Citation
Detail:J. Marc Foggin and Andrew T. Smith .
1996.Rangeland Utilization and Biodiversity on the Alpine Grasslands of Qinghai
Province, People's Republic of China. in: Conserving China's Biodiversity
(II) (PETER Johan Schei, WANG Sung and XIE Yan eds.).
China Environmental Science Press. Beijing. 247-258p.
Rangeland
Utilization and Biodiversity on the Alpine Grasslands of
Qinghai Province, People's Republic of China
The Use of Regional
and County-Level Datasets
J. Marc Foggin and Andrew T. Smith
(Department of Biology, Box 87l 50l, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1501,
U.S.A.)
¡ï1
Introduction¡ï2
Methods¡ï3
Results¡ï4
Discussion
It is important to understand the
utilization of rangelands by pastoralists and, concomitantly, the potential
effects of rangeland utilization on biodiversity, if efforts are to be made
to ensure that such resources are managed sustainably. However, data on rangeland
utilization and local biodiversity are often lacking, and it is not always clear
how such data (when available) should be used to inform management decisions.
Use of such data can even be more problematic when they were not gathered with
the goal of evaluating sustainability or its relationship to biodiversity, or
when they may be corrupted because of political forces. Nevertheless, on a regional
basis and particularly in developing areas, broad-scale datasets that address
rangeland issues may serve as the best starting point in any evaluation of such
an area's natural resources. We examine series of provincial- and county-level
datasets from the alpine grasslands of Qinghai Province, People's Republic of
China, that describe rangeland utilization patterns and issues of sustainability
that bear on continued use of this pastoral ecosystem and conservation of its
native biodiversity. We evaluate these datasets and demonstrate their strengths
and weaknesses toward the goal of assisting management decisions at the local,
county, and provincial level.
We have chosen to focus on the alpine grasslands of Qinghai Province for several
reasons. First, these high altitude grasslands constitute a large proportion
of the province (385,873 km2, nearly 54% of the provincial area of 721,l97 km2,
Jing 1986), and pastoralism impacts nearly all of the available grasslands (Hu
et al. 1992, Wu 1997). Over 22 million head of livestock, mostly sheep and yak,
utilize these rangelands in Qinghai (Drandui 1996). In a broader context, the
high altitude grasslands of the Tibetan plateau extend over 2.5 million km2,
and rangeland covers nearly 70% of this total land area (Miller 1995). Thus,
although the Tibetan plateau is not homogeneous, our analysis of Qinghai will
serve as a benchmark for understanding the demands of pastoralism upon Tibet's
alpine grasslands and the extent to which the area can serve as a valuable refuge
for wildlife. Second, this area has been grazed by domestic livestock going
back at least 2,200 years (Zhao 199x) - thus it can be assumed that sustainable
husbandry has been practiced throughout the region by the indigenous Tibetan
pastoralists that occupy this part of the Tibetan plateau (Ekvall 1968, Clarke
1987, Goldstein and Beale 1990, Wu 1997). Most pastoralists belonged to one
of the Tibetan tribes, but a few Mongol tribes also had significant impact in
the area of present-day Qinghai, both in terms of their population and the land
they occupied or controlled (Lattimore 1940, Schram 1954, Smith 1996). Third,
there have been massive changes over the past several decades on the grasslands
of Qinghai Province, and now there is every indication that the habitat in the
region has been seriously degraded (Hu et al. 1992, NAS 1992, Lang et al. 1997).
Only l% of the land area of the province currently has protected status (MacKinnon
et al. 1996), thus any attempt to preserve biodiversity must include a comprehensive
analysis of the condition of all pasturelands and their state of degradation.
And fourth, the area possesses a distinctive mammal fauna that is fairly well-known
and can be used as a measure of regional biodiversity (Hoffmann 1991 , Zhang
1991; Li 1989).
Many independent research programs have concluded that the average productivity
of the rangelands on the Tibetan plateau is currently about 30% less than two-to-three
decades ago (Hu et al. 1992; NAS 1992, Lang et al. 1997; Long & Ma 1997).
