Rangeland Ecology & Management 68 (2015) 305–314

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Rangeland Ecology & Management

j ourna l homepage: ht tp : / /www.e lsev ie r .com/ locate / rama

China’s Rangeland Management Policy Debates: What Have

We learned?☆

Gongbuzeren a, Yanbo Li b,c,1, Wenjun Li d,⁎a PhD Candidate, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. Chinab Assistant Researcher, Institute of International Rivers and Eco-Security, Yunnan University, Beijing, P. R. Chinac Assistant Researcher, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. Chinad Professor, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. China

a b s t r a c ta r t i c l e i n f o

☆ This research is supported by the Natural Science Fou⁎ Correspondence: Li Wenjun, Room 310, Laodixuelou

Haidian District, Beijing (100871), China.E-mail address: wjlee@pku.edu.cn (W. Li).

1 Yanbo Li is one of the joint first authors of this article.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.05.0071550-7424/© 2015 Society for Range Management. Publis

Article history:Received 28 June 2014Accepted 8 May 2015

Keywords:coupled social–ecological systemnomad settlementrangeland ecological restorationrangeland managementrangeland tenure

In China, three major rangeland management policies have caused dramatic social, economic, and ecologicalchanges for pastoral regions in the past 30 yr: the Rangeland Household Contract Policy (RHCP), RangelandEcological Construction Projects (RECPs), and the Nomad Settlement Policy (NSP). The impacts of these policiesare greatly debated. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review of academic perspectives on the impacts ofthe three policies and the causes of ineffective and negative effects. The findings demonstrate that academicsincreasingly report negative impacts of RHCP on the ecosystem, animal husbandry, pastoralist livelihoods, andpastoral society. An increasing number of scholars, although not the majority, attribute the negative impacts toimproper policy itself rather than incomplete implementation. Regarding the RECPs, most academics believethat policies have improved the rangeland ecosystem but with obvious negative impacts on pastoralistlivelihoods and pastoral society; they attribute the problems to incomplete policy implementation. For the NSP,most academics report positive impacts on pastoralist livelihoods and animal husbandry, although recentresearchers have identified negative impacts on pastoral society and the ecosystem. Although they are not inthe mainstream, more and more academics attribute the negative impacts to improper policy. Finally, we applythe concept of coupled social–ecological systems (SES) to further analyze the outcomes of these three policiesand propose a more flexible and inclusive land tenure policy that recognizes the diverse local institutionalarrangements; an integrated RECP framework that considers coadaptation between social and ecological systems;and facilitating voluntary choice in nomad settlement and developing innovative approaches to provide socialservices for pastoralists who would like to remain in pastoral areas. As these three policy approaches are appliedin rangeland management and pastoral development worldwide, this paper may provide useful implications forfuture policy development in pastoral regions on a global scale.

© 2015 Society for Range Management. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Sustainable rangeland management is a critical concern in China, asrangelands cover 41.7% (400million ha) of China’s total territory (MOA,2014) and are home to approximately 17 million pastoralists and agro-pastoralists (ECOAHYB, 2011). China’s rangelands also serve criticalecological functions that affect national and regional ecosystemprocesses. Mobile pastoralism, developed through rich indigenousecological knowledge, reciprocal social norms, and communitycollective use and management of rangelands, is the traditional way ofrangeland use that adapts to the rangeland ecosystems characterizedby a high degree of spatial–temporal variability.

ndation of China (41171428).Building, No. 2 Yiheyuan Road,

hed by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserv

Dominated by modernization ideology, Chinese governments haveconsidered mobile pastoralism to be backward, inefficient, and irratio-nal as an economic entity (State Council, 2002). Such perceptions arebased on the assumption that pastoralism is unstable and unreliableas it is highly influenced by the fluctuations of climate conditions, andit has led to rangeland degradation due to overgrazing caused by un-clear property right arrangements (State Council, 2002). As a response,a series of rangelandmanagement policies have been implemented: theRangeland Household Contract Policy (RHCP), Rangeland EcologicalConstruction Projects (RECPs), and the Nomad Settlement Policy (NSP).

The RHCP is based on the belief that shared use of community range-land by privately owned livestock led to overgrazing and caused large-scale rangeland degradation. By clearly defining individual propertyrights, RHCP is expected to control overgrazing and help rangeland res-toration, as well as improve livestock production. Under the RHCP,state-owned or community-owned rangelands are contracted into indi-vidual households to give exclusive use rights to the pastoralists. Com-munity here refers to administrative villages, which are formed on the

ed.

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basis of geographical location and social ties and recognized by the gov-ernment as the basic administrative unit. The RHCP was initiated in themid-1980s, and since the mid-1990s it has been widely applied in thesix main pastoral provinces (Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibets, Qinghai,Sichuan, and Gansu). By 2013, the contracted rangeland covered 71%of China’s total rangeland area (MOA, 2014).

The government and some academics have a general understandingthat rangeland degradation is serious and has accelerated since the late1990s. A frequently repeated statistic is that 90% of China’s rangeland isdegraded to some extent, and the degradation is increasing at the rate of200 km2 · yr (State Council, 2002). Although the definition of degrada-tion is somewhat vague, it is generally linked to soil and vegetation pro-ductivity losses and attributed primarily to overgrazing (State Council,2002). Consequently, RECPs focus on reducing livestock grazing pres-sure to restore degraded rangeland. In seriously degraded areas, themain strategy is to prohibit grazing throughout the year (grazing ban)or only in the spring (grazing rest). Where rangeland degradation isless serious, rotational grazing and control of stocking rate were imple-mented. By 2013, grazinghad been excluded from96million hectares ofrangeland in the main pastoral areas, accounting for about 24% of thetotal rangeland (MOA, 2014). As the implementation of the grazingban and grazing rest greatly constrained themain livelihood of pastoral-ists, the governments provided subsidies to compensate them for theirlosses and encouraged them to implement intensive animal husbandrybased on raising animals in pens and feeding them with purchasedfodder or to seek alternative livelihoods.

