Table of Contents (All Chapters)
Table of Contents (Chapter Two)
CHAPTER TWO
Grassland Conservation in a Global Perspective: Four Key Themes
Conservation biology aims “to investigate human impacts on biodiversity and to develop practical approaches to preserving biodiversity and ecological integrity” (Miller 1996). It also is known as “the science of scarcity and diversity” (Soulé 1986), and has most commonly been placed within the disciplinary boundaries of the natural sciences. Similar to the maturation of ecology, however, conservation biology has grown beyond its original (artificial) boundaries and no longer can be confined solely to the natural sciences. Indeed, just as cultural ecology, ecological anthropology, landscape ecology, and political ecology (Spooner 1973, Moran 1982, Senft et al. 1987, Bennett 1988, Hecht and Cockburn 1990, Schreiber 1990, Fleharty 1995, Manning 1995, Humphrey and Sneath 1996, Skånes 1997) exemplify some of the changes observed in the field of ecology over the past several decades, so to has the face of conservation biology evolved over time, particularly in the arena of international conservation (Jacobs and Munro 1987, Jeffries 1997) and development work (World Bank 1992, Conway et al. 1998). Conservation biology also has been described as “the newest player in the area of applied ecology” (Temple et al. 1988), as cross-disciplinary or a “metadiscipline” (Jacobson 1990), as “mission oriented” (Soulé and Wilcox 1980, Soulé 1985), and as a “crisis discipline” (Noss and Cooperrider 1994). Schaller (1998) equally has noted that “conservation problems are mainly social and economic, not scientific.” The maturation of applied conservation work has thus helped to integrate science and the “real world,” and has contributed to many new and exciting areas of inquiry (e.g., community participation in and ownership of conservation and development projects; see Ghai and Vivian 1992, Friedmann and Rangan 1993, Narayan 1996, Ravnborg and Guerrero 1997, Carpenter 1998). As explained by McNeely (1996a):
“The modern conservationist [clearly] needs to be a sort of renaissance person, with a solid grounding in both biological and social sciences, as well as resource management and practical diplomacy, and a sense of awe for nature and culture. ... Sustainability in a highly dynamic social, economic, political, and biological setting [is] a daunting challenge [and] solutions often will be site-specific.”
Although it will be difficult to generalize from such site-specific experiences, even the simple recurrence of unique solutions at least suggests that the adoption of a post-modern approach could be valuable for conservation biology.
Postmodernism essentially emphasizes differences rather than similarities, the unique rather than the general. Cloke et al. (1991) explain that
“one of the key premises of postmodernism as a way of thinking – one of its few own starting points of any generality – is that we need to contemplate the human world less in terms of ‘grand theories’ and more in terms humble, eclectic and empirically grounded materials. ... [And a] second starting point [is] the focus upon difference, an alertness to the many differences that distinguish one phenomenon, event, process or whatever from another, and an insistence on not obliterating these vital differences in the face of grand theoretical statements (whatever their origin).”
Since the primary intended focus of the present work is to develop practical approaches to grassland conservation (see the definition of conservation biology), rather than to seek impractical “ideal” solutions, I have adopted an integrated and geographically bound (site-specific) approach to the study of grassland systems and their long-term protection in Qinghai, China. Nonetheless, in order to ensure that a common language is spoken, I still need to define and discuss four key themes – grasslands, pastoralism, sustainability, and biodiversity – as well as to explore some of the main linkages between these themes. Ultimately, the main purpose of this chapter is to make explicit some of the frames of reference that I use to represent the natural world, frames which directly affect how science is practiced, yet that all too often “remain conspicuously unacknowledged and unexamined” (Williams 1999).
The next chapter (Chapter 3) will further complement this background chapter by examining the complex geographic, socio-political, and economic contexts that specifically affect the alpine grasslands of Qinghai. Together, these two background chapters – one thematic, the other geographical – provide the essential framework for the subsequent analytical chapters that form the core of this dissertation.
Global estimates of the current extent of grasslands range from 16 to 30 percent of the land surface of the Earth (Whittaker and Likens 1975, Ajtay et al. 1979, both in Heywood 1995). Historically, however, grasslands covered between 25 percent (Shantz 1954, in Heywood 1995) to over 40 percent (Costanza et al. 1998, Miller 1996) of the Earth’s land surface. Three main types of grasslands are found worldwide: tropical, temperate, and polar (tundra) grasslands. Temperate grasslands – the grasslands examined in this work – include “the tall-grass prairies and short-grass prairies of the midwestern and western United States and Canada, the South American pampas, the South African veldt, and the steppes of central Europe and Asia” (Miller 1996; also see Riley and Young 1968).
Despite the fact that grasses may be “the most versatile crop on Earth” (Nagy 1997), they often are overlooked. For example, of the 330 nature reserves reported in China in the mid-1980s, over 50 percent included forest ecosystems, while only 3 percent included grassland ecosystem (Li and Zhao 1989). This situation is very surprising when one considers that grasses are the wild progenitors of our cereal crops – wheat, rice, maize, barley, rye, oats, millet, and sorghum (Šikula 1978) – and that they serve many important, even essential, ecological functions and services (Chapman and Peat 1992, Miller 1996, Smith 1998). For example, Miller (1996) notes that grasslands
· help to prevent soil erosion;
· provide forage and habitats for large numbers of wild herbivores and other wildlife;
· help replenish and purify surface and groundwater resources;
· provide forage for about 10 billion domesticated animals worldwide;
· are a valuable resource for recreation; and
· are a renewable resource.
In a more comprehensive list of grassland services, Costanza et al. (1998) additionally note that grasslands provide or affect
· gas and climate regulation;
· soil formation;
· waste treatment;
· pollination; and
· biological control.
When cereal crops and fodder production (for animal husbandry) are considered together with the many other goods and services that grasslands provide, one can readily agree with Šikula (1978) that “of all existing plants, grasses have played the most important role in the life of mankind.” Grassland systems clearly deserve more attention – and where necessary, stricter protection – than they generally have received to date.
From an economic standpoint, too, grasslands are an impressive ecosystem. Costanza et al. (1998) recently estimated the value of grasslands at $ 232 US dollars (USD) per hectare per year. Based on this valuation and on an estimated grassland area of 3,898 million ha worldwide, the global value of grasslands amounts to no less than $ 904 billion USD each year.
Some of the world’s most extensive grassland systems are found in northern and western China (Reardon-Anderson and Ellis 1990). In total, grasslands cover between 40 percent (Su 1993, Mao et al. 1997, National Environmental Protection Agency 1998) and 50 percent (Hu et al. 1992) of China’s total land area. Based on Costanza et al.’s (1998) estimations, the actual value of this area amounts to between $ 93 billion and $ 116 billion USD per year, or around 14 to 17 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (China’s gross domestic product was $ 675 billion USD in 1995; World Bank 1997a). The value of the products and services provided by China’s total biological resources has been estimated at between $ 257 billion and $ 421 billion USD by the Biodiversity Working Group (of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development), and in excess of $ 450 billion USD per year by another independent group of Chinese biologists and economists that were commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme to write a national biodiversity report (Biodiversity Working Group 1996).
There are five main grassland areas in China: the Northeast Prairie, the Inner Mongolia-Ningxia-Gansu Rangeland, the Xinjiang Rangeland, the Tibetan Plateau Rangeland, and Southern China’s Mountain Slopes (Mao et al. 1997). Most of these lands are found in the high montane or plateau areas of China, a terrain that comprises nearly two-thirds of the country. Sparse rainfall is the main determinant of the distribution, composition, and productivity of these grasslands, and the main types include prairie, steppe, semi-steppe, desert, and alpine desert (Hu et al. 1992).
