Resettlement policies threatening the survival of Tibetan nomads

 

In March 1998 Qi Jingfa, then China’s Vice-Minister of Agriculture, announced that it was the Chinese government’s policy “to end the nomadic way of life for all herdsmen by the end of the century”. The Chinese government missed its deadline; but as reports issued in recent years by China’s official news agency, Xinhua, make clear, China’s policy to relocate hundreds of thousands of Tibetan nomads from their ancestral grasslands into colonies of permanent urban dwellings is gathering pace and is being implemented especially vigorously in certain areas of Tibet. The policy is having a disastrous impact on Tibetan herders’ ability to maintain their traditional livelihoods and on a distinctive form of Tibetan cultural identity. It also threatens potentially ruinous consequences for the Tibetan Plateau, and consequently for billions of people living in the Indian sub-continent, as Tibet houses the sources of Asia's major rivers, and scientists state that if open mining continues in the current vein, disasterous effects could be felt across the region.

Nomads are having their livestock torn from their hands

 

Nomadic Pastoralism: a highly evolved and sustainable culture

 

For more than 4000 years nomads have grazed herds of yaks and mountain sheep over the vast grasslands of Tibet. The herds are intrinsically tied up with both the identity of the nomads and their very survival in the harsh, high-altitude environment of the Tibetan Plateau: the animals provide not only meat and milk, but their skins are dried and used to insulate tents. Dung is also dried and used to heat the tents and provide fuel for cooking. And wool and fur from the animals are used to clothe the nomads.

The nomads have forged an intuitive understanding of how to best utilise their herds and to live in harmony with the dizzyingly high-altitude environment. In the short summer months they move their herds over vast distances, grazing their yaks on rich grasslands; and in the long winter months they travel similarly long distances to sell their animals in market to raise money for medicine and to pay for their children’s education. The nomads have long recognised that it is only by practising seasonal migration through traditionally unfenced grassland areas that habitation of the Plateau could be made sustainable, with fragile soils being allowed to recover from one year to the next.

But after more than 4000 years of sensitive stewardship of the fragile, high-altitude environment of the Tibetan Plateau, the nomads’ unique culture is being threatened with destruction as increasingly rapacious Chinese policies seek to drive the nomads from their homelands for political and economic reasons.

The unique and colourful nomadic culture is under threat

 

Adverse impact of Chinese agricultural policies on the Tibetan Plateau since 1950

 

It is surprising that the herders’ unique and highly evolved culture of nomadic pastoralism has survived at all since China’s invasion of 1950. Since then, the nomads’ sustainable culture has been buffeted by a series of disastrous policies issued by Beijing-based communist cadres who have no knowledge and understanding of the realities of living on the remote Tibetan Plateau. Their directives have been driven by prevailing political priorities rather than the specialised needs of nomads. Collectivisation and new herding practices imposed by Beijing led to famine and degraded grasslands. New policies imposed on the recently established collectivised communes in the 50s and 60s demanded widespread crop diversification into wheat and away from the traditional barley. It is too cold for wheat to thrive in Tibet and intensive cultivation of inappropriate crops exhausted the soil, resulting in ecological damage, widespread degradation of grasslands and intermittent famine throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Following the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 and the advent of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the 1980s, collectivisation was replaced by the “household responsibility system”, a key element of which was the 1985 Grasslands Law. The new policy sought to concentrate pastoral production and increasingly referred to the benefits of fencing off the grasslands. It sought to restrict the previously mobile nature of nomadic pastoralism, fixing herd numbers on designated, fenced-off pastureland.

Nomads ride into town to protest and raise the Tibetan flag in 2008

 

1999: Relocation of nomads begins with China’s “Western Development Strategy”

In 1999 China announced its “Western Development Strategy”, intended – it was claimed by the Chinese government – to boost economic activity and development in western areas, including Tibet. Whatever the stated goals of the WDS may be, in reality the strategy is designed to: provide employment incentives for millions of Han Chinese to relocate to Tibet; facilitate the rapid extraction of Tibet’s vast natural resources out of Tibet for use in China’s booming eastern-seaboard industries; to ease the rapid deployment of military personnel into Tibet; and to bolster tourism as a key “pillar” industry for Tibet. WDS is designed to cement China’s political control over Tibet whilst easing China’s ability to plunder Tibet’s vast natural mineral wealth.


