The Effects Of Different Grazing Modes On Grassland Of Degradation On The Qinghai Tibeten Plateau

The Qinghai-Tibet plateau, known as the roof of the world, is critically important to the world’s ecological security.. In recent years, due to various reasons the grassland on the plateau has seriously degraded, which has already threatened local ecological balance, biodiversity protection and economic development of animal husbandry. Maqu of Gannan Tibetan prefecture, Gansu province is located on the eastern edge of Qinghai-Tibet plateau, where lies the headwater of the Yellow River. The headwater of the Yellow River is the important area for water conservation and recharge, it also plays a role in the maintenance of ecological security in the middle and lower reaches of the. Similar to other places on the plateau, the grassland in Maqu is also facing serious degradation problems.For thousands of years, cattle husbandry in Maqu has always been nomadic. However, since1995, grassland contract system has been implemented in the whole county. Thereafter, two forms of grazing mode, i.e., large scale grazing (multi-household management) and small scale grazing (single-household management), arise due to various factors, such as the distance to water, kinship etc. From the literature review, many researchers only focused on overgrazing and climate change when they tried to explore the drives of grassland degradation in Maqu. However, the effects of two different grazing modes on grassland degradation need to be deeply studies.Through a large number of field investigations and field experiments, we did a in-depth study on the possible effects of grassland contract system on the grassland degradation in Maqu. The main results are as follows:1. The grassland degradation in some parts of the county was probably caused by climate change and over grazing. However, on the whole, the grassland contract system is the main driving force for the grassland degradation in Maqu.2. The large scale multi-household management is better for the formation and update of heterogeneous habitats that provide conditions for the survival of different species and slow down grassland degradation. While the small scale single-household management is apt to induce grassland degradation. And as time goes by, the difference between small scale management and large scale management will become more significant.3. At present, the scale of multi-household management is still not large enough to keep the grass species diversity balance and avoid the deterioration of grassland degradation in Maqu. 4. In the multi-household management. the Game model of endogenous system can be described as pure strategy Nash equilibrium model and Mixed strategy Nash equilibrium model. In the multi-household management, in the premise of clearly established ownership, herders will consciously abide by the contract through making reasonable livestock limit agreement and reasonable effective punishment system and compensation system. In doing so. all parties in the game will change from irrational competitors to rational cooperators, which can avoid "tragedy of the commons".5. By this case study, it is feasible to expand the scale of multi-household when external and internal conditions are met. Through the propaganda and promotion of the government and scholars, the herders should be encouraged to form large scale management spontaneously. The establishment of the reasonable livestock limit agreement and compensation to the herders for carrying out the livestock limit agreement will possibly promote the formation of a larger scale multi-household management.Given all the results mentioned above, we highly recommend that large scale multi-household grassland management should be promoted and popularized in Maqu and other places similar to Maqu on the plateau so that win-win mode of economic development and protection of grassland can be realized in the future.