Traces 08
on September 23, 2014
Farmland. Guide, Qinghai, China. 2014
In the 1970s, the communal system of open pastoral grazing that had existed for centuries on the Tibetan plateau began to change. Grasslands began to deteriorate. Around the same time, economic reforms led to the privatization of formerly communal lands. Fencing altered the grazing patterns herders had used to move their livestock over the fragile landscape. Confined to smaller areas, the animals overgrazed, further damaging the grasslands.
