Climate variability and social vulnerability on the Tibetan Plateau: dilemmas on the road to pastoral reform

Abstract

The winters of the Tibetan Plateau not only create harsh conditions for livestock management - causing local herders to practise mobile animal husbandry - but also pose particular challenges for policy-making in this region. Winter cold, therefore, becomes a key climatic factor which impacts pastoral production and socio-economic development on the plateau. At first, the geographical region traditionally used by nomadic pastoralism on the Eurasian continent is defined; this region is subordinate to the Old World Dry Belt and called 'Winter Cold Zone' by the authors. The following discussion mainly considers the effects of the extreme cold climate on extensive livestock management by pastoralists and the current policies of rangeland individualization in the Winter Cold Zone with reference to the Tibetan Plateau. The incongruity of the innovations within the frame of the ongoing pastoral development program on the Tibetan Plateau and the options for their remedies are finally discussed in detail.