Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
by the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), estimated that about 1,350,000
km
2
, or “one-third of the nation's useable grasslands,” had suffered from some degree
of degradation. Although this report suggested that the rate of yearly degradation had
slowed in recent years, three years later the State Council issued a second estimate sug-
gesting that “Presently, ninety percent of China's useable natural grasslands have some
level of degradation.”
46
Sources providing region- or province-specific estimates of the magnitude of the prob-
lem display similar variability and inconsistency. The same SEPA document that reported
the less alarming nationwide figures estimated that, in Ningxia, degraded grasslands con-
stituted 97 percent of the natural grassland area. For Inner Mongolia, a recent compilation
estimated that 58 percent of grasslands were in “moderate to severely degraded” condition
as of 1998.
47
For Gansu, proportions of grasslands degraded varied from 39 to 48 percent.
48
Xinjiang was reported to have 46 percent of its grasslands moderately or severely de-
graded.
49
In Qinghai, “A recent sample of 111 villages in a relatively productive area of
Qinghai found that . . . degraded areas of temperate grassland, of alpine grassland, and
of temperate desert grassland are 45.12 percent, 33.56 percent and 35.28 percent of their
respective total utilizable areas.”
50
For Tibet, figures vary from 15 percent to 26 percent,
depending on the source.
51
Curiously, mammalogists studying the effects of rodents on
grasslands estimated that 50 percent of the 1,400,000 km
2
of grasslands on the Qinghai-Ti-
bet Plateau have been “seriously” degenerated
52
(a number incompatible with the previous
estimates for Tibet and Qinghai). An attempt to integrate satellite-derived productivity
data with estimates of livestock stocking densities (by individual county) suggested that
large swathes of southern and western Qinghai, eastern Xinjiang, and western Gansu
(as well as northeastern Inner Mongolia and extreme northern Heilongjiang) were, in
fact, stocked at sustainable densities. In contrast, the most severely overstocked areas
were calculated to be in central Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, central and southern Gansu,
eastern Qinghai, and western Xinjiang (neither Sichuan nor Tibet were included in this
analysis).
53
Reports of lowered productivity among livestock herds are also variable,
although most report declines of one-third to one-half relative to estimates from the
1950s or 1960s.
About all that can be concluded from these summary statistics is that stocking densities
are generally high relative to the capability of most grasslands to sustain both livestock
and wildlife in a healthy condition. Further, it seems safe to conclude that many western
Chinese rangelands no longer produce the abundance of palatable vegetation they formerly
did, have lost soil matter or productivity, and are less efficient at facilitating quick weight
gains in domestic livestock—in short, are “degraded” by some definition or other. But
exactly where, to what degree, and—most importantly—
why
rangelands have deteriorated
remains uncertain. It is difficult to develop or assess restoration strategies when it is not
clear either how bad the problem is or why it has occurred.
This lack of data is partly a result of unfortunate policy decisions, and could have
been avoided had Chinese agencies followed through on their promising actions of the
early 1980s. When management of grasslands was transferred from the giant communes
of the 1960s and 1970s to individual households and small cooperatives in the early
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