Cultural Survival And Ecological Protection - The Yangtze River Source Of Tang Heung, For Example

As ecological protection has gradually become a global trend, China's ecological protection regions in geographic sense have been overlapped with those minority areas which belong to the traditional field of anthropologic research. The practice over the years has proved that the protection measures which separate the ecological environment from local culture have yielded no satisfying results. This paper is based on the anthropologic research conducted in Tangxiang, the small-sized pastoral community also the first township at the source of the Changjiang River by means of ethnical records on the status of local herdsmen in high-altitude grassland ecological environment, the influences of local natural environment on local people and social organizations, the interactions between man and the ecological environment and the influences of national construction and economic development on local people and the environment etc. The paper testifies that the deterioration of local ecological environment is not merely attributed to the restrictions arising from economic development and such natural factors as the increasingly warm global climate. The negligence of local people's initiatives and the impact on even the breakage of the cultural chain between man and the prairie ecological environment also play major roles. Nowadays, when increasingly enhancing the ecological protection, we shall not continue to neglect local culture and local people's initiatives as well as their cultural adaptability to the ecological environment. Environmental protection for its own sake will only lead to gloomy prospects and sterile results.Through research and analysis of natural environment, the production and life of herdsmen, and their interrelations, the author thinks that the gradual deterioration of local ecological environment is directly related to the impacts on local culture of the nomad Tibetans. Between man and nature, their relationship is not merely a utilitarian one featuring in dependence and snatch. Their cultural relationship is also in existence. Those people living in the specific environment have coordinated themselves with local environment by means of their century-old cultural ideologies and behaviors.When this cultural relationship is endangered or even severed by the influences of outside cultures, the deterioration of ecological environment and the threats to the existence of local culture are both inevitable.The ecological protection should not only take the wildlife habitation into consideration but also focus attention on the prairie grassland ecological environment which is the basis of the pastoral society. The cultural existence does not merely refer to the costumes similar to Han costumes, the weakening language use and the mental confusions and so on. It should also embrace the production pattern and the lifestyle harmonious with the environment, which has been developed for generations.When researching the relationship between man and environment, we should pay close attention to the fact behind the deterioration of local ecological environment-the break of culture relationship between man and environment. In the relevant research of the relationship between man and environment, we should stress the importance of local cultural existence and point out the consequence of negligence of local people's initiatives by reflection of national construction and economic development. We shall discard the ecology-oriented and man-oriented ideologies amid the rising tide of environmental protection, focusing on the adaptability of local people to local ecological environment, so as to blaze a new trail to sustainable and harmonious development among ecology, economy and culture based on local people's initiatives.The paper results from applicable research. During the process of survey and writing, the author has employed such methods as interviews in depth of anthropology, participant observation, video records, comparative research and comprehensive analysis etc.The purpose of this research...