The Tibetan plateau alone covers around 2,500,000 km2, or one-quarter of China (Zhao 1994). The dominant vegetation in this high altitude environment is “dry and cold steppe vegetation” (Chang 1981, Walter and Breckle 1985). Hu et al. (1992) provide a general classification which divides the high alpine region of the Tibetan plateau into three primary biogeographic subregions: forest mixed with scrub and grassland, grassland and scrub vegetation only, and steppe grassland and desert.
The physical geography of the Tibetan plateau is unique in the world. Only the Altiplano of South America approaches it. Because of high altitude, solar radiation, and global climatic patterns, the plateau has characteristics from at least three generally distinct ecosystem types – grasslands, alpine ecosystems, and arid lands (see Riley and Young 1968, Heywood 1995).
Narrowly defined, grasslands are plant communities in which grasses are the dominant species. Grasses grow in a wide range of environmental conditions, but are dominant only where trees and shrubs are absent. Extensive grasslands are found mainly in areas where continental conditions prevail and most precipitation occurs in summer. The growth cycle and productivity of grasses in temperate regions is linked closely to summer rainfall and soil water-holding capacity (Sala et al. 1988, Scott and Kong 1990, Miller 1996).
A larger variety of herbaceous plants grow in alpine ecosystems, including grasses, sedges, rushes, and many flowering herbs. The growing season is extremely short and strong winds almost invariably stunt plant growth. Few trees grow in alpine environments, and usually there is a well-developed ground layer of mosses and lichens. The main limiting factor is a lack of warm temperatures in summer (not low winter temperatures; Scott and Kong 1990)
In arid and semi-arid environments, vegetation must adapt to water stress. These adaptations take several forms. Some plants develop deep root systems to reach moisture far below the soil surface. Some plants have small leaves or produce a waxy cuticle to guard against water loss. And still other plants have adapted life cycles that are well suited to highly unpredictable conditions and long periods of drought.
The vegetation of the Tibetan plateau clearly exhibits characteristics from all three of the above ecosystem types. Thus I use the term “grassland” broadly when referring to the Tibetan plateau vegetation. I will also use the term interchangeably with alpine grassland, steppe, and rangeland.
According to Anderson (1982) and Milchunas et al. (1988), grasslands in general are impacted and shaped over time by three main environmental pressures: drought, fire, and grazing by large ungulate herbivores. All of these pressures create a high turnover rate of above-ground biomass, a low-lying physical structure, and the allocation of a large portion of plant biomass (energy) and plant activity below ground. The most important pressures on the Tibetan plateau, at least insofar as recent environmental changes are concerned, are drought and grazing pressure – grazing by wild herbivores as well as domestic livestock.
Grassland biodiversity includes both plant species and the wild animals that inhabit this vegetation type. Thus “grassland conservation” covers both the protection and long-term sustainable use of grassland plants as well as the maintenance of the native mammalian, avian, and other faunas. It has been shown elsewhere that moderate levels of grazing are associated with higher biodiversity (Forsyth 1983, Shi et al. 1991, Belsky 1992, Bian et al. 1994, Agricultural Research Service 1999), and that plant biodiversity is associated positively with plant resistance to and recovery from drought (Tilman and Downing 1994), with grassland productivity (Tilman et al. 1996), and with resistance to invasion (Hobbs and Huenneke 1992, Tilman 1997). At high grazing intensities, however, there usually is a decrease in the abundance of palatable species, a decrease in overall plant productivity, and a decrease in total ground cover (Skarpe 1991, Fuls 1992). Clearly, any level of grazing also will affect the community structure, species composition, and the quality of grassland plants (Mattson 1980, Milchunas et al. 1988, Huntly 1991, Fernández et al. 1992). In fact, some species are even maintained by sustained grazing (McNaughton 1979, 1985). Thus, as McNaughton (1979) explains, an “optimum defoliation level is anticipated (Noy-Meir 1975; Caughley 1976),” an optimum reached only when livestock grazing closely mimics the spatial and temporal patterns of wild ungulates. Otherwise, the land usually changes beyond recognition. Grazing systems therefore must have inherent flexibility and mobility to ensure quick responses to fine-scale spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the grassland. In highly variable environments like the Tibetan plateau, only this kind of land management system can be maintained in the long-term (Scott and Kong 1990, Skarpe 1991, Chen 1997).
Clearly, the above discussion also overlaps extensively with the following three themes of this chapter: pastoralism, sustainability, and biodiversity.
Along with foraging, fishing, and agriculture, pastoralism is a basic and distinctive form of human subsistence economy. Furthermore, the notion of a pastoral system applies not only to “highly specialized cases [but also to any] household economy [that] contributes significant labor to managing livestock on extensive, usually natural pasture” (Galaty and Johnson 1990). In fact, it is rare for livestock to be the exclusive means of production in pastoral systems. A combination of pastoral and agricultural or trade activities is most common, representing an important mode of production within complex farming systems (Turner and Brush 1987).
Because of the large variety of pastoral cultures and practices worldwide, pastoral people have often been divided into “pure pastoralists” and “semi-pastoralists” (based on their degree of dependence on non-pastoral foods; Jacobs 1965) and into “nomadic” and “semi-nomadic” or “semi-sedentary” people (based on their degree of movement and the extent of their agricultural practices; Khazanov 1984). However, only the economic and cultural dominance of animal husbandry will be considered in this work. A community or group thus will be referred to only as pastoral or non-pastoral. The real significance of the animal in pastoral communities, as opposed to the nomadic factor, also renders the use of vague terms like “nomadic” and “semi-nomadic” nearly meaningless (Bonte 1981, Schneider 1981, Galaty and Johnson 1990; but see Swift et al. 1990). Nomadism and pastoralism clearly are two very distinct phenomena, one being a spatial movement and the other a type of resource extraction. Therefore both can and should be examined separately (see, e.g., Salzman 1971), as indeed they are throughout this work.
Galaty and Johnson (1990) also make useful distinctions between several forms of pastoralism based on two main dimensions of pastoral variation, livestock density (the number of livestock per area of land), and labor intensity (measured as per capita livestock holdings). From these two axes, four types are distinguished: dairying, mixed farming, ranching, and extensive pastoralism. The focus of this work is on extensive pastoralism, a form of animal husbandry that has been practiced for centuries in some of the world’s most arid regions. To a lesser extent, ranching systems also are examined.
Domestic animals are perhaps the most obvious trademark of pastoral systems. They serve many functions including the production of milk, meat, fuel, power, and many other renewable and non-renewable products. Livestock are thus both a capital good and a living technology used to transform unpalatable plant materials into consumable products (Irons and Dyson-Hudson 1972, Galaty and Johnson 1990).
Pastoral production also involves the relationship between livestock, land (including minerals and water), and labor. Livestock clearly are central to pastoral systems by mediating between the community and the land, yet people and the land also influence each other directly. On the one hand, people impact the land by the choices they make in caring for their livestock, in managing their herds, and in managing the rangeland. On the other hand, the seasonal nature of grasslands, the punctuated distribution and availability of water, the vertical zonation of grazing lands in mountain areas, and the convergence of aridity and extremes of temperature – some of the main characteristics common to most pasture lands around the world – also shape the pastoral cultures that live in these lands. However, although there are some environmental constraints on pastoral societies, this cannot be interpreted as ecological determinism (see, e.g., Spooner 1973) because pastoralists have many land use and other options from which to choose. Thus pastoralists can, and invariably do, influence their surrounding environment through the choices they make, both in the short-term and over successive generations. Indeed, pastoralists partake in an ongoing process of modifying, even recreating, their surrounding landscapes.
