Co-Management in Northern Tibet,China

Report

on

Experiences of Ingenious Rangeland

Co-Management in Northern Tibet,China

Series Report of WISP Case Studies on PastoralistsLand Rights

Submitted by:International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development

(ICIMOD)

Address: GPO Box 3226

Kathmandu, Nepal

Phone: 00977 –1 – 5003 222

Facsimile:00977 –1 – 5003 277

Website:

Contact:Ms Yan Zhaoli, PhD ()

20 November 2007

Executive Summary

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

List of Contents

1. Background

About the Case Study

This report is of one of the series case studies on pastoralists land rights that have been organized by the World Initiative on Sustainable Pastoralism (WISP) in the second half of year 2007. WISP case studies on pastoralists’ rights aim to develop policy advice and advocacy to enable pastoralists to secure their resource rights.

The reported case study has been carried out in Nima and Shenzha counties in northern Naqu Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China, by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in close collaboration with Tibet Academy of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (TAAAS) and local partners. The case study consisted of two parts including desk research and a field visit to TAR from 23 October to 6 November 2007.

The original idea of this case study is to reveal why and how Nima County of China practices co-management of rangeland resources while the national policy requires implementation of the Household Contract Responsibility System (HCRS). Nima co-management case was reported in an international workshop on rangeland co-management by the director of its county animal husbandry bureau in May 2006, but many details remained indistinct. Our pre-assumption was that rangeland legal allocation to household level as a key component of China’s HCRS might not fit in all situations, and that local governmental officials in pure pastoral NimaCounty which is some 900 km northwest of Lhasa understood the situation well and listened to the herders to maintain co-management of rangeland resources and mobile livestock grazing. This indicated that well documentation of Nima case could be essentially important in identifying locally suitable and adaptable rangeland management schemes so that to advocate policy changes for adaptive management of rangelands in China and worldwide.

With the above pre-assumptions, we set off to identify and document how pastoralists in NimaCounty in northern Tibet of China made their success in maintaining co-management of rangeland resources and mobile livestock grazing after the enforcement of national rangeland privatization policy. The team had prepared a long list of questions in advance but used the list only as a reference for semi-structured interviews. When the field investigation went deeper, we found some deflection of the reality from our presumption. It was indeed not that local pastoralists struggled to get their rights on collective use of rangeland for mobile livestock grazing. Rather, local government played a foremost role in initiating the co-management practice to alleviate poverty through collectivelyorganized efforts and adaptableinterpretation of national policies.

Based on the truth of field reality that we have realized through the field survey in TAR, this case study report is structured to introduce two locally practiced co-management models – United Pastoral Production System (UPPS) and Interdependent Pastoral Production System (IPPS) – that are followed by the discussion of their implications on pastoralists’ rights and the policy recommendations. The initially planned reporting part of pastoralists’ movement on maintaining their rights is not present in this report due to the lack of such findings, but relevant contents wherever applicable are embedded in different parts of this report. The implication of co-management to pastoralists’ rights is discussed in Section 4 of the report and policy recommendations in Section 5.

Historical Overview of China’s Pastoral Production

China’s is one of the most important rangeland countries in the world, of which rangeland covers not less than half of its territory (Yan 2007) or around five million square kilometers. Since the establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949 – which on the one hand relieved the country from half feudal and half colonial status but on the other hand also denied some good traditions – the country has gone through a few fundamental changes in the management of rangeland. There have been good intentions and valuable endeavors in those changes, but severe rangeland degradation was inevitably wide spreading over last half century. Therefore, reviewing the changes and identifying locally successful adaptable implementation of policies in pastoral areas of China shall have good implications to the policy development.

Rangelands in China had been managed by pastoralist groups that were controlled by tribe heads, descendent nobles and monasteries for hundreds or even thousands of years till the democracy reformation in late 1950s. The state government claimed the ownership of all the rangelands and livestock through the democracy reformation, which were then managed collectively by communal production units including communes, production brigades and groups. From late 1950s to late 1970s the whole China was closed for self-reliance and self-development.

The production group was the basic working unit during that time. Pastoralists in Tibet were normally organized to work in task specific groups for sheep, goats, yak cow, or non-milking yak management. Every workforce had to go and work in own group every day from early morning to evening with a short break in mid-day. There was about one day off in every ten days. Pastoralists earned daily working points from their compulsory presence in own assigned group. The working points were recorded daily and accumulated throughout the year for family-based annual payment at the end of every year. One strong work force could earn 6-8 working points a day which normally made them about a half to one Chinese Yuan (7.5 Chinese Yuan is now equivalent to 1 US dollar) depending on the collective annual income.