It is perceived among decision makers that traditional pastoralism,which was based on a seminomadic lifestyle, hindered pastoralists ingaining access to modern social services, such as education and medi-cine. In addition, the region’s harsh and highly variable climate createdsubstantial uncertainty for pastoralists and impoverished many. Tosolve these problems, the government developed the NSP in the 1960sand further promoted it in the late 1980s. Nomads, in this context, refersto pastoralists who engaged inmobile pastoralismwith seasonal move-ment of both people and livestock among different pastures. In order toprovide social services and improve herder livelihood, the main strate-gies of NSP focused on construction of housing and livestock sheds inwinter pastures to encourage nomads to settle. In 2008, China had atotal of around 3.9 million herder households (ECOAHYB, 2009), ofwhich 0.414 million were nonsettled pastoral households. Under theNSP, 40.5% of the nonsettled pastoral households had been settled bythe end of 2010, and the remaining pastoral households would be set-tled by the end of the 12th five-year plan (2011–2015) (NDRC, 2012).

In the past 30 yr, these policies brought dramatic social and ecolog-ical changes in pastoral society, and there exist conflicting perspectivesand fierce debates among Chinese academic circles (Dalintai and Zheng,2010; Du, 2012; Fan et al., 2013; Fan et al., 2015; Li and Huntsinger,2011;Wang, 2009; Xun and Bao, 2008), as well as among internationalscholars (Banks et al., 2003; Foggin, 2008; Harris, 2010; Ho, 2000;Humphrey and Sneath, 1999; Kreutzmann, 2012; Sheehy et al., 2006;Williams, 1996; Yeh, 2009), regarding the impacts of these policies inChina. Although privatization (RHCP) has been considered to be aneffective approach to manage rangeland and achieve efficient andsustainable utilization (Bao, 2003; Zhang et al., 2007; Zhou et al.,2005), both international and Chinese academic studies in recent de-cades challenged this perspective by arguing that RHCP fragmentsrangeland ecosystems (Li and Huntsinger, 2011) and weakens socialreciprocity and community organizations that traditionally enabledherders to adapt to ecological dynamics (Xie and Li, 2008). Consequent-ly, the RHCP has led to rangeland degradation (Humphrey and Sneath,1999; Li and Zhang, 2009), reduction of animal husbandry, and decreaseof livelihood (Ho, 2000; Li and Huntsinger, 2011; Wang, 2009;Williams, 1996).

Regarding the impacts of RECPs, some scholars argue that they haveimproved ecological conditions (Du and Zhang, 2007; Gaowa et al.,2006; Liu et al., 2003; Xu et al., 2007), and animal husbandry and herder

livelihood can be improved through government subsidy and transfor-mation into an intensive livestock production system (Chen and Su,2008; Dongribu, 2000; Liu, 2002; Liu andWang, 2010), whereas othersargue that the exclusion of grazing and the transformation of local peo-ple’sways of production have negative impacts on rangeland ecosystemin the long term (Alatandalai et al., 2011; Li and Li, 2013): The costs ofanimal husbandry have increased, herders have become impoverished(Chen, 2008; Gu and Li, 2013; Liu et al., 2007), and social conflictshave increased under RECPs (Xun and Bao, 2008; Yeh, 2009).

As for the impacts of NSP, some studies argue that nomad settlementand relocation are critical to the provision of social services (Zhao et al.,2009) and improvement of herder livelihood (Gao and Deng, 2007)while reducing grazing pressure to protect rangeland (Long et al.,2010; Saliha et al., 2011). However, other studies argue that pastoralculture is disappearing along with NSP, and many herders havechallenges adapting to a new livelihood in the settlement that directlythreaten their income and living conditions (Du, 2012; Jiao et al.,2008; Wang and Wang, 2010). Some studies state that NSP leads torangeland degradation in the settlement areas (Dickinson andWebber,2004; Fan et al., 2013, 2015).

Given such controversial perspectives, we believe a systematic reviewof the academic perspectives of the past 30 yr is critical to understandingthe experiences and lessons that can help us improve future rangelandpolicy approaches. In addition, privatization of rangeland, restriction ofgrazing, and settlement of nomads are themain approaches of rangelandmanagement and pastoral development policies worldwide (Catley et al.,2013; Ellis and Swift, 1988; Niamir-Fuller, 1999; Scoones, 1994). China isone example demonstrating the outcomes of these policy approaches.Thus, a comprehensive review of academic findings on the outcomes ofthese three policies could provide significant insight for global rangelandmanagement and pastoral development.

In this article, we conduct a systematic review of academic perspectiveson the ecological and social impacts of the three policies and explore thereasons why these policies fail to reach their goals or produce positive re-sults. Then, on thebasis of the concept of a coupled social–ecological system(Berkes et al., 2003; Walker et al., 2006), we further analyze theoutcomes of the academic studies on these three policies and proposeour recommendations for future policy improvement.

