjiang, said:
“We Kazaks herders classify serious and dangerous climate disasters into two types,
“black disaster” and “ white disaster” “Black disaster means drought while “white disaster”
means snowstorm or heavy snow. We see them as “disasters” because they bring great
damages to animal hunbandry production, even great lose of human life. In the past
years, ten more more, there are more cases of balck disasters in Altay steppe areas
because of drough caused by rising temperature, and though the number of “white
disasters” is not as many as in the past, each time it hits our grassland, it causes more
damages than before. Climate change is not something like a theory here, but it is
something that we perceive, see and that affects us more and more.”
The ethnographic knowledge of climate change and its impacts on the herders
and their livelihood in the grassland areas of North and North-west China are
confirmed by scientific researches of the field.
“In the past 50 years, the annual average temperature of Northwest China has
been rising most obviously, especially in the months of February and October, and in
April, May, June and August, this change is also obvious.”
(Dr. Zhai Luxin: Climatic Variability and Impact on Hydrology in Recent 50 Years in Northwest China)
“From a general view of the climate change in grassland areas of North China,
there has been a tendency of changes that the climate is becoming warmer and drier.
Climate warm is leading to the deterioration of grassland eco-system and reduction
of pasture biodiversity and biomass production and plant coverage. This will speed
up the desertification of the areas. Meanwhile, the reduction of grassland biomass
production will reduce the carry-capacity of grassland, which in turn, will reduce the
income of herders there to a great extent”
(Professor Pan Xuebiao: “A lecture at the Forum on Sustainable Development of Grassland of North China 2008”)
“On average, there were 2.5 times of serious drought disasters and 4.5 times of
general drought disasters while 1.5 times of serious snow disasters in Inner Mongolia
from 1951 to 1987. And other naturals disasters were frequently happening. There
were constant serious drought disasters from 1999 to 2001, which caused great
damages to the grassland environment and herder society. It is also noted that the
most serious sandstorms occurred in the grassland.”
(Professor Zhang Xinshi: An interview on Climate Change and Grassland Environment”)
2 Returning to Poverty
The continuing grassland degradation in the areas not only makes the poor herder
households poorer but also makes the average-income herder households return to
poverty. For the poor households, they have to sell more sheep and other animals to
make living, and the degradated pastures cannot support their animals grazing, so
the result is that the more they sell, the fewer they keep, the reduction of the number
of animals they keep becomes inevitable. For example, one third of the poor
households at Bayinamen Village of Jinghe County, Bortala Mongolian Autonomous
Prefecture, Xinjiang, only have sheep no more than 100 sheep and few big animals
each, this number can not offer a basic herd of female animals, sheep in particular,
by which the reproduction of their herds is possible. According to the surveys, 16.5%
of the poor herder households no longer have their own animals and the men have to
work for looking after the domestic animals of the comparatively rich herder
households to make a living. This is increasingly common in the grassland areas of
North and Northwest China. For the average–income households, as they have more
animals than the poor but the production of the pastures has decreased and the
pastures cannot support more animals, either. And these type of herder households
are at a dilemma: wishing to make more income do improve their life but being
conditioned by the degradated pastures.
In Altay Steppe area, many herder households improved their living conditions
with the income from enlarging their herd size from 1985 to 1998 and there was a
period in which their income increased rapidly. Our survey results suggested that the
income of herder households at this period increased faster than that of the farming
households around the grassland. However, after the year of 2000, the income of
herder households became stagnated. The main reason for this is the production
capacity of the pastures becomes lower and lower due to the degradation of their
pastures and they do not have any other access to natural resources for more
animals. No surprisingly, about 20% of the herder households that were out of
poverty in 1980’s and mid-1990’s return to poverty again. This is also the same for
the other grassland areas. Returning to poverty due to the environmental causes has
been a common phenomenon in the grassland areas. .
And the similar situation is seen in other Qis or Gachas of Inner Mongolia. For
example, in Abaga Qi, each person of 70% herder households owned only 28 sheep
unit in 2002, visibly below the poverty line of the region, and this means the number
of herder households in poverty took 70% of the total herder households there.
Case III-2
The herder household of Qinghaojia Village, Wenquan County, Xinjiang were
settled at the end of 1990’s and they were allocated with farmland and other farming
1
resources and provided with training for farming after they were settled. Before 1998
when they were nomadic herders, there were only 3 poor households that needed
the poverty-aids from the local government. In 2007, 42% settled herder households
were in poverty.