Pastoralists got also regularly allocation of food and other daily necessities such as Zamba (Tibetan pastoralists’staple food made from fried barley flour and often some beans’ powder too), butter, dried cheese, wool and occasionally meat based on the number of family members. They could borrow money or livestock products through/from their production units for meeting medical or other urgent needs, which would be deducted from their regular share of the allocations and annual payment of their workforce. Many pastoral families especially those with the sick at home often could not get any cash payment in the end of year due to large debts, but they still could always get fairly allocated food and other pastoral products. Pastoralists in Tibet and likely throughout China during that time might be all poor but they lived more or less at the same level without significant difference.

The intention of organizing pastoralists in groups was to let them “each works their hardest and to get paid by their work” in a socialism equitable share. The result was however not found very satisfactory after nearly two decades till late 1970s. The reasons accounting for the failure were due to too much emphasis on political rather than productive issues and so on that need lot of analysis and that we are not to discuss in this report. Nevertheless, China has decided to stop the political movements and to open it up for economic development since 1978. The main driver of this national change Mr Deng Xiaoping had one famous say at that time “no matter a black cat or white cat, it is a good cat if it catches mice”, which stimulated Chinese people to start individual economic development. Some historical efforts and reformations have been tried out to stimulate agricultural production and economic development ever since then.

The first national great success on rural development was the initiation of the Household Contract and Responsibility System (HCRS) in managing agricultural lands and production tools in the end of 1970s. In HCRS, all crop lands were equally distributed to farmers at household contractual base without relating land size to age or gender. This reformation has given freedom to the farmers but largely raised their enthusiasm in careful cultivation of crops and released many rural people from hunger. A couple of years after the success of HCRS in agricultural sector, it has also been introduced to pastoral areas. All the communally owned livestock was then equally distributed to individual households in 1982-83. As a result, each household in Tibet got flocks of all types of locally raised livestock – they were mainly sheep, goats, yaks and horses.

From that time on, livestock became private property and livestock number had possibly a big growth. Each family tried to raise as much livestock as they could since it is an indication of family wealth which also provides them sort of insurance. Many households developed steadily large numbers of livestock. The general statistics show about four times increase of livestock in Tibet from 1950s to 1990s. However, rangeland remained for communal use and herders could graze their livestock wherever they wanted inside certain administrative boundaries (mostly village boundaries). Traditional rangeland management system was hardly working after 20 plus years practice of communal systems that was eventually dismissed too. Unfortunately, “the tragedy of the commons” happened.

Wide spreading severe rangeland degradation was increasingly reported and concerned in China before long. The country enacted “Rangeland Law” (1985), in which it was regulated that “rangeland could be contracted to individual households or least contractual units”. The assumption was that pastoralists would feel more ownership and place more inputs in improving rangeland condition if it is allocated to individual households. After the trial of rangeland allocation in 25 pastoral counties in China, the state government has soon encouraged legal allocation of rangelands through HCRS in all pastoral areas of the country. Rangeland in TAR was first allocated to production groups in late 1990s. NimaCounty in north TAR initiated the efforts of allocating rangeland to individual households in 2003.TAR government highly praised this initiation and required other pastoral areas in the region also to follow. During this WISP case study mission, the TAR rangeland officials indicated that about 70% of rangeland in TAR has completed legally contractual lease by November 2007. They say about 36% of the allocated rangeland is winter pasture that has been allocated to individual households and the rest goes to either to household or natural village or household group levels.

Case Study Area: Northern Tibet of China

The case study area northern Tibet of China is also known as the Chiang Tang Plateau, which in Tibetan language means “unpopulated high area in the north”. Chiang Tang Plateau has an area of 597,000 sq km and average altitude of some 5000 meters above sea level, with its rugged plateau of 4700-4800 meters high that is interspersed and surrounded by lots of high mountains. The two counties we conducted field survey are namely Nima and Shenzha, which both located in the centre of the Chiang Tang Plateau in Nakchu Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China.

The average mean annual temperature of the Chiang Tang Plateau is below 0 degreeCelsius, with August lowest extreme temperature of -18 oC and annual lowest extreme of -42.9 oC on the plateau. The annual precipitation on Chiang Tang Plateau ranges from 50-300 mm that declines from southwest to northeast. More than 80% of the precipitation falls from June to September, and the driest season is from March to May. Strong wind blows year round on the plateau with some places having more than 200 days a year of wind above 17 m/s. The solar radiation on the plateau is much higher than that of lowlands in the same latitude. Chiang Tang Plateau is however rich in highland wetlands, with 21,400 sq km of its territory covered by lakes that makes one quarter of China’s total lake coverage. Vegetation coverage on the plateau is normally below 40%.

