An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China

RAMA-00013; No of Pages 9 Rangeland Ecology & Management xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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Hua Limin a,⁎, Yang Siwei b, Victor Squires c, Wang Guizhen d a

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Keywords: agro-pastoral region community participation family income livestock rangeland governance vegetation

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An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China☆

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Governance plays a key role in rangeland management. In China, all rangeland, including pastoral land and agropastoral land, is owned by the State. Since 1980, use rights have been granted to households by the Chinese government extending the household contract responsibility system (HCRS). But in the agro-pastoral areas of northwestern (NW) China, the rangeland degradation is more severe than that in pastoral areas. The HCRS is difficult to implement because the limited and fragmented grazing land cannot be contracted to individual households. Thus the pastures in the agro-pastoral areas are grazed as communal pastoral land and the rate of rangeland degradation has accelerated as livestock numbers have grown. Several measures have been introduced in an attempt to reverse this degradation trend, but most failed. This paper reports a 5-year comparison of three rangeland management regimens, including the national “Protecting rangeland by restricting grazing” (PRRG) project under the individual HCRS (PRRG under IHCRS), the Allied Householders Contract Responsibility System (AHCRS) program funded by the World Bank/GEF, and the free grazing on common pasture as the control area (CA) at Mayinggou Village, Yongchang County, Gansu Province in NW China. The results showed significant differences (P b 0.05) between AHCRS and the other two regimens (PRRG under IHCRS and CA) in terms of biomass of palatable forages, cover, and plant diversity index of vegetation but no significant difference (P N 0.05) between PRRG under IHCRS and CA. Reducing the number of livestock in AHCRS also resulted in increased revenue from the livestock turn-off rate compared with that in PRRG under IHCRS and CA. Therefore, AHCRS is a better alternative management regimen for rangelands in agro-pastoral areas. AHCRS can solve the overgrazing problem, maintain or improve household income, and potentially ensure a long-term sustainable rangeland management regimen in agro-pastoral areas in NW China. © 2015 Society for Range Management. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Associate Professor, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of Ministry of Education/Rangeland Sciences Department, Gansu Agricultural University/Sino-U.S. Centers for Grazing Land Ecosystem Sustainability, Lanzhou, 730070, China, Institute of Animal and Veterinary Science, Bijie, 551700, China b PhD Student, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of Ministry of Education/Rangeland Sciences Department, Gansu Agricultural University/Sino-U.S. Centers for Grazing Land Ecosystem Sustainability, Lanzhou, 730070, China, Institute of Animal and Veterinary Science, Bijie, 551700, China c Visiting Professor, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of Ministry of Education/Rangeland Sciences Department, Gansu Agricultural University/Sino-U.S. Centers for Grazing Land Ecosystem Sustainability, Lanzhou, 730070, China, Institute of Animal and Veterinary Science, Bijie, 551700, China d Master Student, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of Ministry of Education/Rangeland Sciences Department, Gansu Agricultural University/Sino-U.S. Centers for Grazing Land Ecosystem Sustainability, Lanzhou, 730070, China, Institute of Animal and Veterinary Science, Bijie, 551700, China

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Introduction

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China has the third largest area of rangelands in the world (Squires 2010). Rangeland can be categorized as either pastoral land, where cropping does not occur, or agro-pastoral lands, where cropland and grazing land are in close proximity (Cheng, 1999). The agro-pastoral land is the transition region of the traditional agricultural region and pastoral region (Hess, 1990; Xu, 1999). In China, the agro-pastoral

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☆ Research was funded by the Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem, Ministry of Education (1102-02) and the Special Fund for Agro-Scientific Research in the Public Interest (201003061). ⁎ Correspondence: Hua Limin, No.1, Yingmen Village, Anning District, Lanzhou, 730070, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Limin).

