CHINA’S WILD WEST - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 54

More specifically, many pastoralists had been planting non-native grass either because
seed was cheaper, more readily available, or because initial growth was faster. 110 There
were no proscriptions on using non-native grasses, and participants obtained the same
compensation whether they used native or non-native species. At best, however, non-
native vegetation will fail in the long-term if it is intolerant of the climatic and edaphic
conditions where it is planted. At worst, non-natives will thrive, potentially out-compet-
ing native species and thus replacing site-specific problems of soil erosion and wasteful
water use with widespread problems of weed infestation.
The central government also funded the “crops to grassland” program for only seven
years, leaving uncertain the long-term economics of allotments participating in the pro-
gram. Presumably, newly sown grass on former crop lands would be used primarily as
fodder hay, or perhaps at some future time for grazing. But if the direct compensation
and supplemental grain for these lands were to cease, would such lands earn as much
income producing fodder as they formerly did growing rape seed or barley? If not, would
participants simply accept their loss of income, or would they instead plow these fields
back into crops (in hopes of either reestablishing their lost income base, or forcing the
government to start a new program)?
Further, China's pastoral regions had, by 2004, gradually come under the influence
of a different set of programs, intended not merely to restore lands unwisely put to the
plow, but to alter the structure of the livestock industry entirely. These programs, known
as “retire livestock, restore grasslands” ( tuimu huancao ) were—depending on one's
viewpoint—either far-sighted initiatives to restore grassland health and biodiversity, or
misguided attempts to eliminate pastoral nomadism entirely. According to government
Web sites, large numbers of livestock and their owners were being removed from fragile
grasslands, and substantial budget allocations were being made to subsidize pastoralists'
transition to a settled life in township centers. 111
In contrast to the “crops to grassland” program, the “retire livestock, restore grasslands”
programs clearly abandoned any pretense of balancing the competing interests of local
pastoralists and native biodiversity, siding squarely with the latter. Although it is true
that native vegetation has evolved in the presence of large herbivores, and indeed may
actually require grazing by them, it seems likely that if other human disturbance can be
minimized, native herbivores will return to fill that niche, later if not sooner. Purely from
the standpoint of wild yaks, wild ass, argali, gazelles, and deer, rendering large swaths of
western China's grasslands free of domestic livestock sounds ideal.
But could such a program actually succeed, and if so, at what human cost? Removing
livestock from specified grasslands is technically easy, but forms just an iceberg's tip of
cultural, economic, and political complexity. For without livestock, pastoralists, regardless
of how well provisioned they are with cash and housing, would be left without livelihood
or identity. Would the small towns dotted throughout China's pastoral west be prepared
to deal with the social dislocation caused by uprooted families, most of whom were ill
prepared to engage in any life outside of pastoralism? Would families with strong cultural
ties to their former way of life accept these changes, even if compensated, even if coerced,
or would they resist and thereby risk the very social stability that formed the ultimate goal