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For the last several decades, China’s leaders have grappled with a challenging conservation dilemma. Home to some of the world’s most endangered species, the country has scrambled to set up nature reserves and parks to temper the effects of rapid economic development. But these reserves often put a halt to regional development. And they are usually established in regions that are already lagging economically to begin with. Add to this the typically weak management and top-down decision-making, and China’s reserves become little more than lines on a map.
The Mount Tomur Nature Reserve in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is a case in point. Home to glaciers, forests, grasslands, and prized endangered species such as the snow leopard, Xinjiang swan, and Saker falcon, the Reserve has been the focus of many government conservation efforts since its establishment in 1980. But while reserve status allocates additional government funding to the region, local Uygurs living within and around the reserve have been largely left out of these activities.
During a recent field investigation trip to the region, a team of researchers from the Xinjiang Conservation Fund (XCF) found that only a small fraction of area residents were even aware of the region’s protected status. “We asked every household if they had heard of the Tomur Reserve,” recalls project officer Ge Yun. “Even though they are living in and with it, they did not know that such a reserve exists.” This is largely because of poor outreach and management, Ge explains. “In all of the settlements we visited, we did not see one poster, magazine, pamphlet, or book explaining the reserve to local people.”
Such information gaps mean that the Mount Tomur Reserve achieves little real protection. But XCF, like civil society organizations around China, is beginning to change this picture. Established in 2001, the group is “dedicated to the conservation of Xinjiang” and carries out activities such as investigations on species habitat, poaching, and the illegal wildlife trade; environmental education initiatives with universities; and research, publishing, and forums to enhance public awareness of conservation and wildlife protection.
Unlike its counterparts in the government, XCF’s efforts begin with the local people. Recent field investigations took researchers to Xinjiang for a month to research wildlife and interview people living in the Reserve. The team lived with and shared meals with the residents and conducted interviews with over 60 households.
By involving local people directly in the process, China’s emergent civil society is changing how conservation itself is viewed. Describing the recent field investigation trip, Ge recalls seeing a large herd of lambs at one cluster of homes. “We bent down to pet their soft wool and thought it was so wonderful to see so many healthy animals,” she recalls. But after further investigation, they learned that the lambs were all orphaned and were being hand-fed cow’s milk because their parents had not survived in the harsh environment. “This is why you have to enter the herder’s homes,” she explains. “From the outside everything looks fine, but from the inside you realize that they have nothing. No adult goats. No schools. No hospitals.” Effective conservation of the region, Ge observes, will only be achieved when these issues are taken into account.
This participatory approach is not unlike that used by academics in the social sciences, says Astrid Cerny, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington in Seattle who has spent several years in Xinjiang. It is about “understanding what someone else’s ‘normal’ is”—once felt and experienced, villagers’ problems become more tangible.
Ge Yun recalls sleeping on a table for five days at one site because there were no extra beds. “There’s a lot of hardship that the locals live with, and we were able to experience it with them while we were doing the research,” she explains. “But we also experience the greatness of life through their eyes. They are such warm, good people.” On average, she says, Xinjiang residents make less than 1,000 RMB (US$120) per year. But they still made the effort to boil eggs—their most prized food item—for her and her colleagues because they were guests.
Inherent in the participatory approach to field work is an appreciation for the immense challenges of a place, as well as a respect for the integrity of a different approach to life. Astrid Cerny recalls her years living with the Kazakh nomads of Xinjiang as a time of doing without many possessions: “We had no shower, no vegetables, no electricity, no lots of things.” But despite these hardships, she describes her time as an “intense, wonderful experience” and concludes that, “the world is a better place because we have nomads.”
Such interactions are changing the face of China’s development in subtle but profound ways, as people who never would have crossed paths historically are given opportunities to enter each other’s worlds and strive for mutual understanding. “Sharing food every day up in the mountains with the villagers put our conservation work into perspective,” says Ge, who explains that XCF’s approach has evolved from a focus solely on wildlife protection, to a goal of community-based conservation. “We used to be focused on the leopards and the falcons, and we saw the villagers as threats,” she says. But living with the villagers allowed the research team to understand the role that the local people could play.
This shift is crucial in a society that is traditionally very top down, says Cerny. “Because we assume things about working in poor regions that we have no way of knowing, we take things for granted that shouldn’t be taken for granted,” she says. Both Cerny and Ge agree that finding meaningful solutions begins with listening to the villagers. Describing workshops in Tomur Reserve aimed at gathering local input on the area’s needs, Ge says villagers were “hesitant at first,” feeling that they did not have the expertise to solve the region’s problems. “But once they started talking,” she recalls, “they had a lot of ideas and suggestions to share. And afterwards they told us how inspiring the workshop was. They are always told what to do. No one ever asks for their opinions. So they felt very empowered.”
Armed with insights from participatory approaches to research, Chinese NGO’s such as XCF are able to be much more effective than traditional top-down regulatory initiatives. This is particularly important in conservation, where local people’s lack of appropriate livelihoods is often the greatest threat to a region’s protection. By developing alternative economic activities, providing schools and health care, and finding ways that local people can engage in and even benefit from the conservation process, groups like XCF are able to help make local people part of the solution instead of the problem.
The work is also incredibly rewarding for the staff of these organizations. Ge Yun says that although XCF is small and the work is extremely demanding, she still feels it is “worthwhile and rewarding” because she can see progress. “You can dream of a better world, and then work to bring that dream into reality. People are passionate about what they do, and they do things creatively. It’s not work for the sake of work, it’s something bigger.”
Lila Buckley is assistant executive director of the Global Environmental Institute, a Worldwatch affiliate based in Beijing. Outside contributions to China Watch reflect the views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Worldwatch Institute.
China Watch is a joint initiative of the Worldwatch Institute and Beijing-based Global Environmental Institute (GEI) and is supported by the blue moon fund.
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