This case suggests that, though herder-settlement strategy was originally designed
to help herders out of their poverty situation which were partically caused by
degradation of grassland, most of settled herder households are not able to be out of
poverty. On the contrary, their porverty condition is deepening due to the reasons as
mentiond above.
Qinghaojia case is not single one. In fact, according to the surveys of the author and
researches of others, it is very common situation in the grassland areas of North and
northwest China. Herder households were encouraged or organized to be settled for
farming in hope that this could help to reduce poverty and degradatrion of grassland
which was supposed to be caused by herd overgrazing and pasture over-carry so
that the grassland environment could be improved. However, on the contrary of the
expectations of the strategy, complex causes, including the climate restraints brought
about by climate change, poverty still remains a great challenge to the settled herder
households.
Beside the above policies and measures, China has taken other measures to
help the herder households of the areas to reduce and get rid of poverty, including:
- Improvement of infrastructure of grassland areas
- Implementation of anti-poverty projects at provincial, county and town levels
- Making and implementing poverty relieving policies
- Promotion of small town development in grassland areas
- Improvement of education in grassland and offering training programmes to
help herders to access to new resources for development
All these policies and measures have proved effective in reducing poverty
conditions of the areas as the they have obviously improve the grassland
environment. For instance, with the implementation of the Regulation for Converting
the Farmland for Forestry and Pasture, about half a million herders have moved to
better environment of the grassland in Xinjiang, and their living condition has
improved as the local infrastructure has improved and grassland environment is
better than that 10 years ago in some areas.
However, as it will take quite a long time to complete the targets of the above
projects and strategies and to see whether they can really function well as they were
designed for and to what extent they will improve the grassland environment so that
the anti-poverty programmes in the areas will be supported with a good
environmental conditions, China needs to input more human, policy, financial and
technological resource in an integrated way to restore the damaged eco-system and
grassland environment. This is vitally important in the context of climate change that
has, as mentioned earlier in this paper, had its increasing impacts on the grassland
environment of the areas, and the impacts are and will be overall and multi-
dimensions in the grassland of the areas of China.
.
V Climate Change Induced Challenges in Poverty Reduction of Herders in
North and Northwest China
In the year of 2008, Altay Steppe area of Xinjiang was hit by a serious drought
disaster which, as some local aged herders said, had never been seen in this areas
in
the past years. The disaster, called as “black disaster” by the local Kazak and
Mongolian herders, caused great damages to both pastures and livelihood of
herders. According to the local statistics, averagely, there was about 15%-20%
decrease in the income of each herder household. And one of the impacts of the
drought was that many herder spent more money on fodder and hay for their animals
in long winter (about 5 months).
In the winter of 2009, the same area was hit by an unexpected snowstorm,
which, a “big white disaster” called by local Kazak and Mongolian herders, brought
about even greater damages to the livestock production than the drought in 2008,
and more than 12000 animals died and more were injured. In the spring time of the
next year, Xinjiang Altay Steppe area was hit by floods from melted snow, which
lasted for nearly about two months. The floods postponed the starting time of
seasonal migrating of herders and their animals, thus they reached the spring
pastures about one month later than usual. So the herder households had to buy
fodder and hay for their animals. To those settled herder households, their farmland
were flooded and irrigation channels and ditches were damaged. The houses of
some of the herder households whose settlements were in lowland or river valleys
were greatly damaged. And the seedtime had to be postponed for month and more,
which had a bad impacts on their income in 2010.
It is not clear whether the successive disasters were related to the impacts of
climate change or not still needs more meteorological researches. But it is no doubt
that they brought about profound impacts on livestock production and livelihood of
the local herders, deepening the poverty condition that already exited in the area.
In fact, the climate of the grassland areas of North and Northwest China is
becoming more changing, which is more difficult to be predicted than before, like that
of Xinjiang Altay Steppe area. As the case of Altay Steppe area in both 2008 and
2009 shows, climate change is worsening the poverty of the whole areas, as in the
other areas, there have been more frequent droughts and sandstorms than 40 years
ago.
According to the researches of Chinese scientists of the field and the
ethnographic data we collected from the field surveys, the impacts of climate change
on the grassland environment are mainly as the following:
- Visible increase in the times and influences of droughts, which bring about
complex impacts on the eco-system of pastures with reduction and disappearance of
species of fine quality forage grass and increase in abundance of species of
poisonous grass and other uneatable herbage grass for animal. The result is clear:
with this change, the plant community structure is simple and the productivity of
pastures is greatly reduced.