lands encompass the southeastern edge of Mongolia Plateau, south Loess Plateau, and part of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (Chen et al., 2004; Shao et al., 2006). The transition zone covers 12 provinces and 140 counties with an area of 44 million hectare (Mha) and population of 35 million in 2003 (Sun and Shi, 2003). In this region, the rainfall is in the range of 250 to 500 mm, both plant cover and productivity are low, and the ecosystem is susceptible to degradation (Cheng, 2002; Pan et al., 2003). As a result, the farming system is sensitive to environmental change and human influence. The degraded and decertified area of rangeland in the agro-pastoral area represents about 50% of the total degraded rangeland area in northwestern China (Cheng, 1999). The rangeland area in agro-pastoral land in Inner Mongolia shrank by 0.41 Mha over a 10-year period (1990-2000) (Zhan et al., 2004). Although many areas were illegally converted to croplands for producing more grain crops, the problem of accelerated rangeland degradation in agro-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001 1550-7424/© 2015 Society for Range Management. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Limin, H., et al., An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China, Rangeland Ecology & Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001

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considered the uncontrolled grazing on communal rangeland was the biggest contributor to rangeland degradation in this village. After several discussions between the project officers and farmers, an alternative Allied Households Contract Responsibility System (CRS) (lian hu ze ren cheng bao zhi) was implemented in the village in accordance with the households’ approval (World Bank, 2004). Since 2000, the Protecting Rangeland by Restricting Grazing (PRRG) (tui mu huan cao) project funded by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has been conducted in China (Huang and Wang, 2004; Li, 2011). The PRRG project was predicated on the prior registration of IHCRS for all households in the project area and on demarcation of individual pasture allocations (Liu, 2010). For the funding support from the central government, the local government of Yongchang Country extended the IHCRS to other communities of Mayinggou Village and the pasture belonging to the participating households from the village was divided into each household’s portion on the basis of the number of people in the household. In this study, the rangeland recovery and changes in stocking pressure within the three management regimens were used to assess the impact on rangeland recovery and family income of reassigning grazing use rights to groups of cooperating households in the agro-pastoral rangeland in NW China. There was opportunity to compare outcomes under three contrasting management regimens: 1) the nationally sponsored PRRG under IHCRS, 2) communally grazed rangeland without institutional management, and 3) a new regimen, Allied Households Contract Responsibility System (AHCRS), developed in western Gansu.