The Chiang Tang Plateau is pure pastoral area that is now sparsely populated by Tibetan pastoralists. This area produces the finest cashmere wool from local Tibetan goats, and animal husbandry is the backbone of livelihoods and local economy. The other major livestock types are Tibetan sheep and yak. Traditionally, Tibetan pastoralists migrate with their livestock year round to search for grass and water, but they used to have simple clay-made winter shed for people to stay in from November to April. In recent years, Tibetan-aid programmes and the central government “Rural Lives in Peace and Contentment Programme” have helped majority to build their own houses for winter and weak family members’ settlement. According to our observation and enquiry from local people, more than 80% of pastoralists in Chiang Tang Plateau have now semi-settled.

In the mean time, this area is also one of the world’s last pristine natural ecosystems, which is full of wildlife such as wild yaks, Tibetan gazelle, Tibetan antelope, wild ass (Kiang), wild yaks, blue sheep, snow leopard, brown bear, fox, wolf, and many birds. Local people, livestock and wildlife live peacefully and friendly in Chiang Tang, although illegal hunting by outsiders still happens sometimes. The whole of NimaCounty and some of ShenzhaCounty fall into China’s Chiang Tang National Nature Preserve (CTNNP). NorthNimaCounty is located in Mayi Core Zone of CTNNP, but livestock husbandry is not completely abandoned even there. Grazing pressure is however not quite an issue in CTNNP especially in the core zones. Livestock and herbivore wildlife are seen browsing together in harmony throughout the Chiang Tang Plateau.

The study areas Nima and ShenzhaCounty, in addition to the adjacent Shuanghu Special Administrative District, used to belong to one county that was former ShenzhaCounty, which was too big for efficient management and therefore broken into ShenzhaCounty and two Special Administrative Districts in late 1970s, of which one of them developed as today’s NimaCounty. Nima is the youngest county in TAR that was established in 1993. The area of NimaCounty had a total population of 26508 by the end of 2006, of which 809 were non-pastoral. At the time of this case study in October 2007, the livestock numbers in NimaCounty were of 839,933 sheep, 537,725 goats, 108,021 yaks and 8,407 horses. The required livestock off-taking rate is 33% for 2007 and the sale of live livestock in the year just started taking place during our field survey. The annual per capita of NimaCounty in 2006 was 2792.38 RMB Yuan (equivalent to 377 US Dollars). CurrentShenzhaCounty has been effect from 1977 after the separation of Wenbu District (the former body of NimaCounty) and Shuanghu District. ShenzhaCounty has a size of 40,000 sq km and population of some 16,000 in 2006. The geographic setting and socio-economic background of Shenzha is much similar to that of NimaCounty.

1. Methodology

This case study was carried out by a dynamic team. The core team consisted of me– Yan Zhaoli, the lead author of this report based in Kathmandu (Nepal) at ICIMOD – and Mr Yeshi Dorji from the Livestock Research Institute (LRI), Tibet Academy of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (TAAAS). Yeshi is a very good counterpart in carrying out this case study. He has 27 years experience working with LRI in livestock and rangeland management, but he was born and brought up in northern Tibet herder family. I went to Tibet of China for carrying out the case from 23 October to 6 November of 2007. Yeshi joined me from Lhasa and we two traveled a total of 2992 km from 26 October to 1 November to conduct the survey in Nima and Shenzha counties in northern Tibet.

Mr Gaduo the Director of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau in NimaCountyfacilitated all the meetings and pastoralists visit in NimaCounty and helped in Chinese-Tibetan interpretation. We three stayed over night in herders’ winter house in a village of Daguo Township that is about 200 km from the county town to continue the field survey. Yeshi and I visited one village in ShenzhaCounty on our way to their county town from Nima. Mr Denzen Wangchiu the Director of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau in Shenzha County helped organize the field investigation in other two townships in Shenzha by assigning his two young staff to guide us. Denzen said himself could have companied us but he wanted us to be able to freely interact with pastoralists without his interruption, after providing overall introduction of rangeland management in Shenzha.

We visited pastoralists in five villages in NimaCounty that included two villages successfully practiced formally organized co-management, two villages failed in doing so and one village that had not been organized to perform co-management. Darea Village of Daguo Township and Qumixiong Village of Jiagu Township were successful in co-managementadvancement, whereas Bensong Village of Laiduo Township and Gaozha Village of Jiagu Township formal arrangement of co-management had been failed. The village we visited that had no formally organized co-management experience in NimaCounty was Zhexiangmu Village of Jiagu Township. The distance of two close villages visited was sometimes hundreds of kilometers.