Methodology

Article Selection

All articles reviewed in this article were published in Chinese. Wecollected all of them by searching for key words in titles, key words,and abstracts in the China Academic Network Publishing Database, thelargest journal database in China (http://epub.cnki.net/kns/default.htm). RHCP, rangeland contract, and rangeland tenure were used askey words for RHCP. Rangeland ecological construction, rangelandrestoration project, grazing ban, grazing rest, and retire livestock torestore rangeland (the biggest RECP in China) were used as key wordsfor RECPs. Nomad settlement, pastoralist settlement, and urbanizationin pastoral area were used as key words for NSP. We then excluded allthe papers not written by academic scholars by checking that theauthorswere fromacademic institutions. Paperswritten bymultiple au-thorswith at least one author from an academic institutionwere includ-ed.We reviewed the selected papers and further excluded those articlesthat did not discuss policy impacts. We obtained a total of 68 papers onRHCP, 103 on RECPs, and 72 on NSP.

Evaluation of Policy Impacts

We analyzed each paper’s perspectives on policy impacts and thecauses of ineffective and negative impacts as concluded by theauthor(s). We divided the policy impacts into four categories:rangeland ecosystems; animal husbandry; pastoralist livelihoods

Table 1The numbers of academic papers that studied the various impacts of RangelandHouseholdContract Policy (RHCP) and their proportions of the total

RHCP impacts Number of papers in each period (% of the subtotal papers)

1989–2001 2002–2007 2008–2012 Total of1989–2012

Ecosystem 11 (100%) 24 (100%) 30 (91%) 65 (96%)Animal husbandry 8 (73%) 11 (46%) 18 (55%) 37 (54%)Livelihoods 2 (18%) 4 (17%) 12 (36%) 18 (26%)Pastoral society 6 (55%) 8 (33%) 14 (42%) 28 (41%)Subtotal of each period 11 24 33 68

NOTE: The number of papers includes all papers that discussed the impacts of the RHCP;because most papers discussed two or more policy impacts, the total number of papersis less than the sum of papers that discussed each impact.

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(income sources and levels, living conditions, and living costs); and pas-toral society (cultural norms, customs, social relations among pastoral-ists, and relationships between pastoralists and governments).

We classified the perspectives on policy impacts into positive, inef-fective, and negative categories. A positive impactmeans that the policyachieved its planned goals without negative side effects; an ineffectiveimpact means that the policy failed to reach its expected objectivesbut had nomajor negative effects; a negative impactmeans that thepol-icy resulted in direct and obvious detrimental effects. The academic per-spectives on causes of ineffective and negative impacts are categorizedinto two groups: 1) incomplete policy implementation, where the ob-jectives and approaches of the policy were believed to be reasonableby the paper, and the ineffectiveness or negative impacts were attribut-ed to incomplete or flawed implementation; and 2) improper policy,where the objectives and approaches of the policy itself were consid-ered unreasonable and inherently responsible for the ineffectivenessor negative impacts.

As scholars’ perspectives changed over time, we divided the publica-tions into several time periods. This division was based on changes inacademic focus and perspectives; thus the time period differs amongthe policies.We first classified different perspectives in terms of the pre-viouslymentioned four impact categories respectively in each reviewedpaper for each policy. We then compared the proportions of positive,negative, and ineffective perspectives for each time period to determinethe dominant academic perspectives. In the reviewed papers, the causesof ineffective or negative impacts on the four impact categories weregenerally discussed without clear, distinctive perspectives focusingon each impact, so we counted the number of papers rather thanthe perspectives for the causes of the ineffective or negative policyimpacts. The proportions of causes were calculated for each policy ineach time period.

Discussion of Policy Outcomes

We applied the concept of coupled SES to further analyze theoutcomes of the academic studies to propose our recommendationsfor future policy improvement. There has been increased understandingthat pastoralism is affected by both social complexity and ecologicaldynamics, and there are co-evolved interactions and feedbacksbetween social systems and ecological systems (Ellis and Swift, 1988;Fernández-Giménez and Swift, 2003; Fernández-Giménez et al., 2012;Huntsinger and Oviedo, 2014; Li and Li, 2012; Scoones, 1994). China’srangelands have been used by pastoralists for thousands of years, andlocal pastoralists have developed management systems that addresstheir resource use needs while maintaining ecosystem function.Therefore, rangelands are coupled SESs that can hardly be managed byfocusing on the SES separately. Learning this, we focus on the linkagebetween SESs to explain policy outcomes.

Review of Academic Perspectives

Rangeland Household Contract Policy

Between 1989 (when the first paper was published) and 2012, atotal of 68 Chinese academic papers discussed the impacts of theRHCP (see Table 1). Most of the papers discussed its ecological impacts(96%), with a high percentage also studying the impacts on animal hus-bandry (54%) and pastoral society (41%). Only 26% of the perspectivesfocused on livelihoods. During this period, there were two major per-spective changes. Before 2001, most of the academic papers focusedon policy impacts on rangeland ecosystems, animal husbandry, and pas-toral society. After 2002, more scholars began to explore the roles of thetraditional pastoralism systems in protecting rangeland ecosystem anddiscussed the related issues of securing pastoralist rights to use andmanage rangeland. Since 2008, there has been an obvious increase instudies focused on reaggregating household-contracted rangelands

through a rangeland lease system. In accordance with these changesin perspectives, we categorized the studies into three periods:1989–2001 (11 papers), 2002–2007 (24 papers), and 2008–2012(33 papers).

