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

the headwater areas of the Yellow River, Mekong River <strong>and</strong> Salween River, the
so-called “China’s Water Tower” in Qinghai Province of the eastern part of the
Tibetan Plateau. This threatened agricultural, industrial <strong>and</strong> husb<strong>and</strong>ry sectors
in the lower reaches of those rivers due to water shortages.
As a result, in 2005, a project grant of 7.5 billion Yuan was provided by the
Chinese government to implement alpine grassl<strong>and</strong> protection <strong>and</strong> restoration
in the Southwest of Qinghai Province. In fact, China has invested billions
towards environmental protection, pollution <strong>and</strong> desertification control, <strong>and</strong>
restoration <strong>and</strong> reconstruction of forest <strong>and</strong> rangel<strong>and</strong> ecosystems after the
disastrous floods of 1998.
The eco-shelter project in the Tibetan Plateau, approved by the Chinese government
in 2009, aimed to protect the highl<strong>and</strong> ecosystem, natural forests <strong>and</strong>
the rich biodiversity in the Plateau, which was considered a part of the national
integrated environmental protection <strong>and</strong> restoration programmes in China.
3 The Tibetan Plateau as an Eco-Shelter: Confronting the Threats of
Climate Change
For many years, human activities were rebuked as the main causes leading to
large-scale <strong>and</strong> intensive environmental crises such as biodiversity loss, water
pollution, ecosystem deterioration <strong>and</strong> so on. However, this correlation between
human disturbances <strong>and</strong> environmental depravation was, to some extent, ambiguous
in the Tibetan Plateau where local livestock decreased even more in the
21st century as compared to the 1980s <strong>and</strong> 1990s. Obviously, global climate
change was another reason cited for the increasing degradation <strong>and</strong> desertification
of alpine grassl<strong>and</strong> in the Plateau. According to the China National Plan for
Coping with Climate Change enacted in 2007 (State Council of China 2007),
the annual average temperature has increased 0.5 to 0.8 °C in the past 100 years
in Southwest China. A series of environmental changes were witnessed in the
Plateau, including the water level rise of inl<strong>and</strong> lakes (Ding <strong>and</strong> Liu 1995; Bian
et al. 2006), glacial retreat (Zhang 2004), grassl<strong>and</strong> degradation (Li et al. 2005)
<strong>and</strong> the melting of permafrost (Jin et al. 2000).
To cope with the impact of climate change in the Tibetan Plateau, the Chinese
government established the Tibetan Plateau Eco-shelter programme in
2009. As described in the newly-formulated official document (State Council
of China 2011), the eco-shelter programme had multiple targets, that is,
protecting grassl<strong>and</strong>s, wetl<strong>and</strong>s <strong>and</strong> forestl<strong>and</strong>s; conserving biodiversity; alleviating
soil erosion <strong>and</strong> desertification; preventing natural hazards; improving
protected area management; <strong>and</strong> ending water <strong>and</strong> air pollution, presenting
30