By Trevor Sofield*
Last year I took off for two and a half months in China to teach at Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou. In May/June I joined a project team to assess development of Altai Prefecture in northern Xinjiang Province which is northwest of the Gobi Desert, along the border with Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia.
Progress on the Plan we had formulated in 2005/2006 was excellent, about 90% completed. This included establishment of a new 10,500 sq km National Park covering the forests and alpine meadows of the Altai Mountains - probably the world’s newest largest national park - the participation of the Tuwa semi-nomadic pastoralists in the development, and the preservation of their traditional villages and amazing cantilever log bridges.
They leave their wintering-over log cabins each Spring and head up into the mountains with half a million head of cattle, camels, horses, sheep and goats, following an ancient migration trail they have used for over 1000 years. With the area being opened up for tourism their empty cabins have become an income-earning resource that they can let to entrepreneurs for up to six months as tourist accommodation. The Tuwa have no desire whatsoever to become ‘hoteliers’ so it is not ‘home-stay’ in the usual sense: the dwellings are authentic, but the hosts are outsiders. However, the Tuwa welcome horse-riding treks with them up into the mountains where you can stay in their traditional yurts and feast on mare’s milk and eat lamb three times a day!
The continued grazing of their herds in the high alpine valleys are essential to maintain the ecosystem that has evolved. Without the annual migration the meadows would revert to conifer forests with a cascading impact on the carnivores (snow leopards, bears, jackals, lynx) that prey on the grass feeders such as deer, hares, and pika (a small rodent related to the rabbit), and other meadow animals and birds, with attendant insects and flowers which would all disappear.
Thus, unlike western parks where people and domesticated herds are incompatible, the overall health of the Altai alpine ecosystem requires interdependence with the Tuwa and their flocks of sheep and goats, and herds of horses, cattle and camels.
Dr. Trevor Sofield is former Foundation Professor of Tourism at the University of Tasmania and a Research Professor of Tourism at Sun Yat Sen University, Guangzhou, China in the Center for Tourism Planning and Research.