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

Source: Cui et al. 2011
Figure 4: Number of tourists <strong>and</strong> tourism income of Tibet over the years
4.2 Changes of herders’ incomes
Although pastoral-agricultural sector in the TAR’s GDP was getting smaller
compared to the other two industries after 1997 (Table 1), the net incomes of
herders <strong>and</strong> farmers increased dramatically in the past three decades (Table 2).
Table 2: Herders <strong>and</strong> farmers net incomes in the past 30 years
(in Yuan per year)
Yuan Year 1978 1984 2001 2008
Average herders/farmers income 175 446 1,404 3,176
Source: data adapted from China Statistics Press 2009, 2010
Table 3 indicates that the average numbers of livestock (yaks, sheep or goats) per
agro-pastoral person in the TAR was 14.6 in the period from 1965–1980, <strong>and</strong>
saw a slight declining trend down to 10.5 units by 2005–2009. But livestock
<strong>and</strong> human populations were exp<strong>and</strong>ing although the extent varied in different
periods. This means that the total population of both of livestock <strong>and</strong> humans
increased over the entire period. Compared with big differences in incomes
over different periods (Table 2), this implies that the high incomes after 2001
were driven by increases in the prices of livestock <strong>and</strong> livestock products, <strong>and</strong>
the high commercialization rate. In 2008, the proportion of cattle, pigs <strong>and</strong>
sheep delivered for sale was 19.8 %, 57.2 % <strong>and</strong> 30.8 % respectively. These
figures were less than 10 % prior to 1959. However in the past 10 years, the
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> > > 5. Pastoral Practices <strong>and</strong> their Transformations