Furthermore, the choices that pastoralists make are influenced by much more than only environmental factors since there also are many complex interactions between the social, economic, and political factors that surround pastoral systems. The outcome of these interactions depends on “continuous compromises between social values and objectives, the local realization of power, and animal ecology” (Galaty and Johnson 1990). Thus the local, regional, and national contexts of pastoral societies all affect, in highly interactive ways, how these societies develop as well as their current socio-economic status and position within the larger regional and national entities.
Views about pastoral strategies and objectives have varied considerably over the past several decades. Aronson (1980) in particular sheds light on the fact that
· pastoral livelihoods are a multi-resource economy, not a single-resource economy;
· pastoralists move because they have to, not because they love to;
· pastoral strategies are geared to long-term security, not only to current production; and
· pastoralists optimize a number of goals, not just economic goals.
One of the earliest views (which still persists in some circles) was that pastoralists are not rational. Later it was suggested that pastoralists follow a strategy of profit maximization because of their enduring efforts to increase herd size. Since sustaining a community also is considered important, and because short-term hardships are accepted in light of future benefits, an optimization strategy has been proposed as operational in some pastoral societies. However, the most commonly held view today is that pastoralists follow a strategy that combines risk aversion and opportunism (Miller and Jackson 1994). Risk aversion is an attempt to decrease uncertainty by anticipation, while opportunism takes advantage of the large variability of local conditions in time and space. Opportunism also implies the need for economic diversification and inherent flexibility. A recent addition to this list of proposed solutions to the question of pastoral decision-making is that pastoralists seek to maximize reliability, not income or products (Roe et al. 1999). The latter view is adopted in this work, in conjunction with risk aversion and opportunism.
Wester (1997) includes the following practical strategies in his overview of how pastoralists cope with seasonality in arid and semi-arid lands:
· moving animals to different seasonal pastures (mobility);
· maximizing herd size;
· diversifying livestock species;
· splitting herds into different management units;
· keeping a high proportion of females;
· maintaining social systems for resource sharing, borrowing, lending, etc.;
· minimizing the reliant human population in times of drought; and
· implementing special strategies in times of drought, such as the use of buffer zones.
The broad objective of all these management strategies is to maximize livestock survival (Wester 1997). Pastoralists also have coping strategies that relate to the improvement of feed quality and/or quantity, to the adjustment of herd size and composition, and to variations in what constitutes acceptable levels of livestock production.
Finally, pastoralism is practiced in three main environments around the world, in plains, deserts, and mountains (Moran 1982, Galaty and Johnson 1990). In the grasslands (plains), precipitation is strongly seasonal and highly irregular in space. Consequently, spatial and temporal flexibility in herd movements and opportunistic management are both needed. In extremely harsh, variable, and risky desert conditions, only extensive and mobile grazing patterns can effectively be used to exploit the limited resources. In highlands, however, it is the seasonal differences in temperature and the altitude that most affect how pastoralism is practiced. Responses to these conditions generally include an increase in trade activities and tighter linkages with agricultural communities, an intensification of pastoral production (i.e., a shift towards ranching), and a greater responsiveness to market forces because of the increased interaction with farmers. Moran (1982) lists the main ecological constraints, or limiting factors, on human economic and biological productivity for these three biomes: prolonged dry season, cyclical drought, herd size and composition (in grasslands); low and uncertain rainfall, high rates of evaporation, low biological productivity (in arid lands); low oxygen pressure, daily cold stress, low biological productivity, and high neonate mortality (in high altitudes). Thus pastoral communities clearly both impact and are impacted by their surrounding environments.
Plains, deserts, and mountains all come together in a very unique way in the Tibetan plateau. The area will be described at greater length and in a variety of contexts throughout this work, yet some commonalities between the pastoral areas and peoples of greater Central Asia and the Himalayas are worth noting here. One important characteristic of pastoral cultures is their tendency to be marginalized by larger, usually nationally dominant groups (Stone 1992, Miller and Craig 1997, Szynkiewicz 1998). This can be seen, for example, in typical Han stereotypes of China’s national minorities (Lattimore 1951, Ma 1994, Zhao 1994). Most pastoralists in Central Asia also have lived for many decades in centralized control states (Bacon 1966, Khazanov 1984, Loomis 1988, Leeuwen et al. 1994, Honhold 1995). However, several new systems of governance have emerged in the last ten years which allow for insightful comparisons to be made between different forms of land use, property rights, community participation, the role of mobility in pastoral systems, and other issues pertaining to sustainable development and the protection of biodiversity in these lands (Li et al. 1993, Potkanski 1993, Finke 1995, Müller 1995, Humphrey and Sneath 1996, Miller and Craig 1997, Szynkiewicz 1998). There also are many cultural and religious similarities between the pastoral groups in the region. Many groups from the Himalayas, the Tibetan plateau, and greater Mongolia are animistic, mostly Tibetan Buddhist, while Central Asian pastoralists tend to be monotheistic Muslims, though they, too, often practice folk religion. Because of the many cultural and religious similarities between Mongolians and Tibetans, based in part on their tightly interwoven histories (Prejevalsky 1876, Lattimore 1951, Stein 1972) and similar systems of governance in the past (Mongolia was under USSR state control until 1990), a number of comparisons will be made throughout this work between them, their respective national development policies, and the conditions of their pasture lands (Goldstein and Beall 1994, Honhold 1995, Germeraad and Enebisch 1996, Fernández-Giménez 1993, 1997). The geographic distribution of the highly specialized yak also is worth noting, for it virtually defines some aspects of the pastoral cultures that keep it among their livestock (Bonnemaire and Jest 1976, Larrick and Burck 1986, Zhang et al. 1994, Miller et al. 1997, Yang et al. 1997). In the Tibetan plateau area, yak provide more than 90 percent of milk and 50 percent of meat requirements of local pastoralists (Long et al. 1994).
The specific characteristics of Tibetan
pastoralism, from daily household and herding activities to seasonal migration
patterns and economic diversification, are reported for different parts of the Tibetan
plateau. Ekvall (1968) and Norbu (1997) write about pastoralists in Qinghai, Wu
Ning (1997) discusses pastoral strategies practiced in western Sichuan, and
Goldstein et al. (1990) and Cincotta et al. (1991) focus their efforts on
traditional pastoralism in Tibet. While each of these studies provide insight
into Tibetan pastoralism in general, it is quite important not to
over-generalize and thus to obliterate all regional differences. From an
earlier period, Combe (19261989) provides an overview of numerous
Tibetan groups from the entire Tibetan plateau region, drawing special
attention to the many similarities and differences between them. Of particular
note are his descriptions of the northern nomad (pastoral) tribes, including
those of Dsagarnag and Adra Dsamar of present-day Zaduo and Zhiduo counties in
Yushu prefecture in Qinghai. Miller (1995) provides a more general overview of
modern pastoralism in the entire region.
Based on the above, and on my personal observations, it can be said that Tibetan pastoralism generally consists of a three- or four-part seasonal migration pattern in which sheep are kept in relatively close proximity to a main home encampment in winter and spring, taken to higher alpine pastures in summer, and taken to pastures left ungrazed during the growing season in autumn. There often are intermediate camps as well, for example on long-distance migration routes between winter-spring and summer pastures (Long et al. 1994). Yak are grazed alongside sheep in summer and autumn but generally are kept in the high pastures through the winter, primarily feeding on sedges and low-lying cushion plants. Yak are brought down later to the cold season encampments, sometime in spring. Although the specific timing of seasonal migrations clearly varies between places and sometimes from year to year, this is the general pattern followed over much of the Tibetan plateau, a seasonal pattern which allows livestock to regain their strength (to recuperate from the previous winter) in summer and to add fat reserves (to prepare for the next winter) in autumn. It is during the long cold season that many livestock are at risk of dying because of weakness and the disastrous effect of heavy snowstorms (Schaller and Ren 1988, Macartney 1996, Foggin 1998b, 1999b). Special birthing sites may be kept near the main winter encampments to help strengthen pregnant and young animals.
