Factors influencing the grazing management styles of settled herders: a case study of Nagqu County, Tibetan Plateau, China

The implementation of pasture contracting policies in the Tibetan Plateau has been of widespread concern in the scientific community and related government departments. Studying the effects of the implementation of pasture contracting policies will help us understand herders’ attitudes toward those policies and to amend existing policies effectively. This paper analyzes 135 herder families’ grazing management behavior using participatory rural appraisal (PRA), quantitative analysis and a Logistic regression model in three townships of Nagqu County in remote areas of the Tibetan Plateau, China. The results show that the herders have become settled and are no longer nomadic, so the settlement project has basically been completed and the policy of contracting for grazing rights is being gradually implemented in Nagqu County. Since the grazing rights and pastures were under contract, group-based management has been widely accepted in this area, which helps the herders deal with constraints, such as limited pasture area, a small grazing radius, controlled family animal husbandry and an uneven distribution of water. The herders that have more family members available for labor, higher proportion of family members with good health, and higher income from animal husbandry tend to choose household-based management. Herders tend to choose group-based management when higher quality winter pastures are available.