There has been an obvious change in the academic perspectives onthe impacts of RHCP in the past 23 yr with an obvious decrease of pos-itive perspectives, from 33% in the first period to 20% in the third periodfor ecological impacts, from 50–16% for animal husbandry, from100–18% for livelihoods, and from 17–8% for social aspects. There wasanobvious increase of negative perspectives, from17–60% for ecologicalimpacts, from50–84% for production impacts, from0–82% for livelihoodimpacts, and from 0–69% for social impacts (Fig. 1).

The narratives asserting positive impacts can be summarized asstating that RHCP assigned the responsibilities, rights, and benefits ofrangeland management to individual households and resulted in eco-logical, economic, and social improvements. Regarding ecological as-pects, academics argued that, because the RHCP solved the problem ofthe “tragedy of the commons,” pastoralists had direct incentives to in-vest in rangeland protection because they could benefit from their ef-forts. At the same time, contracting rangelands to individualhouseholds led to a more even distribution of livestock among the pas-tures and thus reduced overgrazing on certain areas. In addition, se-cured, individual rangeland tenure increased pastoralists’ supervisionover rangeland and thus avoided reclaiming by outsiders.

In regards to animal husbandry, academics argued that as pastoral-ists gained exclusive right for the use of specific rangeland, they couldflexiblymake their own decisions in grazingmanagement and livestockproduction. Therefore, they began to pay more attention to the profit-ability of animal husbandry and thus increased the off-take rate oftheir herds, which increased the economic returns. As their incomes in-creased, pastoralists had more resources to cope with frequent naturaldisasters. In terms of the impacts on pastoral society, RHCP clarifiedthe boundaries of rangeland-use rights and thereby reduced grazingconflicts. The gap between rich and poor was expected to decreasedue to a more equitable allocation of rangeland resources.

The papers that reported negative impacts mostly argued that theRHCP did not adapt to the dynamic and heterogeneous characteristicsof the rangeland ecosystem. Fencing constrained livestock mobilityand led to increased grazing concentration in certain pastures. It also de-creased the proportion of large livestock (such as camels, horses, andcattle) because these livestock require larger foraging areas than smalllivestock (such as sheep and goats). As a result, livestock diversity de-creased. In addition, contracting rangeland to individual householdsrapidly increased production costs because pastoralists faced increasedinvestment in building andmaintaining fencing, drillingwells, and pur-chasing fodder during years with extreme weather. At the same time,reducing livestock mobility decreased pastoralists’ ability to cope withnatural disasters by moving to a more favorable location as they haddone before and thus increased the risk to livestock production.

Fig. 1. The proportions of academic perspectives on the impacts of the Rangeland Household Contract Policy on the ecosystem (E), animal husbandry (AH), livelihoods (L), and pastoralsociety (S) during the three periods with different research focus.

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In terms of the effects on pastoral society, RHCP weakened thecommunity’s collective organization, increased conflicts amonghouseholds, and broke the reciprocal interactions that were a founda-tional aspect of the traditional pastoral society.

Regarding the causes of ineffective and negative policy impacts,scholars’ perspectives have undergone a large shift during the pasttwo decades (Fig. 2). From 1989–2001, most of the papers (88%) attrib-uted the problems to incomplete policy implementation. However, overtime, this proportion decreased, and an increasing number of papers in-stead argued that the policy itself was the cause of the problems, as itfailed to consider the social and ecological characteristics of the pastoralsystem. During the last period (2008–2012), the percentage of papersthat proposed improper policy as the cause (51%) had become slightlyhigher than that blaming incomplete policy implementation (49%).

In summary, it can be concluded that, in the last 5 yr as comparedwith the first 10 yr of policy implementation, there has been a notablyhigher proportion of perspectives stating RHCP has had negative effectson social, economic and ecological aspects. Although attributingproblems to incomplete implementation in the first 10 yr, in recentyears, more than half of perspectives pointed to improper policy itselfas the main cause of ineffective and negative impacts.

Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects

Academic studies of the RECPs began in 2002, and a total of 103papers were published by 2012. The majority of these papers (84%)

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Fig. 2. Changes in the proportions of academic perspectives of the causes of Ra

discussed ecological impacts, and high proportions discussed the im-pacts on pastoralist livelihoods (54%) and animal husbandry (48%),but fewer studies examined the social impacts (17%). Because thereare no obvious changes in the focus of the academic research, we didnot divide the perspectives into different time periods.

The majority of perspectives related to ecosystem were positive,whereas perspectives related to pastoralist livelihoods and pastoral so-cieties were mostly negative (Fig. 3). For ecological impacts, 72% of thepapers argued that RECPs led to effective protection and restoration ofrangelands on the basis of the increase in vegetation heights, vegetationcoverage, above-ground biomass, the proportion of perennial plants,plant species richness and water-storage capacity, and the decrease infrequency of dust storms. However, around 13% of the papers reportednegative impacts on the ecosystem. Their main arguments were thatgrazing pressures were shifted to nonproject areas during the imple-mentation of RECPs, leading to increased degradation in these regions,and that the long-term exclusion of grazing in project areas would beharmful to vegetation regeneration. The remaining 15% of papers re-ported ineffective impacts because the grazing ban and grazing restwere not actually being achieved on the ground and illegal grazing ac-tivities were common.

Regarding the impacts on animal husbandry (Fig. 3), 47% of the re-lated papers reported positive results. These authors pointed out thatRECPs promoted shifts from extensive pastoralism tomodern, intensiveanimal husbandry as a result of improved infrastructure, improvedanimal breeds, and increased livestock sales. On the other hand,

2-2007 2008-2012

plementation Improper policy

ngeland Household Contract Policy ineffectiveness and negative impacts.

