Grasslands of the World.pdf - Disasters and Conflicts - UNEP

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Grasslands of the world
Plate 8.19
Oats for winter feed (as hay ) being grown in a sheep pen, Qinghai, China .
Gansu and Sichuan. However, even in Tibet , great attention is being given to
“scientific” animal husbandry and settling of herders.
The heavy livestock losses experienced on the plateau in recent years has
convinced many authorities that transhumant pastoralism needs to be restructured.
Programmes to settle herders, privatize and fence pasture and develop
fodder for winter are seen as ways to prevent losses in severe winters and control
what is perceived as widespread pasture degradation . While some of these
interventions have merit, such as the growing of annual forage for hay , the
long-term ecological implications of privatizing pasture and reducing the spatial
movement of herds have received little analysis (Miller, 2000). The socioeconomic
and land-tenure ramifications of herders being settled on defined
properties have also not been examined.
Foggin and Smith (2000) concluded that summer -autumn pastures may be
unintentionally degraded further as artificially high winter populations of stock
are forced to graze on summer-autumn pasture of reduced size. Official livestock-management
views technology as having the ability to overcome resource
limitations but fails to consider that a greater proportion of winter-spring
pasture means a lesser proportion of summer-autumn pasture and overgrazing
becomes increasingly likely as more livestock graze on a continuously decreasing
area during a short growing season (Foggin and Smith, 2000). Considerable
investment may be misdirected or inappropriately divided between winterspring
and summer-autumn zones and associated projects. For example, in Dari
County of Qinghai, grassland condition has continued to deteriorate despite a
decrease in livestock and considerable investment in “construction” projects.
J.M. SUTTIE