After the numerous disturbances among the Tibetan population in China in the year 2008, the Central Government intensified its focus on Tibetan pastoralists.
Under the label ‘Development of Tibetan Areas’, the government designed additional projects to support and help Tibetan pastoralist households. The intention behind these projects was to persuade Tibetan pastoralists of the good will of the government. Additionally, by accelerating the sedentarisation process, the government hoped to obtain better control of the pastoralists who live on the grassland. To reach this goal, a project to supply pastoralist households with houses, preferably in new villages, has been developed, known as the Nomadic Settlement Project, which was introduced in 2009.
Since then, the majority of constructed settlements in the grasslands of the Qinghai province have been built under the title of Nomadic Settlement. The Ecological ResettlementProject implemented earlier, which according to Zeku local government officials in charge of grassland management and settlement constructions should have only affected pastoralists with land along rivers, and the Turning Pastureland into Grassland Project designed to stop erosion and accumulation of mud in the watercourses, which would negatively influence the three major rivers of China, require the households involved to sell all their livestock and resettle. By contrast, the Nomadic Settlement Project was designed to affect the whole county and all remaining pastoralists registered in the grassland. New settlement villages were being built in each township of Zeku County, targeting about 30 percent of the pastoralist population every year. At this rate, within only three years all pastoralists of Zeku County would be involved in the Nomadic SettlementProject. In 2009, each household had to pay 5,000 RMB for their new house, the rest of the costs, ca. 40,000 RMB, being covered by the government. So far, the pastoralists could keep their livestock and land and move only part of the household into the new house,278 which indeed exactly corresponds to the wishes of the majority of my Tibetan pastoralist informants, who want to benefit from a comfortable house without giving up pastureland and livestock. Nevertheless, for the future the government has already made plans that will indeed affect Tibetan pastoralism.
278 A Tibetan member of Zeku County government, responsible for grassland distribution and settlement constructions, interviewed in October 2009.
The whole system of ‘backward’ Tibetan pastoralism is intended to be modernised279, a concept that is likely to mean a focus on rapid fattening of the animals in cattle sheds280, and a restriction on traditional grassland pastoralism.
Furthermore, the Zeku County official admitted that the government is preparing further plans ‘to protect the grassland’ and these will also include
‘protection’ of Tibetan yaks and sheep, i.e. that pastoralists should not be allowed to kill these animals in an uncontrolled manner. The yak and sheep products should then be sold as medicine and organic food to Eastern China.
The Tibetan pastoralists should not be engaged in animal husbandry anymore and instead the government will pay them a financial subsidy. These measures would definitely lead to an extinction of the traditional Tibetan pastoral way of life.281
Figure 44: Nomadic Settlement construction site near Zeku County town, October 2009
279 AD XII.
280Construction of animal sheds has recently become part of various governmental modernisation programs. Together with fencing, house constructions and grass planting, it is included, for example, in the new Set of Four (Chin: 四配套) program of the 11th Five-Year Plan, which was completed in 2010. (AD XIII: 8).
281 A Tibetan member of Zeku County government, responsible for grassland distribution and settlement constructions, interviewed in October 2009.
Figure 45: Nomadic Settlement near Zeku County town, October 2009
Figure 46: Nomadic Settlement in Duofudun Township seat, October 2009
As mentioned above in chapter Five, the implementation of Nomadic Settlement also varies between different townships and counties. In some places, the pastoralists are allowed to build their houses by themselves near the winter grassland or a selected village spot with a governmental allowance. In Zeku County the government is in charge of construction of all Nomadic Settlement houses and placed contracts with companies from Qinghai and even Chongqing (see figure 44) to implement the construction.
At the beginning of the implementation of the Nomadic Settlement Project, the affected pastoralists were not allowed to choose the location of their new house.
In 2009, all houses were built as uniform settlements situated near previously existing administrative centres or at least close to a road (see figures 45 and 46), to ensure easy access for the construction materials and workers. At the end of the first implementation year, the houses were still under construction and mostly uninhabited. For the pastoralists, it is in fact advantageous to own a house near a town for example, in cases where there are children of school attending age. Poor households with not enough livestock to secure their living also take the opportunity of moving into town and hope to find an alternative source of income to animal husbandry. In the majority of the cases, however, the small towns do not offer enough employment possibilities and the pastoralists do not possess sufficient skills and experience in other sectors beyond animal husbandry. There are no free vocational training courses offered by the government and the Nomadic Settlement Project does not provide a financial subsidy to its participants in contrast to the participants of the Turning Pastureland into Grassland or Ecological Resettlement Projects. To secure their living in the settlement, the pastoralists have to rely on their savings or income from caterpillar fungus collection. If more cash is needed, they work as drivers or at state construction sites in the area, where they can earn about 50-100 RMB per day.
After two years of project implementation, the Tibetan pastoralists in Zeku County announced their disgust with the local implementation of the Nomadic Settlement Project and requested the possibility of constructing these new houses on their winter pasture. The county government finally agreed, and since 2011 it has also been possible in Zeku County to choose between a house
in a new village or near the original pastureland (see figure 48). Another type of house construction currently within the Nomadic Settlement Project in Zeku County are two-storey houses along the streets of the Zeku County administrative centre, which offer the pastoralists the possibility of starting a business or opening up a shop an the ground floor level. However, the majority of these shops situated next to each other offer the same selection of sweets, drinks and small utility items and the local demand for such items cannot cover the increasing offer. All new houses constructed in Zeku County since 2010 within the Nomadic Settlement Project, no matter whether they are in a settlement, near the pastoralists’ grassland or in town, are easy to distinguish as these are clearly labelled as such by a small plate on each door (see figure 47).
Figure 47: Door sign on houses constructed within the Nomadic Settlement Project, Zeku County, November 2011
The price the pastoralists have to pay for the new house has also increased from the original 5,000 RMB required in 2009 to 18,000-20,000 RMB per house. Although the government allowed the construction of new houses in the winter grassland area in 2011, in the same year it closed down all small primary schools that used to be a part of each community. This measure is
officially intended to improve the level of education, but now all children must attend school in often quite distant townships or county seats from the very first grade. For this reason, although the pastoralists now have the choice of building the new house on their pasture, being forced to bring the children to school results in them often opting for the house in town.
Figure 48: New house constructed within the Nomadic Settlement Project on individual pastures next to the old house, Zeku County, November 2011
Despite some negative aspects of the sedentarisation measure, the pastoralists do find ways of making the greatest advantage out of this policy. These methods are sometimes in contrevenance of state regulations, but in the majority of cases the officials in charge do not police the regulations very carefully or simply ignore these activities. The houses obtained through the Nomadic Settlement Project serve increasingly as a business asset. Being purchased for a relatively low price, they can be sold again for double or even more, which convinces many pastoral households with sufficient livestock and good-quality grassland to apply for a new house in an urban area. There are now households which posses several of these houses, each registered to different family members, who use one of them for living and rent or sell the
others. The buyers are mainly households with a pastoral background that because of their work are registered in town and therefore have no right to obtain a house within the governmental sedentarisation projects. These people want to own a house in the township of their origin and the new settlement houses are the easiest way to do so. Now it is the turn of the officials to react to the recent developments and either adapt the policy to fit the current situation or to make use of the abuse of sedentarisation projects to introduce further restrictions against the pastoral way of life.