Shengtai 生态

Introduction

In Chinese official discourse, ecology (shengtai 生态), also known as ‘ecological civilization’ (生态文明), is a national program that calls for more sustainable development to combat environmental problems. Critics have pointed out that the program prioritizes economic growth and relies heavily on technology to address threats to the environment. In Xinjiang, the program has, since 2012, become the theoretical justification behind policies leading to the systematic dispossession of ethnic minority herders. This bibliography offers examples of state researchers and grassland scientists promoting sedentarization (定居) of the herders, grazing prohibition (禁牧休牧), and eco-tourism development as solutions for grassland degradation in the region. Under the ideological framework of ‘ecological civilization,’ the Chinese authorities are increasing state control over mobile pastoral people and their lands in Xinjiang.

State programs to sedentarize mobile pastoral people through the modernization of animal husbandry, collective farming, and urban development began as early as 1950. This process hastened significantly after 2002, when the authorities combined the construction of “new villages” (新农村) and the “returning pasture to grassland” (退牧还草) policy to accelerate the sedentarization of herders. In November 2012, the Chinese Communist Party initiated the “Construction of Ecological Civilization” (生态文明建设), emphasizing “eco-efficiency” in economic, political, and societal developments. The science- and technology-intensive ecological rehabilitation projects deemed mobile pastoralism as an unscientific and backward production model to be abandoned, and pastoral lands as overgrazed and ecologically fragile. The dominating discourse of ecological conservation in grassland policies in Xinjiang led to the intensification of sedentarization and grazing prohibitions. In 2018, the state banned herders from grazing 38.5% of Xinjiang’s territory (460,000 sq km), forcing them to adjust by practicing animal husbandry in fenced allotments, learning agricultural techniques, or seeking jobs in urban Han-dominated areas where they struggled to compete with Han immigrants due to language and cultural barriers.

Keywords: 定居 sedentarization, 禁牧休牧 grazing prohibition and rest, 退牧还草 returning pasture to grassland, eco-tourism, 生态文明建设 construction of ecological civilization, 新农村 new villages.