Geography Reference
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in other fields, partly for historic and cultural reasons, and partly because there exist no
social institutions conducting applied wildlife conservation or management. Such institu-
tions would constitute not only the most likely source for research questions but also the
agency of implementation requiring scientific answers.
These policies reflect a general tendency to adopt solutions to natural resource
problems that are simplistic and draconian, lack nuance and site specificity, and often
cause unexpected negative consequences. Blanket prohibitions on hunting most species
of subsistence or commercial interest are concordant with similar policies elsewhere
in natural resources. Convinced that overcutting of forests in the upper Yangtze River
Basin was a principal cause of the 1998 floods, a policy was promulgated to, virtually
overnight, completely prohibit logging on state-controlled, natural forest. Concerned that
biodiversity was insufficiently protected, enormous nature reserves were designated that
contained thousands of residents, but on which all economic activity would henceforth be
illegal. In implementing the promising
tuigeng
programs, compensation to farmers was
set at uniform, national standards, without regard for the true local costs of conversion
to forests (thus resulting in windfalls for some farmers and losses for others). In search-
ing for ways to reduce pressure on grasslands, current programs now propose to move
thousands of pastoralists off their traditional lands entirely, replacing current income
with who knows what.
Although there exists no single articulation of China's west in the various writings on
the Great Opening of the West, the vision clearly seems to be one of a tamed landscape,
bereft of those very qualities that currently make it a source of cultural pride for those
with long histories there, and of romantic dreams for many in eastern China's urban areas.
Despite wildlife protection laws and nature reserves, the general direction seems to be
to remove wildness from those lands still possessing it, evidently in the belief that doing
so is necessary for modernization and progress.
I fear that the collision of all these forces portends ill for wildlife in China's west. The
future as so envisioned is one that I believe Chinese themselves, both in the western plains
and the eastern cities, will ultimately come to regret. If the traditional Chinese interest in
consuming wildlife for meat, medicine, and other products is truly to be honored, there
must be some way of maintaining the very wildness that is a precondition for its existence.
Changes are needed, but of course, any change is difficult.
I can only propose general directions for improvement. I cannot produce a detailed
plan for a new management regime, if for no other reason than that the concept is a
contradiction in terms. A guiding principle of wildlife conservation is that it needs to be
site specific and flexible. I have criticized Chinese government efforts for being exces-
sively top-down in orientation, insufficiently sensitive to the requirements imposed by
local conditions. That very property prohibits me from offering a detailed blueprint that
should, or could, apply to the entire western region.
However, I will offer general policy suggestions dealing with the two prerequisite
aspects of any successful wildlife conservation system; they are: limiting direct kill-
ing to that which can be sustained indefinitely, and moderating and controlling adverse
changes to natural habitats. Further, I will suggest that no wildlife conservation system
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