A key feature of the WDS has been the confiscation of agricultural and pastoral lands and the forced relocation of nomads to make way for mining and infrastructure projects.

The numbers of nomads being forcibly relocated away from their ancestral lands are vast: according to official Chinese media reports for just the “Three River Areas” in Qinghai province, 28,000 people (6,156 households) have been forcibly resettled since the “ecological migration policies” were launched in 2003. In 2004 the government announced it planned to move a further 43,600 out of the same area. And last year an announcement in August that 73,700 nomads were to be relocated from Gannan prefecture in the TAR in to permanent brick houses was followed by an announcement in the autumn that 470,000 nomads were going to be moved off their lands in Sichuan province, again into permanent homes. In total, official state media has announced the resettlement, or intention to resettle, some 900,000 nomads. That huge figure represents over 15% of the total Tibetan population being forced from their ancestral lands in a stroke.

 

Resettlement complex: Jim McGill Photography
Click here for more pictures of the resettlements

China’s questionable motives for relocation

 

China has sought to justify the relocations, and the imposition of strict limits on yak herd sizes, by arguing that over-population and excessive grazing in certain areas had led to soil erosion and desertification. It has even sought to blame, unconvincingly, an escalating ecological crisis on the “backward” and “unscientific” behaviour of the Tibetan nomads. In reality, the very same nomads that are now being forced off their ancestral lands against their will because of their alleged role in environmental degradation are the herders that for centuries had evolved and practised a long-term and sustainable way of life without causing harm to the environment. Damage to the fragile ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau began with the imposition by the Chinese government of collectivisation and continued under the state policy of widespread deforestation in eastern Tibet until the late 1990s. The Chinese government’s self-proclaimed commitment to environmental protection is seriously undermined by the prioritisation it has displayed in locating huge infrastructure projects, such as environmentally-damaging mines and dams, in the very areas from which the nomads have been re-settled.

The Chinese Government has admitted that there is a political motivation to the resettlement. In 2007, Party Secretary Zhang Qingli stated that the restructuring of Tibetan farming and grazing communities was not only to promote economic development, but to counteract the Dalai Lama’s influence.

Yaks are a vital aspect of nomad life

Tibetan experiences of forced resettlement and re-housing

 

Government policy regarding the forced settlement of nomads varies enormously throughout the Tibetan Plateau. In certain areas, predominantly the TAR, policy has generally sought to relocate nomads from one plot of land to a more fenced in plot of land whilst staying within the grassland areas. The government has also implemented its “Comfortable Housing Project” which involves the forcible implementation of so-called improvements on existing plots of land or dwellings. Even where the nomads are not being relocated from the grasslands altogether into urban areas, the resettlement policy is unpopular and expensive. One nomad from Tsaba village in Ngachu county in the TAR told Free Tibet:

“Tsaba village has about 60 households for nomads and, starting five years ago, the government lends money for the compulsory building of about 12 new houses….In 2008 it was my family’s turn to rebuild our house. Our house was in the smallest category and we were to receive 8000 Chinese yuan. But in fact the government only gave us wood, bricks and cement worth 2500 yuan and gave us a deadline for finishing the new house…..Our house was completely rebuilt by early 2009 but when we asked for the rest of the monetary aid we were simply told that the government was facing recession and would pay the rest the following year….It is hard to understand why the Chinese government wants us to demolish our houses and then rebuild them. It is simply an extra load of work for us.”