Study Site and Methods Study Site

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pastoral land has been exacerbated by the imposition of new institutional arrangements relating to land tenure and use rights (Williams, 1996; DaLintai and Gaowa, 2010). Governance is the key to promotion of sustainable use and management of natural resources and to achieve the goals of conservation of natural resources and environment, alleviation of poverty, and sustainable utilization of natural resources (Ostrom, 1990; Acheson, 2006). With the implementation of economic policy opening up and reform and cropland tenure reform in the better-watered agricultural areas, the household contract responsibility system (HCRS) (jia ting cheng bao ze ren zhi) was extended to the pastoral and agro-pastoral areas to solve the problem of unfettered common-use grazing (Feng, 1988; Cao and Wang, 1995; Yang 2008). HCRS is a policy designed to boost agricultural productivity and was first adopted in China in 1981. A key part of HCRS was to assign use rights to individual households from land that was formerly communally used (Brandt et al., 2002). HCRS has been the fundamental tool for rangeland management in China since the 1980s and raised productivity and increased animal husbandry output from the 1980s to 1990s (Wang et al., 2010). According to the Grassland 1 Law of the People’s Republic of China (2002 Amendment), the use rights to rangeland belonging to the State could be contracted by individual householders (dan hu cheng bao) or cooperating householders (lian hu cheng bao) (Banks, 2003; Cao et al., 2011; Li et al. 2011). The individual HCRS (IHCRS) (dan hu cheng bao ze ren zhi) implies that a household has use rights to a specific area of pasture and can run privately owned livestock there. By contrast, under cooperating HCRS, each household has private ownership of livestock, but their pasture is shared and managed by the cooperating households. From 2001–2011, the contracted rangeland area by individual households and cooperating households in China increased to 273 Mha, which accounts for 83% of total rangeland available nationwide. The proportion of rangeland contracted to individual households is now about 80.5% of the total contracted rangeland area in China (China Grass Internet, 2013). The IHCRS has been the dominant management type in the rangeland region of China. However, the policy of IHCRS is difficult to apply in agro-pastoral areas because of the contradiction between population pressure and the relatively small areas of residual rangeland. In agro-pastoral regions in China, the average rangeland area was 0.23 ha per household, which is too small to be operated as functional rangeland by individual households (Xu et al., 2012). As a result, the rangeland in many parts of the agro-pastoral regions was used as communal grazing land and the overstocking rate was higher (42.07%) than that (23.37%) in the pastoral regions (Xu et al., 2012). IHCRS did not solve the dilemma of private livestock on state-owned land in the agro-pastoral regions. Severe overgrazing has become a major challenge because of the pressure to maintain or improve livelihoods that was believed by households to come more quickly from bigger herds (Richard et al., 2006). In order to find a better management approach for rangeland in the agro-pastoral region, a potentially viable alternative was trialed in Mayinggou Village, Yongchang County, Gansu Province in NW China in 2007 when the World Bank/GEF supported a rangeland conservation project there. Each community of the village has use rights to its own winter pasture (closer to the village) and summer pasture (often far from the village). However, the pasture was allocated by the village committee to households, more or less at random. Each allocation has a use right certificate, but there was no clear boundary between these individually assigned pastures, so trespass grazing was a problem. Entry and exit dates were either not well defined or ignored, and the pastures received no rest. Therefore, the key issue of rangeland degradation in the agro-pastoral village was the failure of the existing rangeland management regimen. There was an opportunity to devise a new rangeland management arrangement. A participatory rural appraisal was conducted (Hua and Zhang, 2012), revealing that most households

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Grassland in China involves rangeland and sown grassland.

Mayinggou Village is located in the middle section of Qi Lian Mountain in the Hexi Corridor of western Gansu Province (Fig. 1). The village has 518 households (HH) with 2 155 people of Han nationality. Each household has up to six people. The available areas of rangeland and cropland are 8 677 ha and 260 ha, respectively. This accounts for 30.6% and 2.9% of the total land area, respectively. The other land type is primarily sparse woodland with low shrub and plantation forestry for woodlots and shelter belts. The altitude is 2 178 to 2 515 m. The climate is temperate with a semi-alpine zone at higher altitude. Annual rainfall ranges from 170 mm to 320 mm and temperature from 1.5°C to 7.0°C (Yang, 2010). The rainfall is mainly distributed in July, August, and September. The rangeland types include alpine meadow, temperate grassland, semi-arid rangeland, and arid rangeland. The livestock number in 2007 was 3 240 Sheep Unit.2 According to the record of the village committee, sheep are the dominant livestock in the village (Yang, 2010). The main crops are barley, beans, and wheat. The dominant plants on the rangeland are Leymus secalinum, Agropyron cristatum, Poa pratensis, Stipa sareptarta var. krylovii, Deyeuxia scabrescens, Stipa purpurea, Stipa breviflora, and Artemisia frigida. Various rangeland regimens existed in past decades in the village. Before the 1980s, all rangeland and livestock was State owned, but the village had the right to use the pastoral lands and manage the livestock enterprise. From 1980–2007, the State-owned livestock was redistributed to individual householders, and the rangeland was owned by the village as common pasture. Since 2007, with the extension of HCRS in pastoral land, partial rangeland in four communities has been redistributed to individual householders. In 2007, the World Bank/GEF funded a rangeland conservation project to solve the rangeland degradation based on a reformed rangeland regimen in two demonstration communities of this village.

