SINO-AUSTRALIAN WORKSHOP

Qinghai Province is one of the four largest pastoral regions in China. The total area of grassland in the province is around 36.44 million ha, taking 50.60% of the total land area in the province. 31.61 million ha grassland are the utilizable grassland out of the total grassland area, which distributed mainly in south Qinghai alpine region, around Qinghai Lake region, and Chaidamu Basin. To the end of 2004, the total sown grassland area in the province reached to 1.5 million ha, and total fenced grassland area 3.65 million ha. The province has a population of 5.3 million people, out of which 800,000 are Tibetan and Mongolian herdsmen depending on grazing livestock on natural grassland to make a living. However, as the rapid increase of human population and increasing demands on livestock products, the natural grassland is under heavy utilization, plus other natural factors like global climate change, grassland degradation became a serious problem, and the productivity of natural grassland decreased by 30-50% in the province. At present, it is estimated that there are 16.33 million ha natural grassland are reckoned as medium or severely degraded grassland, taking 51.67% of the utilizable grassland, out of which, 4.35 million ha belong to severely degraded and 11.97 million ha belong to medium degraded grassland. The degraded grassland is mainly distributed in the Three River Region in south Qinghai. Grassland degradation is intensifying a series of environmental problems, such as water erosion, land desertification, disappearance of wetland, and loss of biodiversity, and so on. All above-mentioned problems not only have a serious influence on the pastoral economy and stability of society of the province, but also threaten the sustained development of socio-economy of the down-stream areas of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and the Lancangjiang River. Therefore, how to protect the grassland ecosystem and achieve sustained utilization of grassland resource has become a question which should addressed urgently, in order to ensure harmonious development of economy and environment, as well as smooth progress of civilization and society.