According to Goldstein and Beall (1990; also see Meiners 1991, Schaller 1998), nomads rotate their livestock to different parts of the pasture over shorter time scales as well. This movement allows the vegetation to regenerate for several days before being subject to further grazing. And over longer periods, a land management system traditionally was used in some parts of the Tibetan world by which pastures were redistributed among pastoral families every three years based on herd sizes and known carrying capacities of the land.
By these and other practices, Tibetan pastoralists not only manage risk – they do not avert risk altogether – they also seek to maximize the overall reliability of their production system, or, in the words of Roe et al. (1999), they seek “to establish a ‘reliable’ flow of life-sustaining goods and services from [their] rangeland.” As with all pastoral societies, they could be said to adhere to the calling: be flexible, be mobile, know the land, be opportunistic (Galaty and Johnson 1990, Miller and Jackson 1994).
Traditional grazing practices that guarded against overgrazing on the Tibetan plateau, such as those outlined above, have allowed wildlife, livestock, and pastoralists to coexist for many centuries. However, much has changed in the last half century. Since the early 1950s, the government has introduced many new ideas and methods of “development” into the entire region. Collectivization in the late 1950s and 1960s transferred livestock ownership and decision-making processes from individual households and monastic institutions to state communes and distant centralized authorities. Many traditional systems of rangeland management that prevented overgrazing were abandoned (Clarke 1987, Goldstein et al. 1990). The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) only further intensified a general disregard for time-proven practices in favor of “modern science.” A model of pastoral intensification and simple numeric growth thus has predominated in recent decades. However, with risk of long-term negative impacts, this approach largely ignores the climatic and physical realities that led Tibetan pastoralists to adopt their rational strategy in the first place, the harsh and unpredictable nature of their environment. Intensification of livestock production therefore has progressed concurrently with serious ecosystem degradation (Wang 1980, Hu et al. 1992, Qinghai Census Bureau 1994) that only recently has been acknowledged on a wider scale (He 1997, Han 1999, ‘New reserve…’ 2000).
As noted above, not all pastoral development has been entirely successful – at least not if measured against the criteria of ecological sustainability and cultural relevance. Sadly, we usually have chosen to learn the hard way that traditional economic development practices may have unacceptable environmental costs. The Worldwatch Institute recently estimated that 135 million people worldwide now live in areas undergoing severe desertification, and that over 10 million people are refugees from environmental ruin (Stutz 1993). In this section, we specifically will look at past development experience in some of the world’s pastoral areas, particularly in Africa and in Central Asia. We then will return in later sections to some of the broader issues pertinent to development, sustainability, and biodiversity.
Schneider (1981) contends that “current attempts to introduce development programs into pastoral areas face a problem which may be unsolvable in the sense of allowing pastoralists to continue pastoral livestock raising while at the same time contributing to national development.” The most common idea of development in pastoral areas has been to encourage pastoralists to increase the number of animals sold for meat production. This solution usually has been offered in concert with suggestions that pastoralism must be further rationalized. For pastoralists, however, animals as wealth may take on a variety of currencies: commodities for trade or exchange, risk aversion, and status among other values (Einzig 1966). As such, the ability to sell cattle to the government simply is one of many possible options for the pastoralist, one that sometimes is a good option, but also one that sometimes is not the best option. Thus “the shift [from pastoralism] to beef production [may be] no more meaningful to the pastoralist than a shift to crop production” (Schneider 1981). Nonetheless, as Bennett (1988) notes,
“attempts at inducing [pastoralists] to relinquish their migratory way of life, and to shift their distinctive mode of livestock production to one approximating sedentary ranching, have been made repeatedly from the late nineteenth century to the present. Such efforts at production intensification, and the associated requirement of nucleated settlement, are not unique to eastern Africa, but occur in other parts of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, wherever substantial numbers of people raise livestock on transient pasturage.”
Oxby (1975) lists the main arguments used by past and present governments and international aid and development organizations to justify these kinds of interventions:
· to raise pastoralists’ standard of living;
· to integrate pastoralists into national society;
· to make pastoralists easier to administer;
· to make pastoralists economically self-sufficient;
· to make pastoralists contribute to the national economy; and
· to make pastoral nomadism a viable form of livelihood.
Development agencies such as the World Bank and USAID have emphasized in particular poverty alleviation and meeting basic needs. However, this approach often has wrongly assumed pastoralists to be poor, living a subsistence-oriented peasant’s life (sensu Scott 1976), when in fact, in the pastoralists’ mind, their animals represent wealth. Indeed, in the case of Tibetan pastoralists, yak and wealth are expressed in some instances as the same word, nor (Bonte 1981). Because of this and various other false assumptions, many pastoral development projects have failed. In one review of development projects in Africa, it was even found that most pastoral development projects had “failed to operate in the way the government officials had hoped,” but, as if to reassure the reader, the author also noted that at least some of the development projects had “failed less completely than the others” (Huntington 1988)! Bennett (1988) similarly found that “none of the USAID or World Bank projects [in East Africa] funded between 1960 and 1975 … were considered to be a success.”
It is clear that recent pastoral development experience is not good. Moving even further back in time, around the time that colonial governments in sub-Saharan Africa “replaced pastoral lifestyles with sedentary farming, populations grew and farming and grazing intensified [so much that today] 80 percent of the region’s pasture- and rangelands show signs of damage, and overall productivity is declining” (Stutz 1993). The land use history of Soviet Central Asia is equally bleak. As Loomis (1988) explains,
“the Russian presence at first had little effect on [the] nomadic livestockmen [of the desert rangelands of Central Asia]. But by the late 1800s two major impacts occurred which had profound implications, primarily for the Kazakhs. The first was improved transportation to the Russian heartland and its effect on the demand for cattle products. Increased yields were achieved by a more settled agricultural production of cattle feed (Olcott, 1987).
The second major impact involved land policies which fostered homesteading of ‘unused’ land by Russians from the heartland. This land was vital to the native population because a nomadic economy, in effect, has no excess land, particularly in years of poor weather. The loss of this land caused a further decline in traditional stock raising.
‘Denied sufficient pastures, the vast majority of the Kazakhs had no choice but to adjust to a semi-sedentary lifestyle that combined limited agriculture with a restricted annual migration ... [They were] forced to use the same lands year after year, a practice that had been hitherto unknown. ... overuse further depleted the soil, making the Kazakhs ever more vulnerable to the vagaries of nature.’ (Olcott, 1987)
The consequences were devastating: in the severe winter of 1879, half the cattle and sheep in the Syr Darya and Semirech’e regions died. Even worse was the winter of 1899 when a deep snow fell in the Kizylkum desert. It was followed by an ice crust which killed 90 % of the sheep and goat population (Nikolaev, 1978).”
Bacon (1966) likewise notes that
“under the influence of settled neighbors, Kazaks began to change their way of life. Some nomads cut hay for winter fodder and built winter shelters for a portion of their animals. Some began to spend their winters in dwellings of wood, sod, or mud, depending on the house styles of their nearest neighbors, or to put up a clay wall around their encampment of yurts. Deprived of their richest pastures, many Kazaks were forced to give up pastoralism partially or completely.”
The above descriptions are supplemented by numerous other reports on pastoral development experiences elsewhere in Central Asia (e.g. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenstan; Kerven et al. 1996) and in greater Mongolia (Mearns 1993, Li et al. 1993, Sheehy 1993, 1996).