Fig. 3. The proportions of academic perspectives on the impacts of Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects on the ecosystem (E), animal husbandry (AH), livelihoods (L), and pastoralsociety (S).

Table 2The numbers of academic papers that studied the various impacts of Nomad SettlementPolicy (NSP) and their proportions of the total

NSP impacts Number of papers in each period (% of the subtotal papers)

1986-–2002 2003–2010 2011–2012 Total

Ecosystem 3 (43%) 26 (58%) 13 (65%) 42 (58%)Animal husbandry 6 (86%) 28 (62%) 15 (75%) 49 (68%)Livelihood 7 (100%) 28 (62%) 16 (80%) 51 (71%)Pastoral society 5 (71%) 10 (22%) 7 (35%) 22 (31%)Subtotal of each period 7 45 20 72

NOTE: The number of papers includes all papers that discussed the impacts of the NSP;because most papers discussed two or more policy impacts, the total number of papersis less than the sum of the papers on each impact.

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the construction of infrastructure and development of an intensivelivestock feeding system inevitably increased production costs andthus reduced the net benefit to pastoralists. This is why 46% of relatedpapers argued that the RECPs had negative impacts on animal husband-ry. In addition, 7% of the papers found that the policy failed to achievethe expected shift in production modes because pastoralists encoun-tered challenges such as lack of financial capital and lack of skill inpen-raising and cultivating fodder.

In terms of pastoralist livelihoods (Fig. 3), 38% of the papers believedthat RECPs generated positive impacts because the government subsi-dies supporting the RECPs increased pastoralist income. In addition, asa result of the shift into intensive animal husbandry and the increasein nonpastoral employment (especially among pastoralists whoemigrated from pastoral areas and settled in towns under RECPs),pastoralists’ income would be increased in the long term. On the otherhand, 60% of the papers reported a decrease in pastoralist livelihoods(at least in the short term) because of the increasing costs and laborrequirements for livestock production; living costs were much higherfor pastoralists compared with living in their former pastoral area. Asa result, poverty increased. The remaining 2% of the papers found thatthe ECP policy was ineffective.

In terms of social impacts (Fig. 3), only 24% of related papers report-edpositive impacts. These researchers concluded that EPCs had facilitat-ed harmonious development of pastoral society because they increasedincome and transformed the backward traditional ideology andproduction practices into modern, intensive animal husbandry. RECPsimproved access to social services by promoting resettlement andurbanization, whereas in traditional nomadic pastoralism, pastoralistswere dispersed over such awide area that it was impossible to effective-ly deliver these services.

However, 76% of the papers argued that RECPs had obvious negativeimpacts on pastoral society. The most direct negative impacts were in-creased conflicts between local governments and pastoralists becausemany pastoralists were forced to engage in illegal grazing to reducetheir production costs under the grazing ban. The obvious reduction inincome from pastoralism after initiation of the grazing ban and grazingrest forcedmany family members to leave pastoral regions to search foralternative forms of employment, leaving elderly family members andchildren uncared for at home and weakening family ties. Furthermore,pastoralists who were resettled under RECPs but could not find properjobs often became involved in criminal activities and gambling.

Most papers on RECPs argued that the negative and ineffectiveimpacts of policy were associated with incomplete implementation ofRECPs, and few proposed that these problemswere caused by improperpolicy itself.

In summary, it can be concluded that most of the academic perspec-tives saw an improvement in the ecosystem, especially in vegetationcoverage in the project area, while more than half of the perspectives

saw negative impacts on pastoralist livelihood. Most perspectives sawobvious negative impacts on pastoral society. In addition, around halfof the perspectives saw negative impacts and a small percentage ofperspectives saw ineffective impacts on animal husbandry. Accordingto the focus of scholars and their findings, it seems that RECPs empha-sized ecological restoration while failing to pay enough attention tothe livelihood of local pastoralists and their social development, andthe emerging problems resulting from RECPs were attributed to flawsin policy implementation.

Nomad Settlement Policy

From 1986 (when the first paper was published) to 2012, a total of72 research papers were published regarding the impacts of NSP(Table 2). For the study period as a whole, themajority of the papers fo-cused on pastoralist livelihood (71%), followed by animal husbandry(68%) and ecological impacts (58%), and only 31% focused on pastoralsociety. During this period, several major changes occurred in themain focuses of the academic studies. Most studies focused on liveli-hood improvement and poverty alleviation, although since 2002, an in-creasing number of studies focused on survival of traditional culture. Inrecent years, especially after 2011, major studies focused on the role ofNSP in rangeland ecosystem protection. On the basis of these changes,we divided the academic perspectives on the policy impacts into threeperiods: 1986–2002 (7 papers), 2003–2010 (45 papers), and 2011–2012(20 papers).

Fig. 4 shows that during the first period, a high proportion reportedpositive impacts on the ecosystem (67%), animal husbandry (83%), live-lihoods (100%), and pastoral society (80%). Only 20% of the perspectivesdemonstrated negative impacts on society. The remaining 33% and 17%of the papers reported ineffective impacts on the ecosystem and animalhusbandry, respectively. However, in the second period, although mostpapers continued to report positive impacts, the proportion that report-ed negative impacts had increased to 27% for ecosystem, 21% for animal

Fig. 4. The proportions of academic perspectives on the impacts of the Nomad Settlement Policy on the ecosystem (E), animal husbandry (AH), livelihoods (L), and pastoral society(S) during the three periods with different research focus.

