Pastoralism and Rangeland Management on the Tibetan Plateau in ...

Source: Cui, et al. 2011
Figure 3: Student enrolment per 10,000 persons in Tibet over the years
3.4 Life style <strong>and</strong> quality changes
In the past, most herders in the TAR relied on livestock production, traditionally
enjoying a nomadic life style. The traditional nomadic livestock production
system in the TAR was determined by its degree of social organisation
<strong>and</strong> its unique ecological environment. More than 90 % of herders made
their living with a nomadic lifestyle without a private, settled house prior to
1959. Afterwards, although some herders gradually built their own houses
to live semi-settled or fully-settled lives, the living conditions were still poor.
However, in the past ten years, the TAR has invested in rebuilding houses <strong>and</strong>
constructing settlement centres for nomadic herdsmen in pastoral areas. About
420,000 families of herders <strong>and</strong> farmers, accounting for 80 % of the total rural
residents, have moved into new houses so <strong>and</strong> are able to enjoy stable, safe <strong>and</strong>
comfortable lives. Nomadic grazing, semi-settled grazing <strong>and</strong> settled Tibetan
transhumance grazing are still the main livestock production <strong>and</strong> management
approaches.
4 Economic Changes
4.1 Changes to the composition of the industry
With social changes in the past decades, the economic situation has also changed
dramatically in Tibet. This can be reflected by the compositional changes of
the GDP in the context of the primary, secondary <strong>and</strong> tertiary industries in
different years (Table 1). In 1959 the GDP from the primary industry (73.6 %)
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