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Understanding Land Use, Livelihoods, and Health Transitions among Tibetan Nomads: A Case from Gangga Township, Dingri County, Tibetan Autonomous Region of China

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Abstract

Tibetan nomads in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China have experienced profound transitions in recent decades with important implications for land use, livelihoods, and health development. The change from being traditional nomads to agropastoralists engaged in permanent agriculture, a sedentary village life (known as “sedentarization”), has been associated with a remarkable change in diet and lifestyle, decline in spatial mobility, increase in food production, and emerging infectious and noncommunicable diseases. The overarching response of the government has been to emphasize infrastructure and technological solutions. The local adaptation strategies of Tibetan nomads through maintaining balanced mobile herding, reindeer husbandry, as well as off-farm labor and trade could address both the cause of environmental degradation and improve the well-being of local people. Drawing on transdisciplinary, preliminary field work in Gangga Township of Dingri County in the foothills of Mt. Everest, we identify pertinent linkages between land use and health, and spatial and temporal mismatch of livelihoods and health care services, in the transition to sedentary village life. We suggest emerging imperatives in Ecohealth to help restore Tibetan livelihoods in transition to a sedentary lifestyle.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. The work was part of the Ecohealth project undertaken by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Kathmandu, Nepal. The authors express their thanks to the other team members for joint field work, including: Dunzhu from the Tibet Traditional Medical College of Tibet University; Chunfang, Naqiong, Dejiquzhen, and Wu Yujiang from the Tibet Academy of Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Sciences; and Nidun and Dawa from the Agriculture and Livestock Bureau of Dingri County, TAR, China. This article was vastly improved by comments from two anonymous reviewers and professional editing from Greta Rana.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. World Agroforestry Centre, China Program, c/o Kunming Institute of Botany, Kunming, Yunnan, 650204, China

    Jianchu Xu

  2. International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Jianchu Xu, Rita Sharma & Jing Fang

  3. Tibet Academy of Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Sciences, Lhasa, China

    Yong Yang & Nyima Tashi

  4. Yunnan Institute of Environmental Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China

    Zhuoqing Li

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  1. Jianchu Xu
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  2. Yong Yang
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  3. Zhuoqing Li
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  4. Nyima Tashi
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  5. Rita Sharma
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  6. Jing Fang
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Correspondence to Jianchu Xu.

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Xu, J., Yang, Y., Li, Z. et al. Understanding Land Use, Livelihoods, and Health Transitions among Tibetan Nomads: A Case from Gangga Township, Dingri County, Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. EcoHealth 5, 104–114 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-008-0173-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-008-0173-1

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