The Implementation of China’s Rangeland Protection Program: The Case of Nagchu in the Tibet Autonomous Region
Yonten Nyima
Abstract
This article examines the implementation of China’s ongoing program for rangeland protection through the case of Nagchu in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The program's three goals are preventing rangeland degradation, changing ‘the mode of pastoral development’, and increasing pastoralists' income. Based on the belief that overgrazing has caused pervasive rangeland degradation, it compensates pastoralists for losses incurred where grazing is banned and rewards them for maintaining livestock numbers within determined rangeland carrying capacity. In practice, in China’s upwardly accountable system, local officials focus first and foremost on funding-oriented task fulfillment rather than rangeland protection. Consequently, the program ends up having little to do with rangeland protection, serving instead as a monetary-payment and de-stocking program advancing China’s overriding goal of transforming traditional pastoralism.