The Tibetan plateau constitutes the world's vastest high-altitude
rangeland. It has featured a unique pastoralist culture where, based on
yak and sheep production, on complex exchange systems with agricultural
areas and the lowlands, and in the context of ever-changing political
conditions, pastoralists developed livelihood systems that helped them
adapt not only to the harsh environmental conditions, but also to the
ever-changing political and economic trends. The 20th century, most
prominently the plateau's ever closer integration into the Chinese
state, has brought profound changes to pastoral Tibetans. It has opened
the plateau to the influence of a wide array of policies directed at
'developing', modernizing, and recently urbanizing the Tibetan pastoral
areas. It has also connected even the remotest community to the booming
Chinese markets and - indirectly - the world market. Pastoral
communities, thus, are being opened up to new economic opportunities,
exposed to new risks and integrated into increasingly complex commodity
chains. Local consequences of climate change, the demographic
transition, new lifestyles and consumption patterns, and new forms of
wealth/poverty and social polarization further complicate the picture.
The present volume discusses the question of possible futures of Tibetan
pastoralism. Taking a perspective informed by the 'Sustainable
Livelihood' approach, it presents a selection of current perspectives on
these recent transformations and on their specific impact on local
pastoral livelihoods on the ground. Its fifteen chapters, written by
Tibetan, Han Chinese and Western scholars from the social and
environmental sciences, offer field-work based local case studies that
illustrate the complex roles of the (Chinese) state, of (new) markets,
and of rangeland resources in the making of both the present and the
future of the plateau's pastoral livelihoods.
