Introduction

The rangelands of the Tibetan Plateau in China are one of the world’s great grazing land ecosystems. Stretching for almost 2600km from west to east and 1200 km from south to north, and encompassing about three million square kilometres, the region is one of the largest and most important pastoral areas on earth. Most of the area is above 3000 m and the climate is too cold and arid to support cultivated agriculture or forests. These grazing lands are one of the world’s most extreme environments and one of the harshest pastoral areas on earth still used extensively by nomadic pastoralists. Rangeland types are varied and include the lush, alpine meadows in the east, semi-arid shrublands in Central Tibet, alpine steppes in northern Tibet and western Qinghai Province, and cold, dry deserts in northwestern Tibet. These different rangelands display a diverse assemblage of plant communities, wildlife species, and nomadic pastoral production systems. Some of the rangelands in northern Tibet also represent one of the last great examples of temperate grassland ecosystems relatively undisturbed by man.

Slide A1: Alpine steppe rangeland and Tibetan nomads’ yak hair tents near Nyima, Tibetan Autonomous Region at about 4700m. Vegetation is dominated by grasses of the genus, Stipa. Nomads here in western Tibet raise primarily sheep and goats – a cashmere producing goat.