From 1949 to 1994 the livestock population increased dramatically in Qinghai,
while the ratio of pasture area per animal decreased substantially (from 4.2
to 1 .4 ha/animal, Long & Ma 1997). 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%, 33.56% and 35.28% of their respective total utilizable areas'' (Lang
et al. 1997). This same report found that above-ground biomass decreased by
over 73%, while prevalence of toxic plants increased 5.6 times. These trends
have occurred simultaneously with several profound changes in the manner in
which the land has been managed -- primarily through attempts by external forces
to modernize production methods in the remote areas occupied by pastoralists.
Unsustainable agriculture has been introduced to the grasslands (Wei 1986).
Husbandry was collectivized for most of the period between 1956 and shortly
after the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and then formally privatized
in 1985 under the new Household Contract Responsibility System (Ho 1998). Traditional
trade networks were disrupted (Goldstein and Beale 1990). And an insidious thrust
to "settle down" many nomads has been undertaken with a corresponding
reduction in the spatial mobility of livestock herds (Miller 1995). The most
important ecological factor affected by changes in spatial mobility of herds
is the differential use of seasonally important grasslands, namely summer and
winter ranges (Cincotta et al. 1992; Miller 1995).
At the same time biodiversity on the plateau has been declining precipitously.
The native ungulates used to present a specter similar to the Serengeti plain
of Africa, yet now their numbers and distribution have been severely reduced
(Schaller 1998). These declines may be due to a variety of factors, including
illegal poaching, fencing, and increased degradation of the alpine meadow ecosystem.
A key stone species on the grasslands, the plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae)
has been poisoned indiscriminately over huge areas to increase forage production
for livestock (Smith et al. 1991). Between 1986 and 1994, insect and "rodent"
control programs have affected an area of 74,628 km2, nearly one-fifth of the
provincial grazing lands (Drandui 1996). Loss of pikas eliminates many symbiotic
species that nest in pika burrows (i.e., the only lizard, Phrynocephalus
vlangalii, Hume's ground jay, Pseudopodoces humilis, several species
of snow finches, Montifringilla spp.), their mammalian predators
(i.e., Asian polecats, Mustela eversmanni, mountain weasels, M. altaica,
Tibetan sand and red foxes, Vulpes ferrilata, V. vulpes, Pallas' cat,
Otocolobus manul), and their avian predators (i.e., Black kites, Milvus
migrans, upland buzzards, Buteo hemilasius). Wolves (Canis lupis)
and brown bears (Ursus arctos) also rely heavily on pikas for food (Prezewalski
1883; Koslov 1889; Schaller 1998). In addition, pika burrowing recycles nutrients
and presents a micro-disturbance regime that enhances plant species richness
(Smith et al. 1991).
Our analysis of provincial- and county-level data will give a detailed look
at how contemporary changes in land use have affected the ability of the grasslands
to support a viable pastoral way of life and still maintain the essential components
of the region's biodiversity. Many important aspects of this subject are intertwined,
and we show how these disparate data can be analyzed to allow informed policy
decisions to be made concerning this vast and important ecosystem.
2 Methods
2.1 Study Area
The datasets analyzed comprise the alpine grassland counties of Qinghai Province,
PRC, here defined by the exclusion of all counties of the low-lying, agricultural
Haidong district and most counties of Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous
Prefecture (MTAP, i.e., the desert counties of the Qaidam basin area). Thus,
all counties of the Huanguan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Hainan TAP,
Guoluo TAP, Yushu TAP, Haibei TAP, and Tianjun and Ulan counties of Haixi MTAP
are included in the analyses, for a sample size of 27 counties (Fig. 1).
The area defined by these 27 counties lies almost exclusively at 3,000 m or
higher in elevation, and the habitat ranges from mesic alpine meadow to alpine
steppe (Hu et al. 1992).
2.2 Rangeland Utilization
The primary data set consists of rangeland population density, grassland quality,
and season of use of rangeland (summer versus winter pastures) and was compiled
from two sources: "Qinghai Province Today," (Jing 1986) and provincial
census data (PCO 1992)(Appendices I and II). In these sources all grassland
in Qinghai Province was classified according to season of use and to quality.