310 Gongbuzeren et al. / Rangeland Ecology & Management 68 (2015) 305–314

husbandry, 25% for livelihood, and 30% for pastoral society. During thelast period, the percentage of perspectives that demonstrated negativeeffects on the ecosystem (38%) and pastoral society (57%) further in-creased, whereas perspectives reporting negative impacts on animalhusbandry (13%) and pastoralist livelihoods (12%) decreased comparedwith the second period.

The academic perspectives related to positive impacts fall into twomain categories. First, the NSP stabilized livestock production throughbuilding livestock sheds and improved income generation and livingconditions through improved access to social services and governmentsubsidies. Second, NSP reduced stocking pressure on rangeland throughdiversification of incomes sources and the application of more intensiveanimal husbandry.

The academic perspectives related to negative impacts fall into fourcategories. First, the NSP reduced livestock mobility and concentratedgrazing near the settlement, thereby increasing rangeland degradation.Second, after the pastoralists were settled, they had to rely heavily onexternal supplies of fodder, so the cost of livestock productionincreased. Third, the gap between rich and poor expanded rapidly.Many poor families survived entirely on government subsidies because

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Fig. 5. Changes in the proportions of academic perspectives of the cause

they could not find alternative income sources. This created a variety ofsocial issues, including increased criminal activities and internal villageconflicts. Finally, the NSP created serious threats to preservation of thetraditional pastoral culture. After the pastoralists were settled, previoussocial networks were weakened, leading to increased internal conflicts.Many of the young generation lost interest in the traditional pastoralismand rangeland management system.

The dominant perspective during all three periods attributed thecauses of policy ineffectiveness and negative impacts to incompletepolicy implementation (Fig. 5), such as lack of funding and monitoringof actual implementation practices. This proportion decreased from67% during the first period to 55% in the last period. Simultaneously,the proportion that attributed the ineffectiveness and negative impactsto improper policy increased. These papers argued that the NSP onlyemphasized the convenience of providing social services and the accessto modern development to improve individual livelihoods, while itneglected the value of mobile pastoralism to local pastoralists (i.e., thelong-term interactions between pasture social system and rangelandecosystem and the integrated social relationship and natural resourcemanagement institution that had developed as a result of centuries of

2010 2011 -2012

mentation Improper policy

s of Nomad Settlement Policy ineffectiveness and negative impacts.

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survival in the program regions). The proportion of papers that deemedNSP an improper policy increased from 33% in the first period to 45% inthe last period (Fig. 5).

In summary, it can be concluded that NSP has resulted in improve-ment of individual pastoralist livelihood and animal husbandry. Howev-er, it also brought increasing problems in ecosystem health and pastoralsociety, especially in the aspects of culture and social relationshipsamong pastoral communities. The majority of scholars attributed suchnegative impacts to flaws in the policy implementation although anincreasing proportion began to criticize the policy itself as the cause ofnegative impacts.

Discussion

Pastoralism is a complex system in which rangeland ecosystems,livestock grazing systems, and pastoral social systems have coevolvedto cope with environmental uncertainty and heterogeneity (Bankset al., 2003; Bauer, 2006; Fernández-Giménez et al., 2012; Li and Li,2012; Li and Zhang, 2009; Wang et al., 2010). The implementation ofthe threemajor rangelandmanagement policies has reshaped the inter-actions among pastoralists and between pastoralists and the rangelandecosystem. Reviewing academic perspectives on these policies revealsdiverse and changing perspectives on the policy impacts over time. Inthis section, we apply the concept of coupled SES to analyze the out-comes of the academic perspective review and provide recommenda-tions for improvement of future rangeland management policies.

Rangeland Household Contract Policy

Although the impacts of the RHCP on the ecosystem, animal hus-bandry, livelihood, and society are seen as controversial among academ-ic studies, in the past 5 yr, dominant academic perspectives stated theRHCP had negative impacts on socioeconomic and ecological aspects.In addition, more than half of the perspectives attributed the ineffectiveand negative impacts to inappropriate policies in the first place ratherthan incomplete policy implementation. Considering the complex andcoevolved interactions in SES, an effective natural resource manage-ment institution should be able to facilitate production systems thatbetter adapt to the characteristics of the ecosystem (Fernández-Giménez and Swift, 2003). Many scholars argue that large-scale mobilepastoralism, which takes advantage of the spatial–temporal variabilityof pasture resources, is a more efficient and viable production system(de Jode, 2010; Scoones, 1994; Wang et al., 2010).

Historically, pastoralists have practiced collective rangeland usethrough reciprocal social networks to cope with risk and uncertainty(Li and Zhang, 2009). This is an institutional arrangement resultingfrom long-term adaptation to the heterogeneous distribution of range-land resources and climate variability and can thus reduce livestockmanagement costs and facilitate better risk-coping strategies. However,the implementation of the RHCP disrupted the traditional mobile graz-ing systems and promoted more concentrated grazing strategies withless mobility. It therefore decoupled pastoral production systems fromthe ecosystemon a large spatial scale (Li and Huntsinger, 2011). As a re-sult, livestock trampling increases as grazing is concentrated withinsmaller grazing parcels (Zhang and Li, 2008). During droughts, grazingareas have no chance of resting to restore and recover due to constantgrazing pressure without movement (Xie and Li, 2008; Zhang, 2008).Consequently, rangelands are degraded and the primary productivityof the rangeland declines, which further forces pastoralists to relymore on external fodder inputs to supplement the forage shortages.

