The Site:
The Tibetan Plateau is the world’s largest and topographically most complex high elevation plateau, with an average elevation over 4000 masl, and average annual temperatures of less than 2 ℃. The Plateau covers the provinces of Tibet A.R. and Qinghai, as well as parts of Gansu, northwest Sichuan and northwest Yunnan province. The total land area of the Plateau is around 2.5 million km2, accounting for about 26% of China’s land area. Grasslands - comprising a diversity of vegetation types including shrublands, arid deserts, semi-arid steppes, alpine meadows and wetlands - are the dominant vegetation type across the Plateau, covering some 1.3 million km2, or 52% of the Plateau’s land area.
The unique geographical conditions of the Plateau make it home for rich and rare biodiversity of global significance. There are 15 ecoregions on the Plateau, of which ten are dominated by grassland vegetation types. These grasslands are essential to the survival of a large number of rare and endangered wildlife such as wild yak, Tibetan wild ass, Tibetan antelope, Przewalski’s gazelle, snow leopards, Marco Polo’s sheep and large numbers of endemic birds. Grassland vegetation is also essential to the maintenance of the region’s critical hydrological services. Grasslands with higher vegetation cover have much higher soil moisture content, have lower run-off in response to rain events, and thus regulate the storage and run-off of water, abating soil erosion and flash flood events. Soils of grasslands on the Plateau contain about 23% of China’s total soil carbon.
Grassland-dependent livestock raising is the primary source of cash and non-cash income for the majority of the Plateau’s 5 million inhabitants. The incidence of poverty in many pastoral areas is high, with average incomes in pastoral areas of the Plateau below two-thirds the average for China’s rural inhabitants. Sustainable management of the Plateau’s grasslands is therefore crucial to the sustainability of pastoralist livelihoods and culture in this region.
The Issues:
The Plateau’s grasslands play important roles in regulating environmental processes through the effects of vegetation cover on surface energy reflection, wind drag, evaporation and soil moisture, and provide significant carbon storage, water regulation and soil conservation and biodiversity services. Parts of the Plateau, such as the source region of the Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong Rivers, have been singled out by scholars and policy makers for their contribution to national and Asian regional environmental security.
Degradation of the Plateau’s grasslands has in recent years been a major concern for national policy makers. Government statements estimate that about half of Tibet’s grasslands are degraded, and officials state that 90% of Qinghai’s grasslands are degraded to some degree. Although the impacts of climate change on grasslands are of increasing concern, the major anthropogenic impact on the Plateau’s grasslands comes from grazing, and several areas of the Plateau are reportedly overgrazed.
China has initiated several mega-projects aiming to conserve the Plateau’s ecology. Central government has also repeatedly stated the need for a payments for ecosystem services scheme to address grassland degradation, and overgrazing in particular. A grassland payments for ecosystem services programme is under design, and the first pilots were initiated in 2009 in Tibet A.R..
While there is a growing body of evidence on the impacts of grazing on various ecosystem services, other aspects related to development of PES schemes are much less well understood. There is some existing experience with PES schemes in China’s grasslands, but lessons have not been systematically collated and analyzed. Economic analysis of grazing systems in the region is also very sparse, which presents difficulties for estimating the impacts of different reward options on household welfare. An insufficient evidence-base for the design of a PES scheme may hinder its effectiveness in incentivizing improved land management and delivering enhanced ecosystem services.
The Rewards:
The first pilots of a grassland PES scheme began implementation in 2009. Full details of the scheme have yet to be worked out. Some past grassland PES-like programs focused on paying compensation for prohibiting grazing in degraded areas. But these schemes did not systematically address means for enhancing livestock-based production, and may have displaced grazing pressure to areas outside the prohibition. Initial indications suggest that the new PES schemes are to focus on incentives for sustainable stocking management, and will seek to integrate stocking management with improved feed and marketing of livestock products. The first pilot is being implemented by local government in Tibet with support from the Chinese ministries of finance and agriculture. ICRAF is supporting a policy research institute of the Ministry of Agriculture to document the developing pilot scheme and to draw on lessons from other schemes in making recommendations to develop a voluntary, conditional and effective PES scheme for China’s grassland areas.
Site Partners:
ICRAF China Beijing Office
Research Center for Rural Economy of the Ministry of Agriculture
ICIMOD
Contact:
Name: Dr. Andreas Wilkes
Email: a.wilkes@cgiar.org
References:
Links:
ICRAF China Programme
www.chinaagroforestry.org