| PUBLISHED RESEARCH CERS regularly publishes its research results in both academic and specialized journals. Of note are several papers in Oryx, a distinguished wildlife journal at Cambridge UK, and many scholastic pieces in publications of the Academia Sinica. There are also internally published monographs, like a major study to the history, architecture and current status of 18 Tibetan monasteries in the Kham region. Select reports of ongoing scientific research are compiled, though not for public circulation. |
TEA, TRADE AND TRANSPORT IN THE SINO-TIBETAN BORDERLANDS
Patrick Booz
Chengdu, Sichuan - September 2010
CERS has provided a three-year grant for Patrick Booz to conduct
travel and research, with the ultimate aim of a book manuscript.
The focus of my study is the tea trade between China and Tibet as it functioned in the circumscribed yet complex geographic, ethnic and political area between Ya’an and Kangding in western Sichuan and East Tibet.
Tea has been central to Tibetan social and economic life for over a thousand years. Proverbially considered one of the “four pillars of life” – tsampa, meat, salt and tea – tea is the only traditional staple of the Tibetans which has had to be imported. By the 19th century over 80 percent of all the tea imported onto the Tibetan plateau – which supplied markets as far away as Ladakh and Bhutan – came from just five tea-producing counties in the Ya’an area of Sichuan, and all of it passed through the entrepôt of Kangding/Dartsedo, from whence it was dispatched by caravan to all parts of the Tibetan plateau. This thesis examines the functioning of the Ya’an-Kangding Sino-Tibetan tea trade during the turbulent late-Qing and Republican periods, and sheds light on the often overlooked practical dimensions of Sino-Tibetan relations in the borderlands of Sichuan province.
A GLOBALLY IMPORTANT WILD YAK BOS MUTUS POPULATION
IN THE ARJINSHAN NATURE RESERVE, XINJIANG, CHINA
Paul J. Buzzard, Hui Bin Zhang, Dong Hua Xu, Wong How Man
Cambridge Journals Online - ORYX The International Journal of Conservation - August 2010
The wild yak Bos mutus is one of the most charismatic members of the Tibet/Qinghai Plateau fauna, and 19th century explorers to the plateau described vast herds. Overhunting, in particular, has greatly reduced wild yak populations and forced them into remote areas. The species is categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and as a Class 1 protected animal in China. Introgression with domestic yaks is another threat, and the wild yak population of the Arjinshan Nature Reserve is particularly important because Uigher herders in and around Arjinshan do not have the tradition of raising yaks. We provide infor- mation on the status of the wild yak in Arjinshan based on observations in 1993 and on vehicle surveys during 1998– 2009 and point samples from 2009. The steppes of north- east Arjinshan are the most important area, and we saw c. 1,700 yaks there in winter 2008. We saw more yaks in the north-east on similar routes driven in winter 2008 compared to winter 2005, suggesting that the wild yak population in Arjinshan is stable or increasing.
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