Season of use is known for all grassland areas and is divided (at the provincial
level) into two categories: summer grassland and winter grassland. This dichotomy
may or may not reflect the reality of seasonal utilization, however, it represents
the only data on seasonality available for the study area.
We obtained a standard measure of the relative areas of summer versus winter
grassland in each county by multiplying the logarithm of the ratio of summer
versus winter grassland areas times two. The resulting standard measure ranges
from -1 (only winter grassland) to +1 (only summer grassland).
In its broadest sense, grassland quality is almost always qualified in government
documents as "usable" (or "useful") versus "unusable"
(or "wasteland"). A second level of classification of quality differentiates
"usable" grassland into "high," "medium," or "low"
quality grassland. This latter classification was introduced in the early 1980s
as an important step toward a more equitable allocation of grazing lands to
individual users (lease holders) as per the stipulations of the Rangeland Law,
promulgated in 1985 (Ho 1998). Jing (1986) presents this second-level classification
for the counties in the study area. We calculated a standard measure of the
relative areas of high versus medium versus low quality grassland for each county,
also with values ranging from -1 (low quality grassland) to +1 (high quality
grassland). First, each area of grassland quality was weighted by the factors
3, 2 or 1 (from highest to lowest quality, respectively). Second, the sum of
the weighted areas was divided by twice the unweighted total area. Finally,
after 1 was subtracted from the total, the whole was multiplied by 2).
These standardized measures for season of use and for grassland quality were
each derived using a logarithmic formula to convert ratios to more normal distributions,
and a multiplication factor was used for each to increase the spread of the
resultant values. In the case of grassland quality, simple weighting factors
also were used to differentiate between each subjective quality class.
The effective population density of pastoralists on the rangeland area of each
county was calculated by first determining the percentage of each county's workforce
that is engaged in animal husbandry and then multiplying this percentage times
the total county population to achieve an estimate of the total pastoral population.
We then determined the density of this total pastoral population based on the
area of each county's usable grassland (the same total area as used to obtain
the standardized measures of seasonality and grassland quality).
2.3 Mammalian Biodiversity
A measure of biodiversity for the 27 grassland counties was derived from presence/absence
data for 103 mammal species (Li 1989). Of the 103 species, our analyses include
only those that 1) were reported in more than 25% of the grassland counties;
2) were identified as "Tibetan" fauna by Hoffmann (1991) or identified
as "resident" or "characteristic" of the Tibetan fauna by
Zhang (1991); and 3) are known or presumed to inhabit steppe or montane habitat.
Twenty-one species were identified as comprising the characteristic mammalian
fauna of the alpine grasslands of Qinghai province (Table 1). Biodiversity is
taken to be the percentage of these 21 species reported (Li 1989) in each grassland
county.
3 Results
3.1 Rangeland Utilization
There was a wide range of standardized values depicting season of use across
the 27 county study site (Fig. 2). While most counties appeared relatively balanced
in the use of summer versus winter pasturage (values close to 0), eight counties
had highly skewed pattern of season of use. Six of these constitute primarily
winter pastures, and overall 67% of counties were primarily used for winter
pasture (Fig. 2).
Standardized values for grassland quality also ranged widely, one county registered
in the lowest bracket for grassland quality, while three were represented in
the highest bracket (Fig. 2). Most counties possessed an average to high value
for rangeland quality.
Population density of pastoralists on the rangeland portions of the 27 counties
was very evenly distributed from a low of 0.3 persons/km2 to a high of over
5.5 persons/ km2 (Fig. 3).
Simple (Person's product moment) correlation coefficients between pairs of these
variables gives us a first-level understanding of their relationships (Fig.
4). Season of use tends (non-significantly) to shift towards more grassland
area being used as winter pastures as grassland population density increases
(r = -0.17, p = 0.40, Fig. 4), and conversely, range quality is lower in counties
where more winter grazing occurs -- a relationship that approaches statistical
significance (r = 0.36, p = 0.06).