In addition, implementation of the RHCP fragments the reciprocalsocial networks among pastoralists (Ding and Niu, 2007; Wang, 2009;Zhang, 2008) and leads to increased reliance on market-based foragepurchases to cope with disasters. Following this, livestock productioncosts increased and pastoralists have to raise and sell more livestockto cover the increased production costs and meet their livelihood

needs (Xie and Li, 2008). Increased livestock numbers under RHCPalso leads to further rangeland degradation (Zhang and Li, 2008),trapping pastoralists in a vicious cycle among ecosystem protection,production increases, and livelihood needs after implementation ofthe RHCP. This explains why the academic papers reported increasednegative impacts of RHCP on all socioecological aspects after 20 yr ofthe RHCP implementation.

Given these findings, we recommend that government policy recog-nize the diverse institutional responses and tenure arrangementsemerging in actual rangeland management practices that are betteradapted to the complexity of social–ecological systems, instead of uni-formly implementing management systems that replace or weakenthe local management structures. For instance, recent academic studieshave observed that group tenure, community cooperatives, andcommunity-based management could be more effective for rangelandmanagement (Banks et al., 2003; Cao et al., 2011; Fernández-Giménezet al., 2012; Zhang and Li, 2009).

Rangeland Ecological Construction Projects

The RECPs aim to protect rangeland ecosystems through grazingbans and grazing rest to reduce grazing pressure while providing subsi-dies to pastoralists to compensate their economic loss. Academic per-spectives argued that the policy has resulted in obvious ecologicalrestoration but imposed significant negative impacts on pastoralist live-lihoods and pastoral society. Regarding the impacts on animal husband-ry, around half of the perspectives saw negative impacts whereas theother half saw positive impacts.

Under RECPs, as grazing in larger rangeland areas is constrained,pastoralists have to rely more on purchasing forage or planting forageand are also encouraged to shift to intensive animal husbandry. Manyscholars consider such transition as an indication of production im-provement, as intensive animal husbandry depends less on unstablenatural systems and is tightly connected to the market. However, thistransition inevitably increases production costs asmore productionma-terials are being purchased from the market (Xie and Li, 2008). Never-theless, increasing production costs does not necessarily increaseproduction income, as intensive animal husbandry is not flexibleenough to adapt to the highly variable environment in the pastoral re-gions. A series of research projects have demonstrated that extensiveanimal husbandry is of higher productivity than intensive animal hus-bandry, especially when dynamic ecological limiting factors are consid-ered (Abel, 1997; Cossins, 1985; Li and Li, 2010).

With increasing production costs and decreasing production effi-ciency, pastoralist livelihoods face inevitable challenges. Consequently,as the pressure on livelihoods increases, more pastoralists have toengage in illegal grazing in the grazing-rest or grazing-ban areas,which results in serious conflicts between the government and pasto-ralists (Qi and Hu, 2006). In addition, asmany pastoralists cannotmain-tain their original livelihoods, they must move to other places to seekalternatives, seriously affecting their social structures and culture.Especially in areas where both the grazing ban was implemented andecological emigration took place, there was significant destructionof pastoral social structures and cultures. On this basis, it is clear whyhigher academic perspectives largely stated negative impacts onpastoralist livelihood and pastoral society.

Considering the premises behind RECPs, the policy perceives the re-lationship among the rangeland ecosystem, livestock, and herders asconsumers and consumed and so presumes grazing will inevitably re-sult in rangeland degradation, leading to the conclusion that grazingbans are necessary to protect rangeland ecosystems. Nevertheless,some emerging international and national studies have revealed that,due to the long-term coevolution of livestock and vegetation communi-ties, moderate grazing is necessary to maintain a healthy ecosystem inrangelands with long histories of grazing disturbance (Perevolotskyand Seligman, 1998; Ren, 2012), such as rangelands in China (Miehe

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et al., 2009; Miller, 2002). As such, a long-term grazing ban could resultin the decline of rangeland ecosystems’ health (Alatandalai et al., 2011;Pei et al., 2008; Taogerile et al., 2014). Therefore, even though Chineseacademic perspectives mostly report an improvement in ecosystems,the ecological impacts of long-termgrazing removal have yet to be stud-ied with scrutiny. In addition, some studies reveal that local pastoralistshave rich practical experiences and knowledge about the characteristicsof rangeland ecosystems and have developed their social norms and in-stitutions on the basis of such knowledge (Bauer, 2006; Miller, 2002).Furthermore, pastoralists play an important role in the preventionof ex-ternal resource exploitation, which could otherwise result in tremen-dous destruction for local social–ecological systems (Li and Li, 2013).Therefore, considering the positive impacts of grazing and pastoralistson rangeland ecosystems and their societies, simply removing pastoral-ismwould disrupt this balance and potentially lead to a lose–lose situa-tion on both social and ecological fronts.

Of course, the continuous growth of population pressures and eco-nomic activities may increase conflict between people and ecosystems,and it is therefore necessary to set limitations on economic activities toensure environmental protection. However, is it effective and necessaryto achieve such an objective by completely decoupling the relationshipbetween pastoralists and rangeland ecosystems?

On the basis of these findings, we recommend that RECPs pay higherattention on restoration of a coupled social–ecological landscape. Theperspective of “ecological protection being the priority” needs to bereassessed in this light, given the long-term coevolved interaction be-tween social and ecological systems in the pastoral regions. We furtherrecommend that more attention should be paid to local communities’ways of balancing livestock and rangeland ecosystems.

