Research On Land Policy Management In Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Based On Different Perspectives And Perceptions

Arid and semi-arid land degradation is a long-standing environmental,economic,and social problem,and is a major focus of research and policy experimentation.Globally,arid and semi-arid regions are geographically and ecologically complex,economically depressed,and socially marginalised.China has made major advances in land degradation prevention,particularly in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region,which is the first provincial-level administrative unit that has achieved "retreat of the sand and advance of people".Chapter 1 lays out the case for viewing drylands as a system.It argues that existing regulatory frameworks set out to assess land systematically,but literature points to significant shortcomings in the implementation of that approach.The importance of accounting for different perspectives and divergent perceptions of land conditions has been suggested.Existing literature shows significant contradictions in the reported state of the land in Ningxia,which raises the question of whether perceptive differences might contribute to the contradictory reports of grasslands conditions in NingxiaChapter 2 explains how this thesis examines the process in place for monitoring the health of grasslands in Ningxia,using two locations-Taole and Tongxin-as case studies.Taking a multidisciplinary perspective,the employed methods integrate quantitative as well as qualitative approaches.Key document and literature analysis is supplemented with weather data analysis,interviews,participant observation,and pile-sorting and multidimensional scaling analysis of the pile-sorting dataAfter assessing the administrative grassland management and monitoring system through the village,township,county,to the provincial level,Chapter 3 evaluates the reporting mechanism and finds it to be increasingly comprehensive but highly vegetation focused.These reports show that both research areas are exhibiting increases in overall vegetation cover and amount of biomass,and the biodiversity and other quality indicators of the vegetation are also increasing.It also concludes that socioeconomic information is not included in reporting,and the reporting mechanism provides aggregated data for upward reporting which then cannot be effectively used to analyse local trends.In Chapter 4 the climatic conditions in the two study sites are evaluated.Judging from the year-on-year fluctuation of precipitation,both are right on the cusp between equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems.This implies that the two sites are unlikely to respond to grazing and tilling pressure reduction with a direct permanent increase in grassland biomass.Both are also experiencing an increase in mean annual temperatures and decreasing annual total precipitation,neither of which bode well for a lush vegetation covering the areas in the long term.These conclusions challenge the applicability of the current land use policy,which is focused on reducing pressure on the land system,and further question whether the current monitoring efforts are adequate and appropriate.In the context of available grassland health monitoring reports and regional climate analysis,an ethnoecological examination of local perspectives and perceptions of land dynamics in Chapter 5 reveals a surprising divergence between two communities in Tongxin and Taole.The community in Taole that has engaged in the greening of the desert,reports a view of land dynamics that largely accord with the monitoring reports.Meanwhile the community in Tongxin for which land degradation prevention has constrained farming and grazing opportunities reports neither land degradation nor a subsequent recovery.This difference in perceptions is confirmed using a pile-sort and multidimensional scaling.Thus it appears that in these case studies local perceptions of land dynamics correspond to the monitoring results in the community where land degradation policies have offered opportunities,while the community that has been curtailed socioeconomically by land degradation prevention does not perceive the problem or the solutionThis dissertation concludes that the current grassland health monitoring system in Ningxia is reductionist,synthesises information for upward reporting with limited local applicability,and fails to assess land as a system.This limits the usefulness of the monitoring results,and prevents a thorough examination of the interactions between climatic,socioeconomic,and ecological factors that drive land dynamics.Despite the limitations,the reporting results are not automatically contradicted by local perceptions.Instead,the community that is engaged rather than constrained by land degradation prevention agenda aligns its perceptions with the monitoring reports.This implies that further development of grasslands monitoring system should cover a wider range of indicators and be more self-reflective.More importantly,local engagement in the program is needed if the monitoring data and local perceptions of land dynamics are to coincide.