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

This multi-functional nature of the natural ecosystem was reflected in the
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003)
which summarized the various goods <strong>and</strong> services provide by natural ecosystems
such as rangel<strong>and</strong>s.
Recognizing this multi-functional nature of rangel<strong>and</strong>s, the XXI International
Grassl<strong>and</strong> Congress <strong>and</strong> the VIII International Rangel<strong>and</strong>s Congress (Organizing
Committee 2008) was held in Hohhot of China in July 2008 with the theme
of “Multi-functional Grassl<strong>and</strong>s in a Changing World”.
In recent years, many methodologies, models <strong>and</strong> approaches have been
developed to estimate the holistic value of natural systems like rangel<strong>and</strong>s. Especially,
after the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005),
people have been trying to calculate the goods <strong>and</strong> services of ecosystems in
monetary terms <strong>and</strong> market values using various indicators <strong>and</strong> methods. One
study (Xie et al. 2003) has put the total values of goods <strong>and</strong> services provided by
ecosystems on Tibet Plateau around 138.7 billion USD, over 48.3 % of which
is from rangel<strong>and</strong>s (Table 3).
Table 3: Annual values of ecosystem goods <strong>and</strong> services of Tibet Plateau
72
Goods <strong>and</strong> services Total Value
(in billion USD)
% of
total
1 Total 138.72 100.0
2 Soil preservation 26.70 20.0
3 Water conservation 22.84 16.3
4 Maintaining biodiversity 22.22 16.0
5 Regulating air 14.57 10.5
6 Regulating climate 14.70 10.6
7 Disposing Wastes 23.03 16.6
8 Food 3.61 2.6
9 Providing raw materials 5.55 4.0
10 Recreational <strong>and</strong> cultural values 4.72 3.4
Source: Xie et al. 2003
In sharp comparison, the total GDP <strong>and</strong> agricultural share of GDP of Tibet
Autonomous Region <strong>and</strong> Qinghai Province in 2009 was only 22.7 billion USD
<strong>and</strong> 0.25 billion USD respectively (Statistics Bureau of Tibet 2010; Statistics
Bureau of Qinghai 2010).