Nomad Settlement Policy

The academic studies demonstrated obvious positive impacts on thelivelihoods and animal husbandry of pastoralists but also increasingnegative impacts on pastoral society and ecosystems. From the perspec-tives of coupled SES, the nomadic lifestyle and culture are formed by ad-aptation to the natural environment. Pastoralists’ way of production,lifestyle, social structure, social norms, and beliefs are rooted in the pro-cess of adapting to their natural environment into an integrated system(Fernández-Giménez and Swift, 2003; Li and Li, 2012; Zhang, 2008).Therefore nomad settlement, occurring through drastic reforms topastoral society and ecosystems, greatly contradicts the basic elementof mobile pastoralism (Lattimore, 1940), especially in cases in whichpastoralists were resettled in areas near towns or cities and have nopractical way of maintaining their pastoral way of life.

For those pastoralistswhomoved to urban and suburban areas, eventhough they have higher access to education and health care services intheir social networks, community identity, cultural norms, and indige-nous ecological knowledge are disappearing along with their settle-ments (Du, 2012; Yeh, 2009). For those pastoralists who remained onrangelands, settlement has resulted in the decrease of livestockmobilityand transformation and more intensive production with increased reli-ance on infrastructure and forage cultivation (Fan et al., 2015). Somescholars argue that such transformation tends to lead to improvementsin livestock production (Bao, 2006; Huang and Wang, 2004), whichexplains the positive academic perspectives on animal husbandry.However, settlement has resulted in more concentrated grazing pres-sures near the settlement areas, as well as serious rangeland degrada-tion, explaining why the academic perspectives reported increasingnegative impacts on ecosystems and society despite positive impactson livelihoods and animal husbandry.

Alongside the rapid economic development in China, governmentshave a responsibility to improve social services and living conditionsfor pastoralists. However, settlement may not necessarily be the onlyway to reach such goals. Innovative approaches can promote the provi-sion of social services for mobile pastoralists. For instance, mobile

schools and mobile clinics were developed to provide services forpastoral communities in Inner Mongolia in the 1950s to 1970s.Similarly, we observed from our fieldwork that pastoralists in HulunBuir League of Inner Mongolia are using mobile houses equippedwith electrical systems and supplies that can be moved by vehicle.Therefore governments’ perception of settlement as the preconditionfor improving pastoralists’ access to social services and living conditionsis questionable.

Considering the vital role of mobile pastoralism in maintaining no-madic culture and pastoralists’ livelihood, as well as the necessity of so-cial services in the pastoral regions, we have two recommendations.First, the settlement of pastoralists into urban areas should be a volun-tary choice rather than a policy requirement because when an individ-ual pastoralist makes the decision to settle in town, he or she mustfind (or be confident of finding) an alternative livelihood. Second, inno-vative approaches should be developed to provide social services andaccess to modern development for pastoralists who choose to remainin pastoral areas. Such measures include the development of mobilemedical facilities and schools. It is technically possible to achieve thisby applying modern telecommunication technology. For example, forcommon health problems, doctors may be able to consult with patientsover video links, and for education, most classes can be delivered overthe Internet.

Through the previously mentioned analyses, some suggestions arearticulated for future policy development in China. Our suggestionsare based on the perception that we need to maintain extensive pasto-ralism instead of intensive industrial animal husbandry, to develop pas-toral society on the basis of diverse indigenous culture instead of unifiedmainstream culture. The findings of these policies indicate that the ap-plication of these new policies is leading to the undoing of extensivepastoralism and the associated pastoral socio-culture. Along withrapid economic development in China, many policy makers believethat they need to transform the so-called “backward” nature pastoral-ism into a system of “modern” production. Even though some officialshave realized there are problems associated with these policies, theybelieve that these problems are unavoidable in such a transitionprocess for the sake of future generations. Currently, China’s pastoralareas are in a period of transition, and all of the problems associatedwith these policiesmay ultimately be encompassedby one fundamentalquestion: Do we still need extensive pastoralism and the associatedpastoral society?

Management Implications

Land privatization, restriction of grazing, and the settlement of no-mads are the globalmainstreampolicy approaches to address rangelanddegradation, increasing population pressure, and pastoral development.China, without exception, has implemented the RHCP, RECPs, and NSPin the past 30 yrs. However, the impacts of such policies are highly de-bated. This article conducted a systemic review of published Chinese ac-ademic journal articles on the impacts of the three policies, which mayprovide some policy implications.

Pastoralism is a coupled SES in which the ecosystem, livestock, andpastoralists are tightly linked, and changes to any one component maylead to unpredictable consequences for the other components. On thebasis of the concept of SES, we propose a more flexible and inclusiveland tenure policy that recognizes local institutional arrangements, anintegrated RECP framework that considers coadaptation between socialand ecological systems, and making pastoralist settlement voluntarywhile developing innovative approaches to provide social services forpastoralists who remain in pastoral areas. Finally, we argue that theproblems associated with these policies may be ultimately summarizedas one essential question:Dowe still need pastoralism in the future? Be-cause of the vague or unclear understanding of the direction of futurepastoral development among policy makers, particularly under thedominant paradigm of modernization, the question of whether to

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support continued mobile pastoralism and local institutional arrange-ments remains crucial.

Acknowledgements

We thankMr. Ced Hesse and his team from the International Institutefor Environment and Development for their stimulating ideas andsuggestions on this review paper. We thank Geoff Hart for polishing thelanguage of the manuscript. We thank all of the students in our teamfor their contribution and discussion during our weekly group meetings.

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