As season of use is the only potential variable that can be managed directly
(either by policy-makers or by pastoralists), it can be considered as the dependent
variable in a multiple regression analysis with rangeland quality and pastoralist
density serving as two independent, causal variables (Table 2). Both independent
variables, when considered together, have a large impact on season of use. In
addition, the analysis demonstrates the high level of interaction between season
of use and grassland quality (p < 0.01), as well as with population density
(p < 0.05).
3.2 Mammalian Biodrversity
Most counties in our survey currently support between 70 - 90% of those mammal
species classified as characteristic of the alpine grassland fauna of Qinghai
(Table 1; Fig. 5). None of
the 27 counties had a full complement of this mammalian assemblage, and one
currently supports only 57% of these representative species. Thus, biodiversity
on the grasslands of Qinghai has been seriously compromised.
Pastoralist population density affects biodiversity on the grasslands of Qinghai
either directly and/or as a surrogate variable for livestock population density
(or overall grazing pressure). As human population density increases by county
on the rangelands, county-level biodiversity decreases (R2 = 0.230, p = 0.011;
Fig. 5).
We investigated the causality of this relationship by further examining the
relationship between biodiversity and both season of use and grassland quality.
Although both relationships are not significant, their direction is the reverse
from that expected: biodiversity tends to increase as season of use tends towards
a greater proportion of winter pastures (R2 =0.0497, p = 0.264), and biodiversity
tends to increase as grassland quality decreases (R2 =0.0761; p = 0. 164).
These analyses indicate that pastoralist population density is likely only indicative
of another correlated variable. One possibility is distance from Xining, the
capital of Qinghai and its only major city (Xining is located in Haidong Distnct;
see Fig. 1). Distance from Xining could possibly be a surrogate variable for
hunting pressure as most poachers come from the Haidong district in northeast
Qinghai. Indeed, distance from Xining and population density on the grasslands
are very closely related (R2 = 0.177, p = 0.029, Fig. 6). Further, there is
a significant relationship between biodiversity and distance from Xining when
these variables are examined directly (R2 = 0.249, p = 0.008; Fig. 7).
Next, we examined the effect of rangeland density, grassland quality and season
of use on biodiversity independently of the distance factor, that is after distance
was removed statistically by henceforth examining only the standard residuals
of biodiversity from the regression of biodiversity by distance. Neither rangeland
population density (R2 = 0.097, p = 0.114), nor grassland quality (R2 = 0.070,
p = 0.182) showed any significant impact on biodiversity. Season of use did
have a significant association with biodiversity (R2 = 0.190, p = 0.023, Fig.
8). This association, however, was in a direction opposite from that which we
expected -- based on the assumption that a greater proportion of summer land
should improve grassland quality, hence also biodiversity.
Finally, we examine the spatially explicit pattern of biodiversity in Qinghai
(Figs. 9& 10). The first map (Fig. 9) portrays grassland biodiversity as
calculated in Figure 8 (with the distance from Xining factor statistically removed).
Figure 10 portrays grassland biodiversity with both distance and season of use
factors statistically removed. Both maps indicate that there are three regions
in the province where biodiversity is unusually low the area surrounding Qinghai
Lake, the greater Tongren valley, and the Guoluo region.
4 Discussion
This survey of trends in pasture
utilization patterns and biodiversity across 27 alpine grassland
counties in Qinghai essentially represents a snapshot in time - and one that
best reflects the current situation in the province. While it is necessary for
managers and policy makers to make use of these contemporary data, it is also
important to gain an understanding of historical trends that have led to the
present situation so that these data, and management solutions to problems of
degradation of the grasslands and concomitant loss in biodiversity, can be put
into a proper context.
