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Tibetan Pastoralists’ Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Political Ecology Analysis of Snowstorm Coping Capacity

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Abstract

Severe snowstorms on the Tibetan Plateau, which lead to large-scale loss of livestock, are projected to increase in intensity and frequency with climate change. At the same time, political-economic and institutional changes from the 1950s to the present have altered pastoralists’ ability to use various coping strategies. We take a political ecology approach to Tibetan pastoralists’ vulnerability to climate change by qualitatively analyzing how the efficacy of strategies of mobility, communal pooling, storage, and covering and sheltering livestock have been transformed over time in Nagchu, Tibet. Recent government projects have focused on emergency aid and providing shelters. However, these are less effective than mobility and less important than the availability of labor power. Mobility and labor power have been reduced by development and environmental policies, as well as by larger political-economic transformations. These transformations have shifted herders’ coping strategies from internal to external, increasing their reliance upon the state.

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Notes

  1. The information presented in this section is based on government reports (in Chinese) compiled in Naqu diqu jiushiniandai sanci kangxuezai douzheng ziliao huibian (Compiled materials on the three struggles against snow) disasters in Nagchu Prefecture in the 1990s) by the Nagchu Prefectural Party Committee, December 2000.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NSF SBE-0624315. We thank the many Tibetan herders in Nagchu who took the time to share their experiences and insights with us.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Emily T. Yeh

  2. The Faculty of Social Development and Western China Development Studies, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

    Yonten Nyima

  3. Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Kelly A. Hopping

  4. Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Julia A. Klein

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  1. Emily T. Yeh
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Correspondence to Emily T. Yeh.

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Yeh, E.T., Nyima, Y., Hopping, K.A. et al. Tibetan Pastoralists’ Vulnerability to Climate Change: A Political Ecology Analysis of Snowstorm Coping Capacity. Hum Ecol 42, 61–74 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9625-5

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