Dancing with Yaks

• Project
• Pictures

Project:

The rangelands of the Tibetan Plateau in western China are one of the world's great grazing land ecosystems. Encompassing an area of about 2.5 million square km (about one third the size of the continental USA), the Tibetan Plateau comprises one quarter of China's total land area. Over 80 percent of the land area is above 3000m and half of the plateau is over 4500m in elevation. In the east, annual precipitation is about 700 mm but falls to about 100 mm in the west. The growing season is short and winter temperatures often reach minus 30 C. As such, the plateau is an extremely harsh environment and in many areas too cold and arid to support cultivated agriculture of forests. Rangelands dominate the landscape of the Tibetan Plateau.

The fact that many of the grazing lands on the Tibetan Plateau have supported nomadic pastoralism for thousands of years while sustaining a unique flora and fauna underlies the existence of a productive and remarkably resilient rangeland ecosystem of which, unfortunately, little is known. Some of the Tibetan rangelands also represent one of the last examples on earth of a grazing land ecosystem relatively undisturbed by mankind.

Tibetan rangelands are complex environments and appear to function as highly dynamic ecosystems. Across much of the Tibetan Plateau there is large variations in annual rainfall and forage production. Periodic severe winter snowstorms add to the dynamic nature of the ecosystem and present special challenges for survival of wildlife and nomads and their livestock.

The rangelands of the Tibetan plateau, especially in the west, provide habitats for a wide variety of wildlife including: wild yak, Tibetan wild ass, Tibetan antelope, Tibetan gazelle, Tibetan argali, blue sheep, wolves, brown bear and snow leopard. Some of these species are among the least known wildlife species in the world and a number of them are endangered.

Tibetan nomads, who have been grazing livestock on the plateau for thousands of years, maintain milking and non-milking herds of yaks, sheep, and goats. Here, in what is undoubtedly the harshest pastoral area on earth, Tibetan nomads still thrive. The endurance of nomadic pastoralism in Tibet provides examples of nomadic practices that were once widespread throughout the pastoral world, but are now increasingly harder to find. As such, Tibetan nomads offer a rare chance to learn more about a remarkable way of life that is quickly disappearing from the earth.

Daniel J. Miller, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Animal Production in the Institute of Melbourne School of Land and Environment, is conducting research on rangeland dynamics, wildlife and nomadic production systems on the Tibetan Plateau for a dissertation. Fresh perspectives emerging about non-equilibrial ecosystem dynamics in pastoral areas and new concepts about plant successional processes provide interesting frameworks for analysing Tibetan rangelands. Exploring the relevance of these new ideas could have important implications for the management of Tibetan pastoral areas. Wildlife are an important part of the ecology of Tibetan rangelands in many areas.

Daniel is looking at new ideas in metapopulation dynamics and stochastic models to help explain the ecology of Tibetan wildlife, especially the wild yak which is a keystone specis on the Tibetan plateau. Nomads and their livestock are also an important part of the Tibetan rangeland ecosystem and Daniel, who speaks Tibetan, is conducting research among Tibetan nomads in order to better understand their pastoral production system.

Improved understanding of rangeland and wildlife ecology and Tibetan nomads' practices should help resolve wildlife-livestock conflicts in national parks and reserves, thereby conserving Tibet's biodiversity. Results from Daniel's research should also assist authorities and nomads to develop more sustainable approaches to the management of these rangelands on the "Roof of the World" that are coming under increasing pressures from the modernization process sweeping across China.

Pictures:

1. Tibetan rangelands and domestic yaks grazing at 15,000 feet.
2. Wild yak bull in the Chang Tang Wildlife Reserve, Tibetan Autonomous Region, China.
3. Tibetan wild ass in the Chang Tang Wildlife Reserve, Tibetan Autonomous Region, China.
4. Tibetan antelope in the Kunlun Mountains, Qinghai Province, China.
5. Mountains and plains (at 15,000 feet) in the Chang Tang Wildlife Reserve, Tibetan Autonomous Region, China with a herd of blue sheep on the slope of the bottom of the photo.
6. Blue sheep (a wild sheep-goat found on the Tibetan Plateau).
7. Daniel J. Miller with skull of a Tibetan argali (a species of wild sheep).
8. Tibetan nomad woman milking a yak.
9. Tibetan nomad tents and yaks in summer grazing lands in near Aba, northwest Sichuan Province, China.
10. Tibetan nomad tent and yaks tied up for milking near Hongyuan, northwest Sichuan Province, China.
11. Tibetan nomad tents and summer grazing lands in Qinghai Province, China.
12. Tibetan nomands moving their yaks to another pasture.
13. A yak caravan on the Tibetan plains at 15,000 feet near Damxung in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, China.
14. Flock of domestic sheep and rangeland at 16,000 feet in the Chang Tang Wildlife Reserve, Tibetan Autonomous Region, China.

• Research at ILFR
• Institute of Melbourne School of Land and Environment