End of Nomadism?

(Complementary to the Land Reform post)

The Cambridge-based "Environmental and Cultural Conservation in Inner Asia" (ECCIA) project aimed to evaluate the different institutions and their influence on the pastoral economy in Russia, China and Mongolia. The summary of results was given by Sneath in the Science Journal and the book of Humphrey and Sneath with all details was published soon after that.

The grassland environment of Inner Asia, which is an area "seven times the size of Germany" is shared between the three countries. The utilization patterns based on different institutions are dissimilar. While the Mongolians were mobile pastoralists (nomads) mostly living in tents and moving around to different pastures, the Russians had agricultural collectives, which operated with heavy machinery and the Chinese created People's Communes in the 1950s, collectivizing the pastoralists.

Satellite images were used to evaluate pasture degradation in different administrations regimes and show that there is much more degradation on the Russian side of the grassland than on the Mongolian side. Reports also compare 75% pasture degradation in China to only 9% in Mongolia. The conclusions of these findings point to the benefits of mobile systems of pastoral land use. Mobile pastoralism, which has its roots in nomadism, is actually the most sustainable, efficient and well-coordinated pastoral method and is compatible with many different social and economic systems.

In "Revisiting the Commons", Ostrom uses Sneath's article as an illustration of how "both government ownership and privatization are themselves subject to failure in some instances". The Mongolian case is the positive example of traditional small group resource management and the Chinese administration has recognized its merits, implementing institutional changes which would allow more sustainable pastoral land use.