2 Sheep Unit:a 50 kg sheep with a half-year lamb at foot eating 1.8 kg per day dry forage with 14% of moisture.

Please cite this article as: Limin, H., et al., An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China, Rangeland Ecology & Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001

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Figure 1. Location of the pilot village, Mayinggou Village of Yongchang County, Gansu, China and disposition of land for the comparison of three grazing regimens: 1) the nationally sponsored retaining pastures by restricting grazing project based on the individual HCRS, 2) communally grazed rangeland without institutional management, and 3) allied householders contract responsibility system.

Methods

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The administrative village of Mayinggou includes eight communities. The study selected AHCRS (1 170 ha) and PPRG under IHCRS (4 500 ha) 189 Q11 were conducted in two communities and four communities, respective190 ly. The remaining communities grazed their livestock on common pas191 ture under an unregulated rangeland management regimen. 192 In AHCRS communities, allied households were formed from among 193 the original herders who were neighbors in a community. Most of the 194 herders were relatives. All the members of allied households were 195 aware of the issues of rangeland degradation in their pastures and 196 wished to improve and protect the pasture for their livelihood, as well 197 as their next generation’s. Although a few households who had more 198 livestock (N100 sheep) did not initially support the concept of allied 199 households organization, they accepted it after negotiation. Persuasion 200 by the group and a guaranteed role in drafting of the rangeland manage201 ment rules made them become allied households. The AHCRS stipulated 202 that the use rights over previously allocated pasture should be managed 203 on behalf of the members by a designated group of households selected 204 from the community members, instead of being used without restric205 tion by the whole village. The World Bank/GEF project funded the par206 ticipating households with the AHCRS to fence the boundary of their 207 assigned 1 170-ha pasture, and the households made rules for the 208 entry and exit dates into the seasonal pastures. They also decided on 209 the number of grazing livestock from each household that could be 210 allowed to graze. This number was based on the family size. Surplus

livestock had to be either sold or stall-fed indoors. About 26% of the households in the village participated in AHCRS. The PRRG project under the IHCRS start-up in 2007 coincided with the implementation of the AHCRS in the village. The implementation plan of the PRRG project took a top-down approach, which means the decisions were made by the PRRG management office. The PRRG management office was in charge of rangeland fencing (design, bidding for construction) and supervision of construction in the field. In 4 500 ha of the PRRG rangeland, the area of seasonal grazing bans was under the spasmodic supervision by the PRRG management officials. About 36% of households participated in PRRG in the village (Yang, 2010). The study also selected the free grazing (often year-long) on common pasture as the control area (CA). The households in CA generally used their unfenced pasture within the area according to their own schedule. There was no fence in the CA area, and entry and exit dates were either not well defined or ignored.

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Field Sampling

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The parameters to compare the impact of different rangeland management regimens on rangeland productivity, ecological function, and livestock production, as well as family income during the research period (2007–2012), were biomass of palatable forage, vegetation cover, plant community diversity, livestock inventory and flock structure, stocking rate, and family revenue stream from the livestock enterprise.

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Please cite this article as: Limin, H., et al., An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China, Rangeland Ecology & Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001

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Data Analyses

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All statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS 19.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, USA). Descriptive statistical methods were used to analyze the data set for maximum and minimum values, mean, and standard deviation. To test the significance of three rangeland management regimens on the examined parameters, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied.

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Results

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Stocking Rate in AHCRS and PRRG under IHCRS and CA Areas

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In all three areas (AHCRS, PRRG under IHCRS and CA), the total stocking rate increased from 1985–2006 (Fig. 2). However, the stocking rate in the PRRG under IHCRS area and AHCRS area has decreased since 2007 due to the implementation of the PRRG project under the IHCRS and AHCRS programs. The stocking rate in the CA area remained the same after 2007, but the reduction in stocking rate in PRRG under the IHCRS and AHCRS areas after 2007 was noteworthy (Fig. 2). The stocking rate in the AHCRS area dropped more than that in PRRG under the IHCRS area from 2007–2008, and it slightly increased from 2008–2012. Although the stocking rate in PRRG under the IHCRS area also decreased from 2007–2008, the rate of decrease was lower than that in the AHCRS area. The changes in livestock inventory over the period 2007–2012 in the ACHRS area are given in Figure 3. In 2007 the households that raised large numbers of livestock (N100 sheep) and medium numbers of livestock (50–100 sheep) accounted for 21% and 32% of the total households in the area before the AHCRS implementation. However, in 2008, the households with large numbers of livestock (N 100 sheep) and medium numbers of livestock (50–100 sheep) accounted for 1%