The decrease in Qinghai's biodiversity over the last few decades has occurred
concomitantly with several important socio-political and "development"
trends in the province. The first trend was founded in the socialist belief
that crop cultivation is inherently superior to pastoralism because of its greater
labor requirements. This ideology has led to many large areas of grassland being
opened up for agriculture, both in the past and, to a lesser degree, in the
present. For example, four decades ago it was recommended that 20,933 km2 of
new land in Qinghai (5,587 km2 in grassland areas) should be opened up beyond
the 4,367 km2 already under cultivation at the time (QSSJ 1958). However, because
of the unsuitability of most land in Qinghai, only about one fifth of the above
actual and proposed areas remains in use today (in the mid-1980S Qinghai had
5,789 km2 of "ploughed land"; Zhu, in Hu et al. 1989). Nonetheless,
new lands continue to come under cultivation. In Gangcha County, a typical grassland
county, the area of cultivated land was deliberately increased by 34% in 1996
alone (GXXNJ 1996). Tilled land is susceptible to rapid degradation due to increased
rates of wind erosion, and disturbed land on the Tibetan plateau reverts to
natural conditions only with great difficulty (CCICED 1996).
Another trend in the PRC has been periodic changes in land property and tenure
rights. Initially livestock was privately owned and managed on common pasture
within each tribal area. Grazing systems included seasonal grazing patterns,
rotational grazing, deferred grazing and other well-defined practices (citation
needed). In the period of communal ownership (1956-1978), however, livestock
came under collective ownership. The main failing of the property rights structure
of that period was that rights to the different components of the pastoral economy
were not vested in one institution only, but in three: the primary resource,
grassland, belonged to the commune (the present-day township), the secondary
resource, livestock, belonged to the brigade (village), and labor, herders,
was provided by the production team (natural village). Thus, direct users of
natural resources felt no sense of responsibility towards the grassland since
they did not perceive it as being their own and there was no incentive to use
grassland resources sustainably (Ho, 1998). Finally, the communes were disbanded
in the late 1970s and replaced progressively through the early 1980s with the
Household Contract Responsibility System (HCRS), effectively a form of privatization.
At the provincial level, Qinghai has established as a high priority enhancement
of economic development of its agricultural (cultivated and pastoral) areas
so as to strengthen the HCRS. New contract (lease) periods to pastoralists now
extend 30 years, and in special circumstances to 50 years. By the early 1990s,
a total area of 74,667 km2 (48 percent) of the provincial winter-spring grassland
and 65,133 km2 (42 percent) of the provincial summer-autumn grassland had been
assigned to private families and villages (Ma et al. 1995).
There is evidence, however, that the HCRS may be detramental to rangelands.
Ho (1998) claims:."The reason that [the HCRS] was expanded from agriculture
to the livestock sector is probably that it had become the political norm for
the reform strategy. It was applied to the livestock sector without consideration
for local variations and the specific traits of the natural resource on which
livestock production relies."Thus, the current institutional structure
of rangeland management shows significant similarities to that of the communes,
namely, "a two-level resource management whereby rights of usufruct are
vested in individual households, but property rights remain with an external
organization which is responsible for the enforcement of grazing regulations."
(Ho 1998). What remains is a situation whereby an enduring, sustainable use
of Qinghai's grassland resources still may not be the most "rational"
option available to individual herders. If this is the case, then only two options
are available in order to implement sustainable resource use practices and to
protect biodiversity in the alpine grasslands of Qinghai. The first is a top-down
approach stipulating a definite set of land use regulations that must be implemented,
along with the means to enforce such regulations. This approach would require
enormous cost and effort, and would be very difficult to implement on the sparsely
populated grasslands. The alternative approach is to address the institutional
framework within which livestock grazing (and other components of grassland
use) takes place at a local level. Here policy must favor entrusting pastureland
natural resources to the direct resource users of these resources. The latter
option requires that an institutional framework suitable to the resources in
question be chosen, whether this be through so-called pnvate or common ownership.
The key is to recognize the ecological realities of Qinghai's grassland regions,
namely that they form a semi-arid to arid grassland system with highly variable
climatic conditions (citation needed). These conditions dictate a pastoralist
grazing strategy with inherent flexibility, allowing for seasonal (and occasionally
annual) herd movement and overlapping grazing (Miller 1995, Wu 1997). Traditional
pastoral responses to such ecosystem demands may indeed be the most appropriate
responses, and they call into question some important aspects of the current
drive to "modernize" the pastoral economy (Miller 1995; Wu 1997).