Many of the above histories are many decades old, yet they are found to be ominously similar to the so-called new scientific pastoral development policies of China. Too often, planners and decision-makers continue to focus almost exclusively on livestock numbers, not on quality or productivity (Ho 1998), and to follow a single-use or single-purpose philosophy (Loomis 1988).
Even the development of American grasslands has followed many of the same patterns of expansion, fencing, overgrazing, seeding with exotic grasses, breeding, and mass marketing. Yet even after 150 years of so-called development, one can be cynical and lament the fact, as Manning (1995) does, that still “a cow produces [only] about as much meat as a bison, but it is fattier meat, much higher in cholesterol. Many who eat both prefer the taste of bison. A century’s worth of work, warfare, and technology replaced 50 million bison with 45.5 million cattle. One wonders what progress is for.”
Finally, because of past misunderstandings regarding the meaning and the use of the term “pastoralism,” and false assumptions regarding the social conditions present in pastoral societies, two more topics also must be reviewed, namely nomadism and property rights regimes. In short, nomadism refers to the spatial mobility of some pastoral groups under specific environmental conditions, one of several possible strategies used by pastoralists (Wester 1997). The establishment and maintenance of a social system for resource sharing, such as property rights regimes (Feeny et al. 1990), is another strategy that is used in many pastoral societies worldwide (Wester 1997). However, neither nomadism nor common properties are intrinsically as problematic as often has been assumed (cf. the “pastoralist development problem,” sensu Schneider 1981; also see Ellis and Swift 1988, Conca et al. 1995).
The use of adaptive, flexible, and mobile land management strategies, such as nomadic patterns of livestock grazing, helps to maintain the long-term productivity (Loomis 1988) and ecological stability (Sheehy 1993, 1996) of the land. Mobile grazing management strategies also allow for the most efficient harvest of grassland vegetation and may even be essential in highly variable environments (Coughenour 1991, Sheehy 1993, Miller 1995, Ho 1998).
Unfortunately, the vast majority of herding societies around the world continue to come under pressure to settle, to sedentarize, to develop or be developed – a situation which requires an important change in lifestyle that, judging from past experience, does not bode well for the long-term viability of the new (non-adaptive) management systems. In China, Li et al. (1993) note that, “especially since [the country] was opened to the outside world in 1978, there has been a major emphasis on settlement of herders into villages or into houses, i.e. an increasing semi-nomadic [versus traditional nomadic] lifestyle.” Ironically, though, these and similar attempts worldwide often have failed simply because local people were not involved in the early planning stages. In Inner Mongolia, for example, although many brick houses have been built in winter pastures, most herding families still prefer to live in their yurts (traditional tents) during the coldest season (Li et al. 1993).
Since most questions related to “nomads” and development relate to the use of land and livestock, a clear distinction must be made here between extensive and intensive grazing management strategies. According to Briske and Heitschmidt (1991), an extensive grazing management strategy primarily aims to improve the spatial and temporal distribution of grazing herbivores, while an intensive grazing management strategy instead turns to the direct incorporation of high energy inputs into the production system. Between these two extremes are semi-extensive grazing management strategies that “continue to rely on the strategies of extensive grazing management, but [also] incorporate energy inputs into the system” (Sheehy 1993). In the latter case, the main objective is to raise more livestock and to increase off-take rates, an objective facilitated by improved access to grazing lands and the provision of more stored forage in winter and spring (Sheehy 1993). With around 52 percent of China’s land area used primarily for pastoral production (Shen 1982), national and provincial governments in China encourage a systematic, rapid transition from traditional extensive grazing management systems to semi-extensive or intensive grazing management systems (Stucki 1986, Clarke 1987, Cincotta et al. 1992, Zhao 1994).
The main problem with more intensive forms of livestock grazing, however, is that the addition of energy inputs usually has as prerequisite some degree of sedentarization, that is, the localization of many activities associated with the care of livestock (Li et al. 1993). This localization of livestock production then usually translates into a more continuous use of the grasslands with less seasonal and annual variation (Sheehy 1993). The impact of the loss of seasonal mobility (i.e., the loss of the “nomadic” component of traditional extensive grazing systems) is enormous. Based on their work on natural pasture in Mongolia, Tserendash and Erdenebaatar (1993), for example, found that
“intensive grazing of 2-3 periods on the same area in a season may lead to a decline in pasture yield of up to 72 % the following year, with a corresponding change in the primary plant groups. Intensive use of a pasture for continuous grazing over a long period has [even] more far-reaching effects; vegetation coverage decreases annually by 10-15 % and the frequency of [some] species ... decreases to between 10-30 %. ... All these negative changes caused by unsystematic use and repeated grazing over many years strongly suggest the need to develop systems of pasture use based on the centuries-old traditional experience of Mongolian herders as well as on scientific research.”
Therefore, as Aronson (1980) has noted, “policy regarding pastoral peoples ... must outgrow the stereotypical visions that planners and change agents too often have of the nature of pastoral societies… [P]lans have too often seen sedentarization as the quintessential step in ‘developing’ nomads.” Aronson (1980) further comments that there also is the added challenge that in order to change one’s view on “nomads” (i.e., nomadic pastoralists) one also must be “interested in a kind of development that serves the citizenry, that is not just for the growth of the national economy in a statistical sense.”
For pastoral development to succeed, what is probably needed above all else is simple: to begin to involve pastoralists (and other local stakeholders) in the overall decision-making processes that direct the enterprise called development (Guyette 1996, Ravnborg and Guerrero 1997, Carpenter 1998). Such an approach to development stands in sharp contrast with the “blueprint” or centralized approach that has long been used in China. In Central Asia, Myrdal and Kessle (1971) found that
“the problem [with a blueprint, centralized] type of planning [is that] it is not based on the people’s own decisions... It is technocratic planning, by experts at various levels in various bureaus. And these bureaus combat and intrigue against each other. The technocrats ... do their best, as they understand it. But they understand little in relation to the people themselves…”
The need to involve pastoralists in the overall development process is accentuated further by the fact that a failure to do so almost inevitably increases pastoralists’ level of dependence on the state. Thus instead of contributing to national economic productivity, pastoral regions may even increase the state’s financial burden if managed inappropriately. The high costs and on-going technical and financial support (input) needed to maintain intensive livestock grazing systems clearly are not consistent with many long-term national development goals and sustainability. In China, government per capita subsidies in Tibet, for example, sometimes have been even greater than the national average annual per capita income (approximately $ 81 and $ 79 USD, respectively, in 1992; Zhang and Huang 1996), and these figures do not include foreign aid inputs. It is clear from a cost-benefit analytical point of view that the sustainability of intensive pastoral development programs cannot be defended when inputs are greater than returns. The local involvement of pastoralists, though, could lead to more effective, ecologically sound, and acceptable ways of nomad or pastoral development (Dyson-Hudson 1985, Swift et al. 1990).
In the end, there also are moral reasons why local people should be involved in making the decisions that affect their lives. And, as Aronson (1980) concludes, “nomads need not settle to change, but will settle if the move (to stop moving!) serves them well.” Thus nomads (pastoralists), too, seek to make rational decisions and should be involved in the decision-making processes that, to date, still remain almost exclusively the domain of other, external forces.
A second main area of confusion in pastoral development studies relates to the issue of property rights in pastoral societies of the world. Erroneous assumptions have often been made, definitions have become confused, the rationality of common property generally has been ignored, and the relative impacts of different property rights regimes have been compared inadequately (Hardin 1968, Feeny et al. 1990, Bromley 1991, Mearns 1993, 1995, Swope et al. 1997, Ho 1998, 1999).