- Constant dry climate resulting in shrinking, even dry-up of rivers and lake and
disappearance of wetlands. This will further deepen the eco-crises of semi-arid and
arid grassland environment, and might endanger the whole eco-system to extent that
desertification will speed up.
- .Fragmentation of pastures with more and more herders turning to farming
through reclaiming grassland
- Increase in the frequency of natural disasters, such as droughts, sandstorms,
insect plagues, locust plagues and mouse plagues and snowstorm.
And the ethnographic data also reveal that the above impacts of climate change
on the environment of grassland have in turn induced the challenges in poverty
reduction of the areas.
1. The measures to reduce poverty of herders taken by the government
have lost efficacy to some extent due to further grassland
degradation as the damaged pasture environment is irreversible.
2. The herder households’ efforts to convert farmland to forestry and
pasture become more difficult, even impossible due to the
consequences of climate change, such as lack of water,
desertification and constant rise of temperature.
3. The projects for eco-protection and eco-environment restoration will
bear no results as the eco-environment conditions for them no longer
exist due to the climate change
4. Herders returning to poverty because of eco-environmental crises
that are caused directly or indirectly by climate change is a “social
factor” in grassland areas. And the number of herder households that
were out of poverty returned to poverty takes about 30%-35% of “new
poor Households”
The grassland areas are located in one of China’s high eco-sensitivity and eco-
fragility zones, and the areas where most of herders live are eco-fragile. And these
areas are easy to be influenced by climate change. This explains why most of the
national poverty-stricken counties are in the eco-fragile areas and 90% poor
population of the country live in these areas. In comparison with the number of
national poverty-stricken counties in most of farming areas, the number of national
poverty-stricken counties in the grassland areas of North and Northwest China is
larger.
Hu Angang points out, it is comparatively easier to reduce the poor population of
low-income than to reduce the poor population of climate causes, and this has been
proved by the ethnographic data we obtained from grassland areas of North and
Northwest China. In the past 30 years, with the help of the government at various
levels and other institutions, many poor herder households got rid of poverty but
the 。degradation of grassland eco-environment partially because of climate change
have pushed them back to poverty again.
It is also demonstrated from the ethnographic data which we obtained in the field
surveys that herders do not know what they can do with the impacts of climate
change on the grassland eco-environment and on their production and livelihood.
And those who were interviewed often seemed to be at a loss facing to the changes
of the environment, as the grassland area is so large and the resources they live on
are pastures and water, which can not be “innovated” by them. It is different from
farmers who can make a comparatively adjustment to the impacts of the change with
modern technologies. Thus, a question appears: do technologies themselves can
help to reduce the impacts and to reduce the poverty depend by the impacts? If not,
then what can or with what work together it can?
Some researchers made suggestions that the reduction of the number of
animals may be a way out. But others argued that, as the response of pastures to
grazing is nonlinear and irresistible, herders can not manage the vegetation of
pastures through increase or reduction of their animals in the context of climate
change. It is difficult to prove which is better than the other. However, the fact in the
grassland areas of North and Northwest China is that climate change is inducing
challenges in poverty reduction and the grassland areas are facing to new challenges
from climate change. Traditional poverty reduction strategies may not work well if we
do not consider the factors of climate change in designing poverty reduction
strategies..
Major References
Tsui Yen Hu: “Environmental Changes of Handgarte Pastures of Altai over Fifty Years: A Case
Analysis of Xinjiang Altai Grassland” in Good Earths, Kyoto University Press,
Japan, 2009
Wang Zuozhi: A History of Animal Husbandry Economy of Ancient Xinjiang (《新疆古代畜
牧业经济史略》,Xinjiang People’s Publication, Urumqi, 1998。
Yang Tingrui: On Migrating Herding《游牧论》, unpublished, Xinjiang Academy of
Social Sciences, Urumqi ,1991。
Policy Research Section of CCP Xinjiang Committee: Pastoral Society of Xinjiang《新疆牧区社
会》,Agriculture Publications,Guangzhou, 1988。
Altay City Chronolgy, Xinjiang People’s Publishing House, 1999, Wurumqi
(《阿勒泰市志》, 新疆人民出版社,1999,乌鲁木齐)
Xinjiang Animal Husbandry Chronology, Xinjiang People’s Publishing House, 2005, Wurumqi
(《新疆畜牧志》,新疆人民出版社,2005 乌鲁木齐)
Acknowledgement