Restoring China’s Grasslands

Summary

This brochure is focused on an ACIAR-funded farming-systems project that aims to improve the incomes of poor farmers in the China grasslands, while simultaneously tackling environmental issues of global concern. The grasslands in China are used to graze cattle, sheep, goats and yaks, and are diverse environments that range from the high-altitude seasonally frozen plains of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau to the low-altitude steppes of Inner Mongolia. An estimated 40 million people in northern and western China, in some of the world’s more impoverished communities, rely directly on these grazing lands for survival. About 80% of China’s grasslands are considered degraded to some degree.