Vanishing Nomads of Tibet

Vanishing Nomads of Tibet
by Tsering Tsomo

Published in Border Affairs
Vol. 12 No. 1, Oct-Dec. 2010
www.borderaffairs.com
The full article can be read on the author's blog .

In 1930s Iran, many Kurdish and Lurid nomads were forced by government order to resettle as farmers in newly erected villages so that the itinerant nomads could be watched and controlled. This forced settlement took place from 1920s through 1960s. The number of nomads decreased considerably during this period. By 1970s, the government was actively �encouraging�, not �enforcing� settlement. [Anne Whyte, Economic Geography, Vol. 53, No. 4, The Human Face of Desertification]

So Beijing was not alone when they resettled the Mongol nomads in Inner Mongolia and the Kazak nomads in Xinjiang from 1986 to 1997. In a dress rehearsal of sorts for the current resettlement of Tibetan nomads, Beijing has since the 1980s introduced fencing around pastures restricting nomads� mobility that is indispensable to traditional methods of grazing and grassland conservation. But having a historical precedent should not be a justification to repeat the same mistakes. Rather it should serve as a warning for future planners in formulating sound humanistic policies.

Resettling of Tibetan nomads in nondescript urban towns began in the 1990s and continues to this day.

Beijing says it is just doing its bit to protect Tibet�s sprawling grasslands and blames the nomads for overgrazing their herds and for causing grassland degradation. Interestingly, large � scale environmental destruction through collectivization, logging, and mining that defined Beijing�s management of Tibetan land and resources since 1949 is not discussed in this primarily state-driven discourse on grassland degradation.

For instance, thanks to China, between 1950 and 1985, Tibet�s forest was reduced from 25.2 million hectares to 13.57 million hectares.

The sheer scale of the project, which aims at relocating all 2.25 million Tibetan nomads in fixed dwellings � la lowland Chinese farmers, has raised concerns not only over the ecology of the Tibetan plateau but the cultural identity of the Tibetan nomads who have lived there for centuries. Activist John Isom of Tibet Justice Center has said that China is �causing a cultural genocide by removing people from the livelihood they have known for millennia and sticking them in concrete walls they have never lived in before.� Diane Barker who has documented the Tibetan community in photographs has said the nomads are the �repository of original Tibetan culture�.

Beijing�s climate change rationale has so far deterred a shriller opposition to this state-sponsored remaking of a culture and a traditionally sustainable livelihood. The other sanctimonious spin of Beijing-led grassland degradation discourse is the poverty alleviation claim, that the nomads are too �backward� and �unscientific� and that they need help in managing their life, land and resources, in effect, denying the nomads their most primal right to choose for themselves the life they want.

To read the rest of the article, please visit the author's blog.