Corralling the nomads

China has more species of plants than any other country except Brazil or Columbia. Its faunal diversity is remarkable as well; it has more than 2000 species of terrestrial vertebrates, not to mention uncounted fish and invertebrate species. One reason for this high species diversity is China's great variety of ecosystems, ranging from wet to dry, coastal to continental and lowland to alpine. About half of the species found in China are found nowhere else on the planet, and many are rare. With assistance, advice and funding from Western NGOs, the Beijing government has set aside over 2400 nature reserves, resulting in some level of protection for more than 15 percent of its territory.

Although its record of reserve-based biodiversity conservation is striking, Beijing's approach to the conservation of living natural resources outside reserves is less impressive. Pressures for economic development often eclipse complex ecological and cultural factors. This is especially true on the Tibetan plateau, where China's political agenda collides with a complex and vulnerable ecological and cultural landscape. The Tibetan highlands constitute the world's largest, highest and youngest plateau. Because the plateau is situated at the junction of two continental plates, it hosts representatives of two of the world's major floras, which evolved separately and came together only fairly recently in geological time. The ecological influence of the plateau extends far beyond its borders, because it is upstream of two-fifths of the world's population and contains the headwaters of several of Asia's major rivers. Geographically, the plateau comprises not only the Tibetan Autonomous Region but parts of Nepal, India and Bhutan, as well as several parts of China: all of Qinghai province and parts of Sichuan, Gansu and Xinjiang provinces.