Abstract
In contrast to agricultural settings, the process of urbanization in the pastoral regions of China are largely driven by long-term influences of ecological conservation and the provision of social services. Consequently, many of the herders who have migrated into nearby secondary urban centers depend on resources from pastoral regions to support their livelihoods, forming complex patterns of rural–urban linkages. While current literature has discussed the processes of herder out-migration and their implications on rural and urban livelihood development, few studies have examined the linkages between the herders living in the pastoral regions and those who have out-migrated to urban regions and their importance in rural livelihood transformation. Based on past studies, we argue that, in a changing pastoral social–ecological system, herders living in both rural and urban regions depend on each other to support their livelihoods through three types of mobility: (1) livestock mobility, (2) herder mobility, and (3) resource mobility. However, what innovative institutions in rangeland resource management and herder economic cooperation can do to help maintain these three types of mobility to sustain rural livelihood development, becomes a critical challenge. Innovative community cooperative institutions developed by pastoral communities from the Tibetan Plateau and Inner Mongolia may be able to offer new perspective and insight on how to better maintain rural–urban linkages in the processes of urbanization in pastoral regions. In this current study will present the two cases of innovative institutions and the roles they play in facilitating the three types of mobility to address livelihood challenges. While current studies recommend an increase of government subsidies, provision of vocational training, and social insurance that help herders better adapt to urban livelihood, we argue that rangeland management and community economic cooperation in innovative institutions are needed to facilitate the mobility of livestock, resources, and the herder population, and maybe only then the livelihood challenges that migrated herders are facing will be addressed effectively.
Highlights
Rangelands cover 400 million ha, accounting for 41.7% of China’s total territory, among which 3/4 of the rangelands are distributed mainly in China’s west regions (MOA, 2014)
We proposed an operational framework in this paper that frames the linkages between herders living in pastoral regions and those living in urban regions within three types of mobilities, including livestock mobility, herder mobility, and resource mobility
How these three types of mobilities are maintained becomes a critical challenge for rangeland management institutions, as it requires institutions operating across multiple scales to rebuild cooperation and collective action between the herders living in rural pastoral regions and those living in urban areas
Summary
Rangelands cover 400 million ha, accounting for 41.7% of China’s total territory, among which 3/4 of the rangelands are distributed mainly in China’s west regions (MOA, 2014). The pastoral communities have applied hybrids of informal customary rules and formal market-based institutions to restore community cooperation over the management of rangeland resources and participation in marketization, while redefining the networks and distribution of benefits and rights among individual herders We believe that these self-reorganized institutional innovations provide an interesting perspective on how pastoral communities have evolved and changed through processes of urbanization to rebuild institutions that could maintain or restore livestock mobility, herder mobility, and resource mobility between herders living in rural regions and those being out-migrated in urban regions. We are still earning income from our grazing lands as we did before under the rangeland rental system, but with better care and higher income.” As this herder has stated, we believe that this herder cooperative management system demonstrates innovative community-based institutions that stimulate the improvement of livestock production, herder livelihood, and rangeland ecosystem while protecting the individual rights and benefits of herders living in pastoral regions or those who choose to migrate to urban regions. The grazing quota system helps herders control the livestock numbers while not undermining livestock production efficiency so that rangeland degradation is not observed (Gongbuzeren, 2019)
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