Another trend that has occurred in Qinghai is a decrease in the diversity of
economic activities of the pastoral population. In the past, as bad years and
good years came and went, pastoralists relied more or less heavily on alternate
economic activities. A diversity of economic activities has always been a part
of (even if relatively minor) the pastralist's annual cycle of activities. Trade
networks to exchange livestock products for agricultural products have been
an intrinsic part of the pastoral economy for centuries (Wu 1997). Such movements,
however, have become more and more restricted in the last few decades. This
change clearly has lead to a greater dependence on livestock-related occupations
only, with a concomitant felt-need to increase this sector of a household's
economy. This felt need (from the herders perspective) has been reinforced by
prevailing political views that livestock quantity is of greater significance
than quality. Limitation of regional movements, therefore, may be at least a
partial reason for the observed overall increase in livestock numbers and degradation
of grasslands throughout Qinghai in the several decades.
A final trend that has likely affected the productivity of rangelands in Qinghai
relates to the "modernization" process promoted in the province. The
primary development objective for the pastoral region of Qinghai is to encourage
herdsmen to "give up their traditional nomadic herding and turn to modern
production methods" (Xie 1997). In Mongolia, public policies of the 1960s
and 1970s aimed to raise the standard of living of pastoralists (similar to
those in present-day Qinghai -- construction of fences and winter animal shelters,
provision of animal fodder, etc.), along with political-administrative constraints
on traditional patterns of seasonal movements, have greatly reduced herder mobility
(Meams 1996). Li, Ma and Simpson (1993) found that during the same period in
inner Mongolia, the creation of new administrative boundaries, often unrelated
to past geographic patterns, led to a change from long-distance nomadic herd
movement to short-distance movement within brigade (village) boundaries.
Attempts to fence in rangeland impose even greater limits on herd mobility and
remove nearly all flexibility inherent in traditional grazing strategies, to
the detriment of the grasslands and the pastoralists (Ho 1998). Ho (1998) states:"The
attempts to fence in rangeland do not only collide with the tradition of overlapped
grazing, but are also unsuited to a natural resources with highly variable productivity,
such as grasslands in China's semi-arid Northwest. ..[G]rasslands that are characterized
by unstable productivity over time benefit more from flexible arrangements than
from rigid ones. It should be no surprise that the experiments for dividing
the rangeland into delimited plots have failed."
This approach to pastoral (animal husbandry) development is the result of policies
focused only on increasing the number of livestock, rather than their productivity
or quality, and a false hope that China can emulate the ranching systems of
North America, Australia and New Zealand irrespective of underlying natural
resource and ecosystem constraints.
In Qinghai, the conception of pastoral development has led to the formulation
of the Four-In-One scheme to address one of China's top priorities -- poverty
alleviation. This scheme, as adapted for the grassland areas of the province,
has four essential components 1) build houses for the pastoralists; 2) construct
winter livestock shelters; 3) fence grassland area; and 4) grow fodder for winter
consumption (Qinghai Poverty Bureau 1996, personal communication). Each of these
components has its individual pros and cons, but all focus primarily on the
winter-spring grassland areas, as we will highlight below.
With these historic trends in mind, we now address specifically how the 27 county
analysis adds to our understanding of the condition of alpine grasslands and
biodiversity trends in Qinghai. Two main areas of interest emerge from our investigation
of these provincial and county-level datasets. The first is a clarification
of the pattern of pastoral land use, especially with regard to the contrast
between summer and winter pastures. The second is the relationship between pastoral
land use and loss of biodiversity on Qinghai's alpine grasslands.
There was a strong tendency for the pastoral population to rely more heavily
on winter-spring pastureland with increasing human population density on the
grasslands. In turn, quality of winter-spring pastureland decreased as human
population density -- a surrogate variable for livestock density - increased.
This pattern reflects the prevailing management paradigm -- that the livestock
themselves should be the focus of management (a livestock- management perspective)
rather than the condition of the pasture (a rangeland management perspective).
Under the livestock management perspective, livestock numbers are of prime importance.
As the winter-spring season is when most livestock die of starvation, an increase
in the area of winter-spring pastureland is a rational response to ensure that
more forage is available so that more livestock survive the harsh cold season.
