Prairie area run as family ranches
Source: Xinhua |
July 11, 2010, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
MORE than half of China's largest prairie area in the northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has become family farms through a land contract system introduced in 1989, according to the latest government survey.
The survey by the regional agricultural and animal husbandry bureau found 66 percent of the 88 million-hectare natural grassland in Inner Mongolia is being worked by family groups for agriculture.
Some 1.6 million households have settled after leasing the right to graze their animals under the contract system instead of moving freely over grasslands like their ancestors for centuries, according to the survey result.
This has aroused debate about whether the loss of nomadic traditions is good or bad for the conservation of fragile grassland ecosystems which suffered desertification in recent decades.
Chao Lu, a 36-year-old Mongolian herdsman, said he only had a faint memory of the nomadic life from his childhood.
His family settled on the grassland of Taipusi Banner in the heart of Inner Mongolia in the 1980s and started to lease a 66.6-hectare lot.
It has become a routine job for him to get on his motorbike to drive his cattle back from neighboring ranches, as soon as neighbors call to alert him that livestock have roamed onto their land.
"I can understand them. People love their own ranches like their own children and care more about the environment," he said.
The sense of responsibility has helped locals rethink about some practices, for example overgrazing, which were thought harmful for grassland.
His family used to have a herd double the current number of 200 cattle and sheep, he said.
"People for years blamed lingering droughts as the biggest cause of the degradation of the grassland. But now on reflection the overgrazing caused more harm than the weather," said Chao Lu.
"The land contract system has turned herdsmen into ranch owners, making them more responsible for protecting the prairie environment," said Tu Ya, a researcher with the Pasture Economy Research Institute under the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences.
The survey by the regional agricultural and animal husbandry bureau found 66 percent of the 88 million-hectare natural grassland in Inner Mongolia is being worked by family groups for agriculture.
Some 1.6 million households have settled after leasing the right to graze their animals under the contract system instead of moving freely over grasslands like their ancestors for centuries, according to the survey result.
This has aroused debate about whether the loss of nomadic traditions is good or bad for the conservation of fragile grassland ecosystems which suffered desertification in recent decades.
Chao Lu, a 36-year-old Mongolian herdsman, said he only had a faint memory of the nomadic life from his childhood.
His family settled on the grassland of Taipusi Banner in the heart of Inner Mongolia in the 1980s and started to lease a 66.6-hectare lot.
It has become a routine job for him to get on his motorbike to drive his cattle back from neighboring ranches, as soon as neighbors call to alert him that livestock have roamed onto their land.
"I can understand them. People love their own ranches like their own children and care more about the environment," he said.
The sense of responsibility has helped locals rethink about some practices, for example overgrazing, which were thought harmful for grassland.
His family used to have a herd double the current number of 200 cattle and sheep, he said.
"People for years blamed lingering droughts as the biggest cause of the degradation of the grassland. But now on reflection the overgrazing caused more harm than the weather," said Chao Lu.
"The land contract system has turned herdsmen into ranch owners, making them more responsible for protecting the prairie environment," said Tu Ya, a researcher with the Pasture Economy Research Institute under the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences.
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