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Each of three sampled pastures (AHCRS, PRRG under IHCRS and CA) covered 10 ha, and the parameters were measured using the same sampling technique. Five fixed monitoring locations were established in each sampled pasture, and 150 samples were taken at random from within the fixed locations. Standard methods (Chen, 1994; Shi, 2009) were used to determine the dry matter biomass of palatable forages, cover, and plant species diversity in August (late summer) and in March (early spring). Herd/flock structure (age and sex) and their number and composition were obtained for each participating household at the end of each year from 2007–2012. Family income from selling lambs and costs for buying fodder were recorded in 15 families, accounting for around 20% of total households in the AHCRS, PRRG under IHCRS, as well as CA areas.

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In 2007 the turn-off of lambs was similar from AHCRS and PRRG under IHCRS and CA areas (Fig. 4). Turn-off lambs in the AHCRS area increased from 60% in 2007 to 98% in 2012, the highest in three areas. In PRRG under the IHCRS area, the turn-off rate declined initially from 58% but increased to 80% in 2012 while turn-off from CA remained unchanged at about 70% (Fig. 4). Implementation of AHCRS led to some immediate changes. At the outset, the number of livestock was reduced and the proportion of wethers went, on average, from 20 wether/household flock in 2007 to 1 wether/household in 2012 because wethers increase the cost of winter feeding. The number of carry-over lambs decreased from 24 lambs/ household to zero (Fig. 5). Lambs were sold in the current year. Households in the AHCRS area kept only ewes. Total stocking pressure in the AHCRS area was decreased. In both PRRG under IHCRS and CA areas, there were more wethers and more carry-over lambs, thus maintaining the high stocking rate on the winter pasture in these two areas and incurring higher costs for purchased fodder.

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Plant Cover and the Biomass of Palatable Forages

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Over the 5-year period (2007–2012), the average cover of rangeland in the AHCRS area increased from 54.8% to 87.6% while in the PRRG under IHCRS area, it increased from 57.6% to 69.2% and in the CA it increased from 57.4% to 65.0% (Fig. 6). Changes in biomass of palatable forage species reflected the response to grazing pressure also. In the AHCRS area, the biomass of palatable forages increased from

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Flock Structure in ACHRS and PRRG under IHCRS and CA Areas

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and 18% of the total households in the AHCRS area and remained the 275 same until 2012. 276

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Figure 3. Livestock inventory over the period 2007–2012 in AHCRS area.

Figure 2. Livestock number across the three management schemes.

Please cite this article as: Limin, H., et al., An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China, Rangeland Ecology & Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001

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Family Incomes and the Revenue Stream

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From 2007–2012, the gross income from lambs’ sale of households in AHCRS and PRRG under IHCRS and CA was not statistically different (P N 0.05) (Fig. 8). The principal benefit flowed from the reduction in winter feeding costs. The cost for fodder and feed supplements of households in the three areas was not significantly different in 2007 (P N 0.05) (Fig. 8). However, the cost for fodder and feed supplements in AHCRS area was significantly lower (P b 0.05) than the households in PRRG under IHCRS and CA areas (P b 0.05) from 2010–2012 (Fig. 8). From 2011–2012, the net family income in ACHRS area was higher than that in other areas.

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Discussion

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Figure 4. Turn-off rate of lamb in AHCRS, PRRG under IHCRS and CA area from 2007–2012.

