Balancing Biodiversity and Natural Resource Protection Objective with Ethnic Minority Autonomy: A Chinese Model

Abstract

This Article focuses on the regulation of ethnic minority hunting and gathering practices and the awareness of local officials of ethnic minority concerns relating to biodiversity in two ethnic minority regions of China, i.e. Yunnan Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Yunnan and Inner Mongolia have many ethnic minorities who have historically engaged in various practices utilizing natural resources currently considered under threat and are now regulated or proscribed by natural resource and biodiversity conservation law. Yunnan, which is technically not a designated autonomous region (having only autonomous prefectures and counties) under the Constitution, has mountainous areas where local ethnic minority groups continue to engage in hunting and gathering activities for subsistence and as part of their cultural practices. Many of these activities however occur in prefecture/county level autonomous areas where ethnic minorities are concentrated, such as Chuxiong autonomous prefecture. Inner Mongolia was the first autonomous region established by the PRC after the Communist Party came into power in 1949. The studied Inner Mongolian minority group, the Oroqen ethnic group, is well-known for its hunting and gathering practices and can serve as a good case to study how a typical hunting ethnic minority group has evolved and coped with flora and fauna and biodiversity protection efforts by the national and regional governments. This Article explores how the two governments have dealt with ethnic minority hunting and gathering practices in their efforts to reach a required balance between economic development and conservation. It argues that despite the relative success of the centralized approach to resource management, government and officials have not used their autonomous authority to mitigate any of these problems despite being aware of the impact the policies have had on minorities and local people. This lack of use of autonomous authority suggests that additional opportunities to improve policy outcomes could be improved and/or reduced hardship could be achieved. For this Article, the Authors traveled to the relevant areas and conducted semi-structured interviews during 2016–2018 with local people working on natural resources and biodiversity policy and implementation in Yunnan and Inner Mongolia. Interviewees included government officials, local ethnic minority users, enforcement staff and academics. Questions focused on the roles of interviewees and their organizations in the crafting of biodiversity policy, regulatory policies and management implementation. All interviews were conducted in person using Chinese. In analyzing data, the Authors looked for patterns in interviewee’s attitudes toward ethnic minorities, regulatory design, and management implementation as it related to conservation, natural resource use, and biodiversity.