Our analysis indicates that this perspective is more likely to be adopted for
areas that are closer "to the edge," whether due to poorer grassland
conditions or to larger numbers of people and livestock utilizing a finite amount
of grassland resources. The desire to increase over-winter survival of livestock
has prompted virtually all government leaders in pastoral areas to focus their
attention on the "problem" of winter-spring forage availability. At
the policy level, the livestock-management view has played a key role in the
development of the Four-In-One scheme (and its associated development activities)
for modernizing the economy.
What are the implications of this "cold season" focus on pastureland
development? First, summer-autumn rangelands may unintentionally be degraded
further as artificially high winter populations of livestock are forced to graze
on a "warm season" range of reduced size (see also Cincotta et al.
1992). While the official livestock-management perspective views technology
as having great powers to overcome resource limitations, it fails to consider
the mathematic reality that a greater proportion of winter-spring grassland
area means a lesser proportion of summer-autumn grassland area, and the related
biological reality that overgrazing becomes increasingly likely as more animals
graze on a continuously decreasing area of a fragile ecosystem during its short
vegetative growing season. Indeed, Lang et al. (1997) found that summer pastures
in Hainan TAP were 3 to 4 times more degraded, primarily through overgrazing,
than winter pastures. Clearly then, at least a partial shift toward a rangeland-management
perspective is called for, if for no other reason than to mitigate grassland
degradation in order to increase forage availability and hence livestock production
and quality.
Another implication, related to the first, is that considerable development
investment may be misdirected or inappropriately portioned between winter-spring
and summer-autumn rangeland areas and associated projects. A case in point is
the situation of Dari County where, despite over a decade of capital investments
in "grassland construction" projects (e.g., fencing, houses, animal
shelters, etc.), the total number of livestock has decreased, while grassland
conditions continue to deteriorate (Foggin & Smith, unpublished data). County
leaders are at a loss as to how to halt this downward spiral.
What is the link between pastoral land use and biodiversity? It was initially
assumed that areas with lower quality grassland -- areas associated with higher
population densities and smaller proportions of summer-autumn rangelands --
would harbor less biodiversity. This relationship, however, was not borne out
statistically. In fact, the relationships between biodiversity and population
density, biodiversity and season of use, and biodiversity and grassland quality
are neither consistent, nor all in the directions expected. Only population
density and biodiversity are significantly (negatively) related. Further, since
internal consistency is lacking between the three variables (population density,
season of use and grassland quality), they can not stand alone as sole causal
variables associated with biodiversity. It is possible, therefore, that population
density is a surrogate variable for another factor such as distance from Xining,
this is borne out statistically, both between the variables of distance and
population density and between distance and biodiversity. Poaching has often
been suggested as a cause of biodiversity loss (Schaller 1998), and the above
relationship is consistent with this position (most poachers come from Haidong
District in the general vicinity of Xining). Another major contributing factor
to loss of biodiversity in Qinghai is the loss of the keystone species, the
plateau pika (O. cursoniae). Control programs directed to exterminate
plateau pikas are more likely to be centered out of areas of high population
density.
When the primary determinant of biodiversity -- distance from Xining -- is statistically
removed, another single variable -- season of use -- becomes a primary determinant
of biodiversity. However, again, this relationship is in a direction opposite
than expected. It is possible that factors related to season of use - and there
are many such variables, e.g., degree of nomadic movement, education, economic
status, etc. -- are causal in this relationship, but data are lacking to undertake
a detailed analysis of biodiversity and socio-ecomomic development factors.
It is interesting to note, however, that a preliminary analysis of these variables
has shown women's education, apart from the general educational status of the
region, bears a significant relationship to biodiversity on the Tibetan plateau:
the relationship between biodiversity and the ratio of men to women with a formal
education is statistically significant (r = -0.546, p < 0.01 ), while the
relationship between biodiversity and general educational status is not (r =
0.300, p = 0.12). This analysis appears to indicate a primary role that women
can have when given the opportunity, to impact positively the practice of sustainable
natural resource utilization and biodiversity protection (Foggin, unpublished
data) .
Apart from these socio-economic indicators, are there other land-use patterns
that emerge as determinants of biodiversity in Qinghai's alpine grasslands?
