Pastoral Strategy in the Remote Inner Mongolian Steppe

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  • 内モンゴル遠隔地草原における牧畜戦略
  • ウチモンゴル エンカクチ ソウゲン ニ オケル ボクチク センリャク

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Abstract

<p>This article examines the pastoral strategy of Mongolian pastoralists living in the Inner Mongolian remote steppe, where pastures were privatized in the 1980’s coinciding with the privatization of livestock. While their houses became stationary, they could make use of their new freedom to dispose of their livestock for the market economy. As a result, pastoralists in Inner Mongolia became affluent in the 1990’s. Especially, it was applied to those living in the Shiliingol League, in which a large pasture area had been assigned to pastoralist households.</p> <p>However, the situation around pastoralists has changed. Spatially, the pasture area of the Mongolian Plateau has been divided into suburban and remote areas. According to the author’s research, suburban areas emerged after the year 2000, with global investment pouring into the Mongolian Plateau. While such huge sums of money enabled much infrastructure and many markets, it was limited to cities and areas along major roads, and excluded vast pastoral areas that lay away from them.</p> <p>As a result, pastoralists from (northern) Mongolia with not so much livestock gathered in suburban areas, where they could sell more kinds of livestock products at higher prices than in remote areas. At the same time, given the higher density of population and livestock, pastoralists in suburban areas could not survive without less livestock and more sources of income. Also, after 2000, pastoralists emerged in suburban areas of Inner Mongolia who earned their living with less land for pasture and more sources of income, thanks to the policy of the central Chinese government to facilitate global investment in minority areas.</p> <p>The emergence of suburban areas has influenced pastoralism in remote areas. In Mongolia, after 2000, the minimum number of livestock to be kept by pastoralists in remote areas grew as their essential items also increased in number. The pastoralists chose to increase their herd size in order to be able to purchase new essential items, as they could only sell a limited number of livestock products, such as live animals and cashmere. Therefore, poorer pastoralists moved to suburban areas.</p> <p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.) </p>

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