NATURE RESERVES - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 118

involved in the west make enforcement of unpopular restrictions virtually impossible. But
pastoralism, by far the predominant land use, can generally be pursued without great loss
of biodiversity, at least if monitored and done with consideration for particularly sensitive
wild species. For coexistence to work, however, wildlife, grazing, and forestry officials
must have an understanding of, and some leverage over, livestock-wildlife interactions
over the entire landscape, not merely within designated nature reserves. Finally, the notion
that remote (and often high-elevation) nature reserves can support themselves financially
through ecotourism (let alone substitute entirely for land uses forgone on neighboring
lands) is completely unrealistic.
The current paradigm says, “within nature reserves, biodiversity rules supreme and
production for human needs does not take place; outside of nature reserves, neither bio-
diversity nor long-term biotic sustainability are legitimate concerns.” In eastern China,
where land use is so intensive that biodiversity is perforce severely compromised, this
model makes sense. In western China, a more appropriate paradigm is one in which, in
addition to (somewhat smaller) nature reserves, biodiversity is a concern everywhere, and
incentives to maintain it are supported by monitored and regulated use.