Grassland is the major ecosystem in Sanjiangyuan(74% coverage), providing an important physical basis on which wildlife, livestock and humans to live.It’s also the cradle of Tibetan conservation culture.
With local communities we initiated discussions about grassland using patterns on perspectives of ecology, production and human life. Herding techniques, collective actions and polices are included while defining directions and paths in sustainable grassland management.In 2018 we set up 33 grassland quadrats in 3 adjacent herding unites to monitoring the effects of different herding methods and documented 1177 entries of livestock production. What we found preliminarily in a county scale is that a smaller pasture size and less rotation is more likely lead to the decline of grass biomass. While on the scale of a case study in Pusang Village, we found the key to cooperative herding lies in the ability of community leader to get ahead in formulating and maintaining reasonable cooperative bylaws. Based on these findings, we founded a Nomad School in Yushu Prefecture to provide training for the cooperative leaders, sustainable herding and alternative livelihood were topics that have been special attentioned. Through 3 sessions and 1 study tour we’ve trained 16 community leaders from 7 cooperatives. Furthermore, we carried interviews with 45 old herders and received 84 oral responses about grassland and herding. The knowledge helped to enrich our understanding of the whole grassland system from a traditional way, laying a foundation of connecting local knowledge and modern science, also helps in optimizing decision-making system.
To understand how climate change (such as global warming, wetting and the increase of extreme weather) affects nomads, we conducted 89 home interviews in counties of Zadoi, Chengduo, Nanqen, Diqing and Jiuzhi from 2016 to 2018. The results were publicized at 2 side events on the 24th UN Climate Change Conference (COP24).