9.6 g ● m−2 to 21.6 g ● m−2 while in the PRRG under IHCRS area the increase was from 10.8 g ● m − 2 to 14.9 g ● m −2. This was also the 304 case in the CA area, where the increase was from 10.5 g ● m −2 to 305 14.6 g ● m−2. 306 Rainfall influenced vegetation cover and biomass production 307 (Fig. 6). The cover and average dry matter biomass of palatable forages 308 were significantly different (P b 0.05): AHCRS N PRRG under IHCRS N CA, 309 especially from 2011 to 2012. But the differences in cover and palatable 310 biomass between the PRRG under IHCRS area and PRRG under CA area 311 were not statistically significant. In early spring, the forage biomass is 312 one indicator that reflects the degree of rangeland utilization in winter 313 Q13 (Cui et al., 2009). The average palatable biomass in March in the 314 AHCRS area was significantly higher (P b 0.05) than the PRRG under 315 the IHCRS and CA areas by the fourth and fifth year (Fig. 6). There was 316 a clear response to the lower stocking rate on AHCRS pastures (Figs. 2 317 and 5) but no significant difference in biomass in March in the PRRG 318 under IHCRS and CA areas.

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Plant Community Diversity on the Pasture

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et al., 2005; Yang et al., 2006). The richness index (Margalef Index) of the community diversity in AHCRS increased over the 5 years in all sites, but for different reasons. Initially the differences were less

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The rangeland governance and policy are important for rangeland management. The innovative AHCRS that was adapted for use in Gansu’s agro-pastoral interface zone can help to address the problem of rangeland degradation and establish a more sustainable rangeland system. Family incomes were higher under the AHCRS arrangements despite the reduction in livestock numbers. The AHCRS is a community-based rangeland management system. It has the potential to play a key role in mediating the relationships among the market economy, state policies, and environmental change and serving as a link among individual households, herder communities, states, and markets (Wang and Fernández-Giménez, 2012). In the villages included in our study, before implementation of the AHCRS and the PRRG under IHCRS program, due to the free access to communal grazing area, some households with spare labor raised more livestock than other farmers, exploiting more natural resources and impinging on the forage resources of famers with small herds/flocks. This situation caused the wealth gap in the village and overexploitation of the grazing areas. This made it easier to gain acceptance, on the part of those disadvantaged households, of the reforms proposed under the AHCRS. The total number of livestock dropped significantly by the end of second year to comply with the community rangeland management plan developed under the AHCRS.

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pronounced, but by year 5 the magnitude of the increases in the indexes was AHCRS N PRRG under IHCRS N CA. The Margalef Index and the Shannon Index in the AHCRS were significantly higher than the PRRG under IHCRS and CA by the fourth year (P b 0.05), but there was no difference in the Margalef Index and the Shannon Index in the PRRG and CA areas (Fig. 7).

Figure 5. Flock structure in AHCRS, PRRG under IHCRS and CA area from 2007–2012.

Please cite this article as: Limin, H., et al., An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China, Rangeland Ecology & Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001

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Figure 6. Comparison on (a) the plant cover in August, (b) the average palatable forages biomass in August, and (c) the average palatable forage biomass in March in AHCRS, PRRG under IHCRS and CA areas from 2007–2012. Note: Different lowercase letters indicate the significant difference at 5%. the follow is same.

In the AHCRS area, despite opposition and resistance from those who wanted to raise more livestock, all were persuaded to accept the plan because of the group power. Solving the problem of overgrazing did not rely on administrative directives. In the AHCRS area, the farmers reduced the livestock number from 2007 onwards and adjusted the livestock production pattern to adapt to the changes of rangeland utilization in accordance with the agreed-upon plan. The vegetation community was recovered, and the indexes increased in the CA and PRRG under IHCRS area (Figs. 6 and 7), probably because of better rainfall that favored proliferation of annual and pioneer species. In the AHCRS area, with the improvement of pasture productivity in the following years, the winter pasture provided better nutrition to pregnant ewes and lamb birth weights and survival were higher than those before the implementation of AHCRS. The farmers produced more lambs in spring, which were all sold in autumn (Fig. 5). This reduced the stocking

