General Situation

Natural grassland in China covers an area of 393 million hectares, taking up approximately 41.7% of the national territory. It is about three times of the arable land and over two times of woodland. Among them, 331 million hectares are grassland available for human use, accounting for 84.3% of the total. The grassland of Tibet Autonomous Region is the largest in terms of administrative division of around 82.05 million hectares, registering 68.1% of the land area of the Region. The area of grassland available for human use of the Region is about 70.85 million ha. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region ranks the second with natural grassland area of 78.8 million ha, taking up 68.8% of the land area of the Region. The area of grassland available for human use of the Region is about 63.59 million ha. Besides, 5 provinces (autonomous regions) of Xinjiang, Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan boast the area of grassland exceeding 15 million ha, while other 6 provinces (autonomous regions) of Guangxi, Heilongjiang, Hunan, Hubei, Jilin and Shaanxi had grassland area ranging between 1~5 million ha.

Plague of Insect Pests and Rats  In 2005, the total grassland area subject to insect pests and rats across mainland China reached around 38 million ha with 21.333 million of which seriously damaged. The area of so-called "rat plagued wasteland" or "black-soil-patch" damaged by rats for years amounted 8 million ha, accounting for 2.87% of the total area of usable grassland of 13 provinces suffering from frequent plague of rats. Under the initiative of the Rat Plague Free Demonstration Zone Construction Project, the area undergoing prevention and treatment stood at 6.658 million ha, saving 599 million yuan of estimated economic losses for pasture along.

A total area of 18.667 million ha of grassland was plagued by insects in 2005 in China, accounting for 6.69% of the total area of usable grassland of 13 provinces with frequent plague of rats, among which 12.667 million ha suffered from the damage by grassland locust. The insect plague was especially severe in such provinces as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu. Throughout the whole year, relevant insect prevention and control work was carried out over 2.843 million ha of land, saving 254 million yuan of economic losses. The implementation of the project of restoring pasture to grassland had remarkably upgraded the ecological vegetation of the grassland. Together with enhanced efforts in insect prevention and control over the previous years, all the measures having taken had added up to the notable shrinking of the area of grassland insect plague in 2005.

Grassland Productivity and Pasture Deterioration  Grassland productivity across China in 2005 basically tallied with that of the previous year. The production volume of fresh grass from natural grassland totaled 937.84 million tons, equaling to around 294.21 million tons of hay. The capacity for raising livestock was about 230.31 million sheep unit. Judged from the overall situation, all natural grassland across China suffered from different degree of overgrazing except for the ecological construction project areas. The average overgrazing level on natural grassland in 17 major monitoring provinces and autonomous regions stood at 35% with Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Gansu and Sichuan over 40%.

Presently, 90% of the available natural grasslands of China experienced various degrees of degradation, and the trend that ecological environment was improved at local level while the overall situation was deteriorating had not been changed. The underlying reasons for accelerated grassland degradation were as the follows: first, the trend of overgrazing had not been curbed fundamentally; second, grassland damages resulted from irrational development, industrial pollution, plague of insect pests and rats; third, illegal and reckless collection and digging of herbs or other commercial plants happened from time to time.

Pasture Production Situation of Major Grassland Areas

Grassland Fire and Snow Disasters  In 2005, there were altogether 566 grassland fires across mainland China. Among them, 499 arose warnings, 63 were general grassland fires, 3 big grassland fires and 1 very big grassland fire disaster. A total of 53416.36 ha of grassland were subject to fires with no human casualty. Both the number of very big grassland fire disasters and the corresponding damaged area remained at a rather low historical level. Compared with the same period of the previous year, the number of grassland fire disasters grew by 77, up by 15.75%; very big ones dropped by 1, down by 25%; and the areas subject to the disasters increased 28291.66 ha, representing 112.6% growth.

According to incomplete statistics, during the period of 2005 winter and 2006 spring, 5 provinces including Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu and Tibet experienced snow disasters, affecting over 22.96 million livestock. As a result, 904,500 cattle or sheep died from these disasters, causing the direct economic losses of 150 million yuan.

Countermeasures and Actions

【Implementing the project of restoring pasture to grassland】In 2005, the central budget allocated altogether 1.881 billion yuan on projects of restoring pasture to grassland covering a construction area of 6.6667 million ha with the reseeding over 2 million ha of grassland. The projects covered four major areas including the degraded grassland in eastern Inner Mongolia, the desert-like grassland area at the western part of Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Ningxia, the river source grassland area in the eastern part of Tibet Plateau and the degraded grassland in northern Xinjiang stretching over 8 provinces and autonomous regions of Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang as well as 116 counties (banners or corps) of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. By the end of December of 2005, the construction work of these projects proceeded smoothly as per the implementation schedule of the project of restoring pasture to grassland. Throughout the year of 2005, over 6 million ha of construction or fencing work had been completed. As indicated by the results of monitoring and performance assessment of more than 20 representative counties conducting the projects selected among the 5 provinces and autonomous regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Sichuan and Ningxia, the vegetation in the areas undergoing the projects of restoring pasture to grassland had evident recovery, and pasture yield grew by 46%.

【Grassland Protection and Development】With further improvement of grassland family contract operation system, China had altogether implemented the system over 200 million ha of grassland, registering 70% of the total area of usable grassland. The move had effectively mobilized the enthusiasm of farmers and herdsmen in grassland protection and construction. It was estimated that the accumulated reserves area of grass planting surpassed 27 million ha, the area of grassland with fencing exceeded 33 million ha, while the area undergoing grazing prohibition was over 33 million ha. The production mode of pasturing and semi-pasturing area featuring the dependence on natural grassland pasturing gradually transformed with the replacement of natural grassland pasturing by pen feeding and rearing of more than 20 million livestock. In some places, the operation of pasture industrilization was vigorously promoted and consequently led to the production of over 2 million tons of dry grass products, thus enhancing the sustainable development of stockbreeding on grassland.

【Grassland Legislation and Law Enforcement】In addressing the issue of overloading and overgrazing on grassland and in light of the Grassland Law of the People's Republic of China , the Ministry of Agriculture developed the Measures on the Administration of the Balance between Grassland and Livestock, which was effected on March 1 of 2005. The Ministry also issued the Circular on Further Strengthening the Supervision on Grassland in coping with some prominent problems such as the illegal damaging activities of grassland in some areas, making an overall plan for the supervision and management work of grassland across China. In order to protect the resources of liquorices and Chinese ephedra, the Ministry of Agriculture and NDRC jointly released the Circular on Issuing the Plan for the Collection and Procurement of Liquorices and Chinese Ephedra in 2005. In addition, in cooperation with NPC Agricultural and Rural Area Committee, the Ministry also carried out site investigations on the enforcement of the Grassland Law of the People's Republic of China in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan and other provinces and autonomous regions to further promote the implementation and enforcement of the Law.