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

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Grasslands of the world
remaining, unsupervised, close to homesteads: nearby pastures are overgrazed
while distant ones are hardly used (Iñguez et al. 2004). Previously, considerable
quantities of fodder was grown and conserved for winter ; this has declined very
considerably as the republics concentrate on self-sufficiency in cereals, which
they can no longer procure readily from elsewhere. Lack of conserved feed and
reduced herd mobility exacerbate the serious problems of winter feeding.
CHINA
This section is based on the Pasture Profile for the People’s Republic of China
(Hu and Zhang, 2003a) and on Hu and Zhang (2003b). The Tibet -Qinghai
plateau has been described in Chapter 8. Detailed description and discussion
of herding in Tibet Autonomous Region is given in Nyima (2003); grazing
management of alpine ecosystems on the Tibet Qinghai Plateau is discussed
by Ruijun (2003a), who also provides detailed information on yak nutrition
(Ruijun, 2003b). Transhumant systems in Xinjiang and the production of
winter fodder by herders is described by Wang (2003). China has vast grazing
lands . The pastoral areas are concentrated in six provinces and autonomous
regions: Inner Mongolia (Plates 11.12, 11.13 and 11.14), Xinjiang (Plate 11.15),
Tibet, Qinghai (Plates 11.16 and 11.17), Sichuan and Gansu, where extensive
stock raising is the main agricultural enterprise. These six have 70 percent of
sheep , all the camels , 25 percent of cattle and goats , 44 percent of horses and
39 percent of donkeys in China.
Mixed farming, on relatively small family farms , is the agricultural system
of the rest of the country, where livestock are still important, but are mainly
Plate 11.12
Pastoral scene in July near Hailar City, Inner Mongolia , China .
S.G. REYNOLDS