Feeny et al. (1990) distinguish four categories of property rights: open access, private property, communal property, and state property. They also note that many of the misunderstandings in the literature have arisen from one single false assumption: that common (communal) property implies open access to land or other resources. At the same time, some researchers have focused instead on property ownership, which is a qualitatively different notion from property rights (Mearns 1993). When considered from this perspective, the different forms of resource management can be summarized in even fewer categories, namely open access, common property, and private property. Ho (1998) goes even further and includes common property as a subset of private property, the former simply being private property that belongs to a clearly defined group instead of belonging to an individual. The main point, though, is to remember that “common property” is not the same as “open access” management (or the lack of management).
On the (false) assumption that pastoral societies do not manage their grazing lands, many governments have enforced changes ranging from massive collectivization to full privatization. The history of forced collectivization over the last century, and of the ensuing hardships, is well documented for Central Asia (Leeuwen 1994, Kerven et al. 1996) and Mongolia (Mearns 1993, 1995). Although not all the effects of such collectivization were bad (e.g., the marketing of livestock products has improved; Potkanski 1993), the disruption of linkages between labor, management, and benefits generally has resulted in a decline in the incentive for traditional cooperation among pastoral households and communities (Livingstone 1986, Mearns 1995). Forced collectivization also has been associated with conflict and massive starvation of livestock and people, particularly in Soviet Central Asia (Bacon 1966, Conolly 1967, Olcott 1987, Loomis 1988) and in the Tibetan plateau region of China (Becker 1996). One example from Soviet Central Asia shall suffice:
“Thousands of nomadic families were forced into collective encampments where their animals often starved to death for lack of adequate grazing. Those who resisted were labeled ‘reactionary bays’ and either liquidated or expelled, their animals confiscated. Many Kazaks fled to the Chinese side of the border, some sought refuge in Afghanistan. Those who could not escape often killed their animals. Altogether, the Kazak population decreased by nearly 900,000 between 1926 and 1939. Although, despite the losses of the civil war years, the number of livestock in 1929 had increased by 35.9 per cent over the 1913 figure, between 1929 and 1934 the number of sheep and goats decreased from 27,200,000 to 2,261,000 [i.e. decreased by 91.7 per cent] and of horses from 4,200,000 to 221,000 [i.e., decreased by 94.7 per cent]” (Bacon 1966).
Thus, often times, collectivization has exacted exceptionally high costs.
Private property regimes also have been studied and introduced in various forms throughout the pastoral world (Bennett 1988, Mearns 1993, Kerven et al. 1996). However, the privatization of communes neither entails a full return to old ways (Müller 1995), nor is it the sole possible solution to some of the problems that plagued the former collectives (Johnston 1992, Putterman 1996). Privatization is never a panacea (Ho 1998). In fact, even though it sometimes has been assumed to be a necessity for successful range management (e.g., Anderson and Hill 1998), privatization also can carry with it a series of negative impacts, including land degradation, a non-equitable distribution of goods or services, and an increased probability of the “free-riding” or cheating problem (Finke 1995, Williams 1996, Sandford 1983, Livingstone 1986). There also is no proof that private property regimes lead to better grasslands or livestock production (Johnston 1992, Putterman 1996). Unfortunately, given the initial success of privatization when it was first introduced to the low-lying agricultural areas of eastern China shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution, privatization has been pursued and implemented almost blindly in China’s grassland regions as well (Reardon-Anderson and Ellis 1990), in general simply ignoring the many ecological and socio-economic differences between regions (Ho 1998). Finally, small scale, household-focused privatization in China ignores the fact that resource management at larger spatial scales may be the best possible institutional response to large environmental variability of arid and semi-arid lands (Thompson and Wilson 1994). Pastoralists, like any other group, also are likely to have a strong commitment to their way of life that goes much deeper than simple economic considerations (Loomis 1988).
What may be needed most, therefore, more than the privatization of so-called common resources, is simply increased security and certainty among local producers that any given land tenure system will last for many years in the future. In fact, it is this issue of certainty that is the real reason why private property generally has been upheld and promoted almost unquestioningly, since a sense of security presumably will result in better use and stewardship of the land (Chalamwong and Feder 1986, Livingstone 1986). In their study of forests and forest management in China, for example, Swope et al. (1997) state that “the uncertainty of tenure discourages any investment in the forests, resulting instead in a tendency to liquidate holds. The domination of coercive policies over incentives, which serve to alienate the people from the resource, can be seen throughout this century.” They even go on to explain how “forest preservation has less to do with ownership regime incentives than other factors, such as trust in tenure.” A sense of security and trust, therefore, is very important.
What will China’s grasslands look like in the future? This will depend largely on the relationship sought and achieved between government planners and local pastoralists. And, as such, the style of development adopted, including especially the overall decision-making process (i.e. whether or not it includes all stakeholders), will direct what future is in store for Tibetan pastoralists as well as for the Tibetan plateau in general and for China.
In light of the above two sections on nomadism and common property, as well as the previous discussion on the environmental variability of arid and semi-arid grasslands, it should be clear by now that a new approach to pastoral development is needed (Ellis and Swift 1988, Westoby et al. 1989a, 1989b, Mearns 1993, Sheehy 1993). According to Ellis and Swift (1988), there is evidence from their work
“(1) that stable equilibria are not achievable in many pastoral ecosystems, although long-term persistence is; (2) that interventions aimed at achieving stability in non-equilibrial systems are likely to be irrelevant at best or disruptive and destructive at worst; and (3) that successful interventions will be designed to accommodate system dynamic variation rather than aimed at maintaining equilibrial conditions.”
For these and other reasons, they conclude that “pastoral ecosystems may be better supported by development policies that build on and facilitate the traditional pastoral strategies rather than constrain them.” However, as already alluded to, much more than correct policies are needed – the pastoralists themselves also must become more involved in the planning of their own future, and planners also must learn a lot more about the people that live in “their” project areas. In closing, as Aronson (1980) has said, pastoralism still lives on, but “planners whose jobs are secure even if their plans fail, and pastoralists whose livelihoods may fail unless they gain better knowledge of the complex world encroaching, both have much to gain from building up, step by careful step, mutual trust and respect.”
To define development is no easy task. Although the notion of directional change is common to all definitions of development, the actual content of such change and the determination of what processes are needed for change to occur are more ambiguous and open to debate. In its most basic form, development simply implies “a progression from a simpler or lower to a more advanced, mature, or complex form or stage” (American Heritage Dictionary 1992). As it pertains to populations or geographic regions (i.e., social development), the idea of development suggests “attempts made to foster social progress” (American Heritage Dictionary 1992). Until recently, social progress generally has been understood in material and economic terms only (World Bank 1992, 1997b).
The concept of sustainable development has given rise to even more confusion. The World Commission on Environment and Development (also known as the Brundtland Commission) first brought the term into common usage in its 1987 report entitled Our Common Future. The Commission simply defined sustainable development as “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations” (Davidson and Dence 1988, World Bank 1992). However, the precise meaning of this definition still remains elusive.
For example, even the “World Development Report 1992: Development and the Environment” states both that it “strongly endorses” the Brundtland Commission’s definition of sustainable development (World Bank 1992, p.8) and, simultaneously, that “it is imperative that the current moment of opportunity be seized to bring about [a sustained] acceleration of human and economic development” (World Bank 1992, p.2). Thus the World Bank makes the erroneous assumption that sustainable development and sustained development are synonymous. Clearly, in light of the Earth’s finite resources, it is questionable whether the present rate of development can be sustained indefinitely, let alone to be increased (accelerated) in the future.
