Studies on Long-term Changes in Herders Household and Land Use in Inner Mongolia, China

The arable land, artificial pastures, and enclosed grassland are widespread in Inner Mongolia, China from 1978. In this study, we observed and evaluated long-term changes in land use associated with Land reform movement during the period of 1947 to 2012 in Inner Mongolia. We interviewed 158 families of one village in 2012. Results indicate that, based on the history of arable land establishment, it is necessary to achieve improvement of arable land productivity, to improve people livelihoods. The development of irrigation facilities is one possible approach. Another approach is to return abandoned non-irrigated land to pasture land. This will protect hilly areas used for grazing utilization and reduce cultivation area which is distributed to each family. Support from Germany has enhanced agricultural productivity and ecological environment recovery, and also to the Grain for Green project and forestation. This also includes prohibition of grazing and aid in development of irrigation facilities. It is difficult to maintain herder’s life based on low productivity agriculture in arid areas without grazing. As policies change, rural development should consider natural environmental conditions of grazing areas, traditional culture, customs, and religious aspects

Grazing Behavior of Livestock in Settled and Nomadic Herders Households in Mongolian Plateau

In this study, we investigated the effects of settled grazing in Inner Mongolia and traditional nomadic grazing in Mongolia on grazing behavior of livestock using GPS satellite tracking. In summer of 2011 and 2012, we fitted GPS loggers to sheep and goats to quantify the behavior of livestock in Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia. We discovered that the mean grazing velocity (km/h) of sheep in Inner Mongolia was 0.65 ± 0.07 (km/h) and in Mongolia was 0.54 ± 0.30 (km/h). The result indicated a higher grazing velocity and longer moving distance of sheep in Inner Mongolia than that in Mongolia. However, the grazing area of the sheep in Inner Mongolia was smaller than that in Mongolia. The grazing area in Inner Mongolia was 214.88 ± 149.73 (ha/day) and 246.03 ± 197.36 (ha/day) in Mongolia. This may be a result of limited area due to the presence of fences in Inner Mongolia. We also calculated vegetation volume (height (cm) × coverage (%)) of each plant species. The vegetation survey showed that the mean volume of palatable species in Inner Mongolia was 87.5 ± 174.9 and 106.1 ± 202.6 in Mongolia. Therefore livestock have to spend more time grazing, increasing their step rate and moving longer distances. These results indicate that fencing associated with the settlement system of Inner Mongolia has created a new hot spot of land degradation and a new source of Asian dust storm outbreaks