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rate on winter pasture, improved the turn-off, and generated higher family income. Although farmers living in the PRRG under IHCRS area reduced the overall stocking rate because of government rules, they were unable to get their lambs to slaughter weight by autumn and either had to carry them over and feed them indoors or sell to feedlots before winter at a reduced price. Many switched to wethers that were better able to cope with poor nutrition from winter pasture and from poor-quality roughage. The livestock production pattern in the PRRG under IHCRS area was similar to the CA area, the average stocking rate in the two areas was higher than in the AHCRS area. Although the livestock number in the PRRG under IHCRS area decreased because of government ruling, the stocking rate was only marginally lower than in the CA area. In China, overgrazing is a big challenge to rangeland recovery (Squires et al., 2009). Rangeland degradation in winter pasture is very

Please cite this article as: Limin, H., et al., An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China, Rangeland Ecology & Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001

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serious in NW China because of almost constant grazing pressure and a short return time between defoliations (Harris, 2010; Zhou et al., 2005). Therefore, controlling overgrazing is the key to restore degraded range398 land in agro-pastoral areas in NW China. The HCRS became a national 399 Q17 policy in China in the late 1970s (Longworth and Williamson, 1993) 400 and was progressively extended to the pastoral and agro-pastoral 401 regions in the 1980s. The HCRS initially promoted animal husbandry de402 velopment in the rangeland region in China (Banks, 2003; Feng, 2011). 403 Many families throughout the agro-pastoral regions raised more and 404 more livestock, encouraged by the policy of the HCRS from 1985–2007 405 that permitted privately owned livestock to graze on State-owned 406 land, and livestock inventories rose alarmingly (Squires et al., 2010). 407 Due to lack of the effective rangeland supervision, IHCRS came to be 408 regarded as the one of the driving forces contributing to an overgrazing 409 problem on the rangeland in China (Richard et al., 2006; Yangzong, 410 2006). According to Xu et al. (2012), overgrazing due to poor rangeland 411 management resulted in the severe rangeland degradation in the agro412 pastoral area in 2012 that was higher (42.1%) even than that in drier 413 and more variable pastoral areas (27.3%). Therefore, the primary step 414 for solving the problem of overgrazing in the agro-pastoral area is to 415 establish a sustainable rangeland management regimen (Squires et al., 416 Q18 2010, 2012). 417 The Chinese government regards HCRS as the fundamental tool for 418 Q19 rangeland management in China (Liu et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2010). 419 Years after the rollout of the HCRS, the realization came that the prom420 ised improvement of land stewardship was not evident and that high 421 stocking pressure was causing severe damage (Squires et al., 2010; Li 422 and Huntsinger, 2011). A national scheme was announced, and the gov423 ernment allocated a large amount of funds to the PRRG under IHCRS for 424 erecting fences, believing that better land stewardship would follow if 425 use rights were clearly defined (Wang et al., 2010), livestock on the al426 located land could be managed, trespass grazing could be eliminated, 427 and range improvements could be implemented. A basic requirement 428 in the covenant between the government and the cooperating family 429 was that stock numbers should be reduced. However, because the

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Figure 7. (a) The Margrlef Index and (b) the Shannon Index in AHCRS, PRRG under IHCRS and CA from 2007–2012.