In north-eastern Tibet (Qinghai and Gansu provinces), however, resettlement policies have been far more severe and life-changing: tens of thousands of nomads have been forced to abandon completely their traditional homes and ways of life and relocated away from the grasslands into urban areas. In most cases the resettlement has resulted in impoverishment and a lower standard of living as the nomads struggle to adjust to urban living for which they have no life skills and experience. Tearing nomads from their ancestral homelands and herding them into anonymous urban settlements is having a devastating effect on nomadic communities. With their lands lost forever and their yaks - the very means of their survival - seized and slaughtered, nomads face a bleak future. Unable to resume their traditional way of life, they become trapped in poverty. They lack the education and skills to find employment in the towns and evidence suggests that the lack of employment opportunities is increasingly leading to widespread mental illness and alcohol dependency in the new urban ghettos. A nomad from Golok prefecture in Qinghai province told Free Tibet:

“More than 300 houses are built in rows on the eastern side of Dawo town, the capital of Golok prefecture. People say that the houses are for nomad families originally from other places in Machen county who were resettled into the town to protect grassland. They live in the towns off a government subsidy of a small amount of flour but they have no skills other than grazing animals. Some make a very rough living doing menial labour but the government has not given them any training to make a sustainable living in the towns.”

The same nomad also told Free Tibet that a further 2000 nomads from Golok were forced to sell their livestock:

“They got a small subsidy from the government but it is not enough to meet essential living costs…. The nomads have no skills to earn a better living in the towns and social issues have arisen after some nomads were resettled in Tsolho prefecture, including theft.”

Photos by Falsalama

The Chinese authorities have made little attempt in most cases to consult the affected nomadic communities for their views prior to the forced relocations, and even when nomads have attempted to set out their complaints to the relevant authorities, they have had little success. The experience of a Tibetan from Tsoetsoe town in Ngari county who spoke to Free Tibet is typical:

“A meeting was held with the TAR authorities and the local authorities. At the meeting all households outside Tsoetsoe town were told to move into “Comfortable” houses in the town. The nomads suggested that if they were to be moved, it should be to a place of their choice so that they could carry on with their traditional nomadic life. But the authorities refused to listen to the suggestions and said it was a ‘must’ that the nomads moved into the government’s new houses…..Prior to moving the nomad households were asked to pay more than half of the cost of the new house back to the government.”

Articles in the official Chinese media have argued that nomads will benefit eventually from the loss of their lands and resettlement as they make the tranisition to improved futures as shopkeepers and other businesses in the new urban economy transforming Tibet. But nomads that spoke to Free Tibet constantly referred to the difficulty of making such a transition: the government offers little compensation for the nomads to make the move, leaving them to founder without the necessary skills and experience to compete with incoming Chinese migrants in Tibet’s highly competitive urban labour markets.

 

Nomads live sustainably on the land in tents and allow the evironment to recover through seasonal migration
Photos: Anthony Alvarez

 

Underlying reasons for China’s resettlement of Tibetan nomads

 

The Chinese government’s policy of resettling nomads is a thinly-veiled assault on a distinctive form of Tibetan culture and identity. The policy is mirrored in the Chnese government’s attempts to control and ultimately destroy other key forms of Tibetan identity such as Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan language. Since the 3^rd Tibet Work Forum in Beijing in 1994 reviewed official Tibet policy, the Chinese leadership has displayed an increasing concern for preserving Chinese national unity, territorial integrity and stability through policies aimed at the assimilation of its ethnic minorities. The outlook for Tibetan nomads’ unique way of life consequently appears bleak. As one Tibetan remarked to Free Tibet:

“The Chinese government intends to remove Tibetan nomads from their grasslands… because if Nomads are forced to quit their traditional livelihoods and skills they will be forced to depend on the Chinese government, making it easier for the government to control Tibetans.”

Click here for more on Tibetan rural culture
Click here for an article on the forced resettlement of Uighur Muslims
Click here for more on the economy and environment of Tibet
Click here for information on protests against resettlement in Tawu, May 2009

Yushu horse festival pictures by Vincent Van Den Berg: www.vincentvandenberg.net