The common misunderstanding between sustainable versus sustained development is made clearer by examining the object that is to be sustained. In the case of sustainable development, it is the environment that must be sustained, hence development must be ecologically sound. In the case of so-called sustained development, however, it is development itself that must be sustained. If development is measured as economic growth – as is often the case – then the very premise of the latter term is an impossible hope because development (growth) depends ultimately on the availability of finite natural and human resources.
Similar confusion surrounds the term development, particularly as it relates to the notion of sustainability. Sustained growth already has been dismissed as a contradiction in terms because “nothing physical can grow indefinitely” (World Conservation Union et al. 1991). Unfortunately, this terminology is used widely in China’s and other countries’ official rhetoric, and it continues to raise false hope in the possibility of perpetual economic growth. The notion of sustainable use, on the other hand, applies only to renewable resources. Only development broadly defined as social progress (e.g., the improvement of a community’s quality of life) can support the adjective sustainable, and only in relation to the environment’s capacity to support such change or development. Thus, expanding on the Brundtland Commission’s definition (see above) and the definition provided by IUCN – The World Conservation Union, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (1991), local sustainable development is defined here as a process that aims to equitably improve a population’s quality of life while remaining within the limits of the region’s supporting ecosystems. The need for intra- and inter-generational equity as well as for short- and long-term ecological protection is implicit in this definition.
In Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living, a sustainable society is described as a society that lives by the following nine principles:
· to respect and care for the community of life;
· to improve the quality of life;
· to conserve the Earth’s vitality and diversity;
· to minimize the depletion of non-renewable resources;
· to keep within the Earth’s carrying capacity;
· to change personal attitudes and practices;
· to enable communities to care for their own environments;
· to provide a national framework for integrating development and conservation; and
· to create a global alliance.
It is still open to debate, however, whether all of these principles can be achieved simultaneously, and hence whether one can ever successfully “care for the Earth” (Robinson 1993). However, as Holdgate and Munro (1993) explain,
“unattainable utopia or not, we make no apology for describing a state of the human environment toward which we should strive in the belief that progress even part way would be preferable to the state in which we would surely languish if we remained unaware of our predicament and made no effort to escape it. … Caring for the Earth recognizes that there are conflicts between conservation and development [and that they are] distinct activities, but they should not be separate; they should have a common context of concern for the whole community of life. They are [the two] essential parts of one indispensable process, which is the achievement through sustainable development of a decent future for humanity within the biosphere. The alternative is a continuation of the present profligate and destructive impact of people on the biosphere. Unless development is sustainable – based on conservation principles – there will be a massive breakdown in the biosphere, with grave loss of biodiversity and untold human strife and misery.”
Summarized more succinctly, “the protection of the environment is an essential part of development. Without adequate environmental protection, development is undermined; without development … environmental protection will fail” (World Bank 1992).
Lawrence (1997) and especially Westing (1996) also provide valuable insights into the variety of positions held on the meaning of sustainability and sustainable development, from the mainstream views of governments to those of non-governmental organizations, academia, and different religious bodies. And, as always, a dash of realism helps to keep us focused on the task: “sustainability in a highly dynamic social, economic, political, and biological setting [is] a daunting challenge” (McNeely 1996a).
One of the key achievements of the 1990s in the global attempt to achieve sustainability, to start living in balance with the finite nature of our planet, was the convening of many governments and social organizations at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. According to Miller (1996), the major results of UNCED included
· the Earth Charter, a statement of broad principles to guide environmental policy that commits signatory countries to pursue sustainable development and to work toward eradicating poverty;
· Agenda 21, a detailed action plan to guide countries toward sustainable development and the protection of the global environment during the twenty-first century; and
· the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) that calls for countries to develop strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and the sharing of the benefits arising from sustainable use.
China is one of the first countries in the world to try to implement some of the key recommendations that were developed at UNCED. Its commitment to integrate environment and development is demonstrated best by its great effort to adapt Agenda 21 to its own national context, adopting the sustainable development strategy made public in 1994 in the report entitled China’s Agenda 21: White Paper on China’s Population, Environment, and Development in the 21st Century (Administrative Centre for China’s Agenda 21 1994, 1996). From the highest levels of government down to many local bureaus throughout the country, China’s planners and decision-makers now speak many of the “right words” about the multiple linkages between development and the environment, and also about intra- and inter-generational equity (United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development 1997). However, not all economic development and poverty alleviation plans actually rise to these standards, and a working model that is effective in the real world has yet to be created in China. The take-home message from Rio is clear: Without addressing the root causes of poverty, resource overuse and environmental degradation will continue unabated; and, simultaneously, without halting environment deterioration, the problem of poverty will never be resolved. The problems of poverty and environmental decline are inextricably tied together. Therefore the solution to both these problems must necessarily revolve around the adoption of a more integrated approach to development and conservation.
As already stated, the term sustainability generally is used in association with the notion of development. Development in turn generally is understood to mean meeting basic human needs or otherwise improving their quality of life.
One of humankind’s most basic needs is sustenance or nourishment. It is therefore a sad irony that it is in fact modern agriculture, or the science of growing food, that has perhaps had “the greatest impact on the decline in the [global] food supply. In the 1960s [for example] governments began encouraging nomads to settle in one place, to raise one cash crop instead of several, to herd only one kind of livestock, and the soils quickly became exhausted” (Stutz 1993). While one can intuitively know that good health, basic education, adequate economic opportunities, and a good environment, for example, also are all a part of our overall matrix of basic needs (whether these be physical, or psychological, or both), and that each contributes directly and indirectly to our overall quality of life, it is only relatively recently that some measures of development have begun to incorporate non-economic factors (World Bank 1997b).
Development indicators are useful to ensure that progress actually is made toward becoming a sustainable society. For this purpose the United Nations Development Programme has developed a Human Development Index in an attempt to measure quality of life (Miller 1996). This index has three main components:
· health, measured by longevity (life expectancy at birth);
· knowledge, measured by education (adult literacy rates and years of schooling); and
· economic opportunity, measured by income (per capita gross domestic product).
Recently, the environment also has been gaining recognition, even in mainstream economy-oriented development circles, and it is included now in several expanded measures of wealth (e.g., World Bank 1997b). From a different angle, IUCN - The World Conservation Union and several other organizations have proposed that in order to be ecologically sustainable, societies must conserve ecological life-support systems and biodiversity, ensure that uses of renewable resources are sustainable, minimize the depletion of non-renewable resources, and keep within the carrying capacity of their supporting ecosystems (World Conservation Union et al. 1991).
Beyond economic and ecological viability (sustainability) – the two criteria discussed so far – the success of development initiatives also depends on at least two other criteria. Social equity refers to the spatial distribution of resulting goods and services in the present as well as in future generations. Cultural appropriateness, on the other hand, refers to whether or not new ideas or techniques are viewed as acceptable for use by the target population or cultural group. One innovative development organization in India, Development Alternatives, has found through their experience that “sustainable development must be equitable, efficient, environmentally sound and endogenous” (Development Alternatives 1997) – the order of which may be said to reflect their own emphasis, beginning with social justice, and followed by more traditional economic development, environmental protection, and the use of locally acceptable or familiar ways.
If social equity is not considered in development planning, the distribution of the benefits of development, both within and between communities in the present generation (intra-generational equity) and between present and future generations (inter-generational equity), usually will be far from uniform (Kretzmann and McKnight 1993, China-Europe Centre for Agricultural Technology 1995, Guyette 1996, Kaufman and Alfonso 1997, Department for International Development Cooperation 1998). Further, cultural and gender issues also are very significant, the latter having received a lot of attention in many development organizations over the past several years (Jamieson 1991, China-Europe Centre for Agricultural Technology 1995, Canadian International Development Agency 2000).