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directive to reduce herd/flock size was made by the PRRG management office, without reference to the land-user community, many livestock owners ignored the directive as they tried their best to make profit quickly (Feng, 2011). The PRRG under IHCRS project has not proved useful to restore rangeland productivity and stability. Elsewhere in NW China, even in pastoral regions, the PRRG project is controversial in terms of rangeland fencing, sustainability, and herders’ livelihoods (Williams, 1996; Dong et al., 2007; Pu et al., 2008; Li and Huntsinger, 2011). There is evidence that it has accelerated the rate of rangeland degradation, at least in some regions (Taylor, 2006; DaLintai and Gaowa, 2010). In the more remote pastoral regions or in most agropastoral regions, it is difficult to supervise livestock reduction schemes and protect rangeland fencing. Monitoring stations within the Animal Husbandry Bureau have insufficient staff and facilities (transport and communication equipment) for rangeland supervision (Liu, 2010). Left unsupervised, herders and farmers did not reduce livestock numbers and the overgrazing problem was not solved by the PRRG project or the IHCRS (Song et al., 2004). Multihousehold rangeland management models in pastoral regions benefited rangeland recovery (Dong et al, 2009; Tian et al., 2009; Cao et al., 2011). Our study showed that allied households can create sustainable grazing systems, because of the larger scale, even in agropastoral areas. In many agro-pastoral zones, small areas of rangeland mean that it is not practical to divide the lands required by IHCRS. The variable weather and the rangeland spatio-temporal heterogeneity determine the flexibility of any grazing system in pastoral or agropastoral regions. Larger scales of operation give more flexibility and allow rest rotation grazing and range improvement measures to be practiced. AHCRS is not a panacea. The way to implement a sustainable rangeland management model mainly depends on many complicated things, environmental and human condition. Existing community structures under any policies should be maintained wherever possible. The community cohesion is the key for rangeland sustainable management in the long term. One of the successes of AHCRS is the willingness of

Please cite this article as: Limin, H., et al., An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China, Rangeland Ecology & Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001

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Figure 8. Comparison on (a) the family incomes from lamb, (b) the cost for fodder and feed supplements, and (c) the net family income of householders in AHCRS, PRRG under IHCRS and CA from 2007–2012.

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The rangeland in the agro-pastoral area was degraded and decertified in northeastern China (Cheng, 1999), and the problem of accelerated rangeland degradation in agro-pastoral land has been

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farmers to work cooperatively and ensure mutual benefit. The families in AHCRS area aggregated their pasture use rights and fenced the perimeter of the pastures to be managed by the group of cooperating families. They reduced livestock numbers on the basis of negotiation inside the community. Usually, the impact of a donor-supported project will diminish when the project finishes. However, in Yongchang County the local county government realized the superiority of the AHCRS model and extended this land management approach within the county after the GEF project was completed in 2010 (Yang, 2010). The families using the AHCRS model have continued to abide by the regulation on their pasture use because they see that they are empowered to exercise better land stewardship and improve their incomes.

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exacerbated by the imposition of new institutional arrangements relating to land tenure and use rights (Williams, 1996; DaLintai and Gaowa, 2010). Although the Chinese government has invested heavily in PRRG and other similar projects since 2000, the overall national overstocking rate was 23% in 2012 but much higher in many locations (MOA 2013). The results of this study offer several benefits to rangeland management. First, by focusing on rangeland management governance rather than simply on technical interventions, ecological objectives and financial goals can be achieved and rangelands restored. The exercise of use rights based on AHCRS was demonstrated as a viable alternative in a typical agro-pastoral area. Policy reform can play an important role in the future of the rangelands. Second, there are benefits from relying on the community instead of outside directives to achieve long-term effects with lower cost. The study relied on community action resulting in democratic decision making, and the project activities that were pursued suited the local situation. Finally, the recovery of rangeland ecosystem should not be at the cost of the households’ livelihood. The land users make efforts to protect their environment but need sustainable livelihoods. A new community-based governance model

Please cite this article as: Limin, H., et al., An Alternative Rangeland Management Strategy in an Agro-Pastoral Area in Western China, Rangeland Ecology & Management (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2015.01.001

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such as AHCRS can help them achieve this goal. The AHCRS model can be extended to other agro-pastoral areas in China and other similar places in the world.

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Acknowledgments

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The authors are grateful to many people in Yong Chang County who have contributed to this project. We thank Dr. Zhongnan Nie, Dr. Weihong Ji, and the anonymous referees for assistance in revising the paper. We also thank the farmers in Mayinggou Village for their support during 2007–2012.

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