Or can one note only that patterns of seasonal use affect grassland quality,
and that poaching and/or poisoning may play a significant role in reducing biodiversity
in Qinghai? We approached these questions by examining the data in a spatially-explicit
way.
When the distance from Xining factor is removed statistically (Fig. 9), and
when both distance from Xining and season of use factors are removed statistically
(Fig. 10), a similar spatial pattern of biodiversity emerges in Qinghai Province.
Three areas in particular have unusually low levels of biodiversity the Qinghai
Lake area (in Haibei and Hainan TAPs), the greater Tongren valley (Huangnan
TAP), and parts of the Guoluo region (Guoluo TAP). What is the reason for this
pattern of mammalian biodiversity? Part of the population density factor and
most of the poaching/poisoning (distance from Xining) factor has been removed
statistically. In addition, the season of use factor has been removed from Figure
10. These data indicate that it is possible for unique historic events (rather
than traditional "causal" variables with degrees of impact spread
along a continuum) to be the source the regional pattern observed -- in most
cases "swamping out" patterns that may be caused by those variables
more often assumed to be determinants of biodiversity loss. Therefore, scale
appears to be an important consideration for explaining the loss of biodiversity
throughout Qinghai.
At the regional scale, the scale at which data are most often readily available
(such as the data analyzed in this paper), unique historic events may explain
most variation in provincial biodiversity. Reflecting on their analysis of events
in the Amazon rainforest, Hecht and Cockburn (1990) comment: "Once that
political history and that political economy are understood, the genealogy of
disaster stands forth." In the case of Qinghai's alpine grassland, this
genealogy lies in three different areas, each exemplified by one of the geographic
areas mentioned above. The Qinghai Lake area was one of the first areas of the
Tibetan plateau to be opened up for agricultural production (crop cultivation),
which led to the destruction of large areas of natural vegetation and also opened
the region to an immigrant population unaccustomed to local conditions (QSRZ
1951; QSSJ 1958). The Tongren valley also has been affected greatly by the political
winds of past decades (QSSJ 1958), and many potentially inappropriate "modernization"
initiatives have been undertaken in this area. Even now, the pastoral population
of the grassland area of Huangnan TAP is under enormous pressure to become fully
sedentary through a massive drive to implement the Four-In-One scheme as soon
as possible (Qinghai Poverty Bureau 1996, personal communication, Foggin, personal
observation). This direction of development towards sedentarization is not unique
to Huangnan TAP, but it is perhaps most actively pursued in this prefecture.
Finally, the Guoluo region has both been subject to a variety of political hardships
(Becker 1996), as well as to excessive land degradation (Foggin 1998, personal
observation) the ultimate causes of which remain uncertain. In addition to high
numbers of livestock, burrowing mammals (e.g., the plateau pika, O. cursoniae,
Bailey's zokor, Myospalax baileyi) and very high spring winds all play
a role (Gande and Dari county governors 1998, personal communication). In addition,
a general pattern of desiccation reported to be occurring over much of the Tibetan
plateau may be exacerbating the problem in this area (Miller and Craig 1996).
Any final answer - if such can be found - for why so much land is degraded in
Guoluo TAP has yet to be determined. Initial analyses of Dari County data suggest
that livestock numbers may have exceeded the maximum sustainable numbers in
the recent past, and the grassland there may have suffered (Foggin & Smith,
unpublished data). From the above three scenarios, it is suggested that grassland
conversion to agriculture, the Four-In-One scheme for poverty alleviation (and
a consequent shift towards more sedentary lifestyles in formerly nomadic areas),
and high livestock numbers are important factors affecting biodiversity in Qinghai's
alpine grasslands. The challenge ahead is to find new ways that redress the
issues for which agriculture, increased livestock numbers and the Four-In-One
scheme were introduced in the first place -- namely, to promote provincial economic
development and to help improve living standards -- while simultaneously ensuring
that such initiatives can be sustained over many years and for future generations.
Corrective action is needed to restore the quality of pasturelands and native
biodiversity Qinghai to historic levels while ensuring sustainability of these
resources in the future.
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