UN to China: Suspend the non-voluntary resettlement of nomadic herders from their traditional lands/ENG

2012. február 1./CTA/TibetPress

Geneva: 31 January 2012 – The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter called on China to suspend the non-voluntary resettlement of Tibetan nomadic herders from their traditional lands.
 
He urged China to “allow for meaningful consultations to take place with the affected communities, permitting parties to examine all available options, including recent strategies of sustainable management of marginal pastures.”

The report said China must improve employment opportunities, education and health services in “new socialist” villages, in order to enable the realization of the right to adequate food of all resettled rural habitants.
 
The nomads and herders have to give up “herding and farming revenues, and consequently losing economic independence”. This results in loss of land, limited ability to keep livestock, relocation in areas unsuitable to agriculture, and generally a disruption of traditional patterns of livelihood.
 
The report expressed concern on the lack of job opportunities in the “new socialist” villages or have been filled by new migrant (Chinese) labourers moving in. The living cost of the relocated herders increased as the “new socialist” villages were near urban areas.
 
The resettlement policy conducted in the Tibet Autonomous Region has expanded to non-herders, and is also aimed at relocating a majority of the Tibetan rural population into newly built concentrated settlements under “Comfortable Housing” policy.
 
Between 50 and 80 per cent of the 2.25 million nomads on the Tibetan plateau were relocated in 2010. In Sichuan, the provincial government said that about 80 per cent of its October 2008 objective was met. By the end of 2012, it plans to resettle another 470,000 nomads in the province.
 
Tibet Autonomous Region government reported that it has relocated 1.43 million people (300,000 families) and plan for another 185,500 families (about 880,000 people) to move into new homes by 2013 according to a Xinhua news report date 16 January 2011.
 
In March 2011, the Qinghai province authorities reported that they had built 46,000 settlements between 2009 and 2010, and planned to build 25,000 more for 134,000 families.
 
As early as 1998, according to Xinhua News Agency, 18 March 1998, Qi Jingfa, the vice-minister of agriculture was reported as saying that all herdsmen were expected to end the nomadic life by the end of the century.
 
One of the reasons given by the Chinese authorities for the resettlement policy has been overgrazing of the grassland. However, the report states that “climate change is most probably the main driver of environmental changes on the Tibetan plateau, mining is another driver of land degradation in some areas.”
 
The report highlights that sometimes herders may be put in a situation where they have no other option than to accept the standing offer from the State to buy out their remaining herd, after being affected by natural disasters or when debts accumulate.
 
China is a signatory of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is prohibited from depriving any individual from its means of subsistence. Further the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) acknowledges the importance of indigenous communities as guarantors and protectors of biodiversity.
 
The Special Rapporteur asked the Chinese authorities to invest in rehabilitating pasture, and to support the remaining nomads with rural extension. The potential of livestock insurance programmes should also be explored, as tested successfully in Mongolia. Such programmes, which pay nomads to restock and recover after a major disaster, encourage nomads to keep herds at a much smaller scale, in effect replacing the ―insurance‖ against disaster traditionally provided by the sheer size of larger herds.
 
The Report will be debated during the forthcoming UN Human Rights Council Session in Geneva. The Special Rapporteur visited China in December 2010.