A final important lesson learned from development and conservation work around the world is that local participation and a sense of ownership (psychological as well as legal) often increase the overall likelihood of long-term success (Ghai and Vivian 1992, World Bank 1992, Carew-Reid 1993, Friedmann and Rangan 1993, Kemf 1993, Bayon 1996, Fuller and Hussain 1996, Guyette 1996, McNeely 1996a, 1996b, Wilson 1996, Bernard and Young 1997, Jatulan and Davis 1997, Kaufman and Alfonso 1997, Köhler-Rollefson 1997, Ravnborg and Guerrero 1997, Stevens 1997a, Carpenter 1998, Datta and Virgo 1998, Mehta and Kellert 1998, Zeppel 1998). The themes of participation and ownership will be discussed at greater length in the last chapter of this dissertation, which focuses on and reviews the experience to date of one pastoral community – Suojia township in western Zhiduo county, Qinghai – and its newly established grassroots organization, the Upper Yangtze Integrated Conservation and Development Organization. The work in Suojia is a model initiative because, situated near the source of the Yangtze River, it will draw much local as well as national and international attention, and likely will become a benchmark for comparison with other conservation efforts elsewhere on the Tibetan plateau. The local organization itself also represents a new period in China, one of greater experimentation with civil society, that is, with village- and township-level, non-governmental, grassroots involvement in the overall process of development and change.
The definition of biodiversity adopted here is that of Noss and Cooperrider (1994): “Biodiversity is the variety of life and its processes. It includes the variety of living organisms, the genetic differences among them, the communities and ecosystems in which they occur, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that keep them functioning, yet ever changing and adapting.” Unfortunately, it is a “common misconception … that biodiversity is equivalent to species diversity – the more species in an area, the greater its biodiversity” (Noss and Cooperrider 1994). Instead, the tangible manifestations of biodiversity are simply all biological resources, or “any biotic component of ecosystems” (McNeely 1996a). Biodiversity thus includes all the complexity of nature, indeed the whole environment.
Biodiversity must be considered carefully in every development initiative in order to ensure that it is ecologically sound, sustainable, and will be successful in the long-term. Saving or protecting the diversity of life is not optional. Until quite recently, however, biodiversity generally has been a forgotten or ignored resource (Biodiversity Conservation Network 1999a).
Why should we care about biodiversity? The Biodiversity Conservation Network (1999b) lists several important reasons to protect biodiversity, including its importance to the global economy, its contribution to food security and human health, and the fact that it is an international (global) asset. Biodiversity clearly is important for its direct utilitarian value. Noss and Cooperrider (1994), however, “are troubled that current arguments for maintaining international biodiversity, such as those expressed in the Global Biodiversity Strategy [(World Resources Institute et al. 1992)], are thoroughly utilitarian [and] hinge almost entirely on presumed benefits to humans.” If only utilitarian or instrumental value is given to biodiversity and the protection of sensitive areas is not a part of the overall program, they feel that “sustainable development could [in fact] do more harm than good.”
Ehrlich and Ehrlich (1981), Norton (1986), Wilson (1988), and World Wildlife Fund (1991) (all cited in Noss and Cooperrider 1994) provide a more comprehensive overview of the value of biodiversity. Most of the values of biodiversity can be classified in four main categories:
· direct utilitarian values;
· indirect utilitarian values;
· recreational and aesthetic values; and
· intrinsic, spiritual, and ethical values.
The main problem with a solely direct utilitarian perspective of biodiversity is that if a species does not benefit us, it is considered worthless. However there are less tangible, indirect utilitarian values of biodiversity as well. Ehrlich and Ehrlich (1981) call these indirect benefits “ecosystem services.” Ultimately these services are the foundation for all of human civilization. Ecosystem services include:
“(1) maintaining atmospheric quality by regulating gas ratios and filtering dust and pollutants; (2) controlling and ameliorating climate through the carbon cycle and effects of vegetation in stimulating local and regional rainfall; (3) regulating freshwater supplies and controlling flooding (wetlands, for example, can act as giant sponges to soak up moisture during rainy periods and release water slowly during dry periods); (4) generating and maintaining soils through the decomposition of organic matter and the relationship between plant roots and mycorrhizal fungi; (5) disposing of wastes, including domestic sewage and wastes produced by industry and agriculture, and cycling of nutrients; (6) controlling pests and diseases, for example through predation and parasitism on herbivorous insects; and (7) pollinating crops and useful wild plant species by insects, bats, hummingbirds, and other pollinators” (Noss and Cooperrider 1994).
Personal appreciation of nature’s beauty, or the recreational and aesthetic enjoyment of nature, also provides reason to protect and conserve biodiversity. However, in the final analysis, it is “intrinsic values (or the spiritual and ethical appreciation of nature for its own sake) [that] offer the least biased and ultimately most secure arguments for conservation. … Without moral consideration of the needs of other creatures, policies for protecting biodiversity remain on shaky ground” (Noss and Cooperrider 1994). The stance taken in this dissertation is that nature and biodiversity possess all four kinds of value described above.
Over the past decade, the protection of biodiversity, the sustainable utilization of natural resources, and the equitable distribution of benefits arising from such utilization all have become major international concerns (see, e.g., McNeely 1990, 1996, World Conservation Union et al. 1991, United Nations Environment Programme 1995, World Bank 1997b). However, most efforts to protect biodiversity that have been made to date have focused largely on preserving large tracts of wild lands, that is, areas with minimal human disturbance. But in most areas of the world, especially in Asia, there are few places that remain uninhabited or unaffected by people. It is not surprising, therefore, that international experience has shown that in most places “effective, long-term conservation of biodiversity can be greatly assisted by ‘putting people first.’ This means listening to their concerns, encouraging their ability to organize themselves, and then addressing their needs by improving access to, and ownership of, natural resources” (Wilson 1996). The Biodiversity Conservation Network also suggests that “if humans can directly benefit from the biodiversity, they [may] then have the incentive to identify and take action against both internal and external threats to the biodiversity” (Biodiversity Conservation Network 1999b). Thus not only does protection of biodiversity increase the likelihood that development initiatives will be truly sustainable, but integrating development issues with conservation also increases the likelihood of successful protection of biodiversity (Jacobs and Munro 1987, McNeely 1990, United Nations Environment Programme 1995, Jeffries 1997, Brooks et al. 1998). In the end, neither conservation nor development can proceed in isolation, independent of the other – and protecting biodiversity must be a high priority if sustainability is considered important.
The four themes discussed in this chapter – grasslands, pastoralism, sustainability, and biodiversity – form a backdrop that will be present throughout this dissertation. Sometimes only one of these topics will be discussed at a time, but usually it will be the interface or the interactions between these topics that will be of particular interest. Thus, as a study of linkages, this dissertation clearly is an ecological study. And as a study in search of practical solutions to better preserve the biodiversity and ecological integrity of the grasslands of the Tibetan plateau, it also is a study centered within the disciplinary boundaries of conservation biology.
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Chapter Two
Grassland Conservation in a Global Perspective: Four Key Themes
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Grasslands
2.2.1. Grasslands of the World
2.2.2. Grasslands of China
2.2.3. Basic grassland biology
2.2.4. Grassland biodiversity
2.3. Pastoralism
2.3.1. Pastoralists of the World
2.3.2. Tibetan pastoralism
2.3.3. Pastoral development experience
2.3.4. New approaches in pastoral development
2.4. Sustainability
2.4.1. What is development?
2.4.2. What is sustainable development
2.4.3. UNCED (RIO ’92): Poverty and the environment
2.4.4. Development models and criteria for success
2.5. Biodiversity
2.5.1. What is biodiversity?
2.5.2. Biodiversity is essential for sustainability
2.6. Summary