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

Other grasslands 441
Cattle (Bos taurus and Bos indicus ) are found everywhere below 2000 m.
Yak (Plate 11.20) are mainly kept on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at 3 000 to
5 000 m. There are 15 million yaks in China (Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan, Gansu,
Xinjiang and Yunnan), around 90 percent of the world total. Buffalo of the
swamp type are kept in humid tropical and subtropical areas. They are stallfed
and mainly kept for draught and meat . Sheep , the main grazing stock, are
kept in temperate areas within 30° to 50°N and 75° to 135°E. Goats are the
most widely distributed livestock in China, since they can adapt to many climates
and pastures. Horses are the traditional draught animals below 4 000 m.
Camels are important in temperate deserts. There are some single humped
camels in south Xinjiang, but the great majority are Bactrian.
Feeding systems in the north differ from those in the west. Inner Mongolian
grasslands are flat and the environment is simple; pastures can be grazed at any
season if water is available; animals are moved rotationally following a certain
range and routine. In desert areas of Xinjiang there are two seasonal grazing
belts, basins and mountains. Animals graze in the basins in winter , move to
mountains in spring and to high mountains in summer , returning to basins
in late autumn ; this is a strict seasonal grazing system and animals spend 1 or
2 months travelling from winter to summer pasture . On the Qinghai-Tibet
Plateau , animals graze above 3 000 m, but pastures are still divided into seasonal
belts: low cold season pasture and high warm season pasture.
China had a total grassland area of about 393 million hectares in 1994, about
12 percent of the world’s grassland. Usable grassland is 331 million hectares
– 35 percent of the national land area. Most grassland is in the northern arid
and cold zones . The six major pastoral provinces account for 75 percent of
national grassland and around 70 percent of grazing livestock. The great size of
the country and its range of latitudes, altitudes and rainfall leads to a wide range
of grassland types . According to the Vegetation -habitat Classification System,
grassland in China can be divided into nine classes and 276 types. There are 69
types in the Temperate Steppe Class, 39 types in the Temperate Desert Class,
25 types in the Warm Shrubby Tussock Class, 39 types in the Tropical Shrubby
Tussock Class, 51 types in the Temperate Meadow Class, 24 types in the Alpine
Meadow Class, 17 types in the Alpine Steppe Class, 4 types in the Alpine
Desert Class and 8 types in the Marshes Class.
Many plants play an important role in forming a grassland community
in terms of coverage and herbage yield in large grassland areas and various
grassland types . The most important species in different grassland classes are
considered below.
The Temperate Steppe class is typically Leymus chinensis (Plate 11.21),
Stipa baicalensis , S. grandis , S. krylovi , S. bungeana , S. breviflora , S. glareosa ,
S. klemenzi i , S. capillata , Festuca ovina , Cleistogenes squarrosa , Filifolium
sibiricum , Artemisia frigida , A. halodendron , A. ordosica , A. intramongolica ,
Thymus serpyllum var. mongolium and Ajania fruticulosa .