The Mountains Are Changing
Mountain Adventure Tourism Alleviates Poverty in Communities on the Frontline of Climate Change. But, Tamzin Asks: at What Cost to Local Culture?
I always feel a sense of calm come over me when I’m around horses.
When I was a kid my family didn’t have much money, and we moved house several times around the countryside of Wales and the west of England. Between the age of nine and sixteen I lived miles away from the nearest shop, and would entertain myself by walking or riding my bike along the country roads. It was in this way that I got to know the horses in my local area and later, the stable workers who cared for them. I mucked out the fields and barns in exchange for free rides, and would volunteer at riding schools and racetracks. It’s fair to say horses were a pillar of consistency in what was at times a pretty turbulent childhood.
So it’s no wonder I was in a state of zen while heading back into Siguniang Town, after a 26km hike on the high-altitude grasslands of Haizi Valley in Western Sichuan. Descending the long, straight village road, I saw horses everywhere I looked. Well fed and glossy, they walked freely among the traffic, grazed by the roadside and poked their heads into the windows of shops and restaurants. Strong, old villagers trudged along with huge bundles of grass on their backs, and in the front gardens of stone cottages lining the road, horses were being brushed, tacked or shod.
The hard graft of animal husbandry goes back generations here. Siguniang Shan, the ‘Four Sisters Mountains,’ were historically populated by nomadic herders and farmers of the Tibetan and Qiang ethnic groups. But the focus on horses is a recent phenomenon: since the area opened to visitors in 2002, local employment has shifted from subsistence industries to hospitality, in a government drive to “improve the natural environment and contribute to economic prosperity.” (Fang, Y. 2009) Since then, these horses have been bred for transporting visitors and their luggage over the area’s challenging terrain.
People of all ages were taking part. For about 20 minutes I walked beside a boy in his late teens who was leading a sturdy chestnut mare back into town for the night. Dressed in jeans, t-shirt and a baseball cap he greeted everyone he saw, and would often shake hands, share a joke or be slapped on the back by passersby. Predictably, watching him with the horse sent my mind back to my own life at a similar age. Did he enjoy being responsible for the large yet sensitive animal beside him, as I had? Did it give him a sense of pride and belonging? I wouldn’t know, but I could tell from his body language that he cared about the mare— that can’t be faked. She was frightened of cars, and each time one passed he would guide her into an alleyway or front garden. Sometimes the yards had people working in them, who got startled by the pair barging in. But the boy took no notice, focusing instead on shielding the horse with his body, speaking softly to her until the car had passed.
Like rural areas around the world, swathes of the Chinese countryside have suffered abandonment by the young. With local produce unable to compete with industrialised agriculture, the youth have little choice but to move to towns and cities for work, leaving an ageing population behind. This is particularly prominent in mountainous regions, which make up 67% of China’s surface area. Climate change makes a return to poverty more likely for rural residents, especially those in ‘ecologically vulnerable’ situations, such as living close to melting glaciers or dependant on heat-sensitive crops. (Li, Q et al. 2022)
But the Four Sisters Mountains are sometimes held up as an example of Mountain Adventure Tourism’s potential to revitalise an area. Young people are provided both free schooling and university grants in nearby Dujiangyan, as well as being prioritised for jobs in the local tourism sector to incentivise their return. This focus on 扶贫 fúpín, poverty alleviation, is representative of the approach taken throughout China’s vast, new National Park System, known colloquially as ‘Protected Areas with Chinese Characteristics.’ (Obermann, K. 2020)
Arriving at the town’s outskirts, I slumped down exhausted beside an old stupa overlooking the central strip of restaurants and hotels. The boy and his horse continued noisily on, clopping and jangling out of sight. Sitting on some steps downhill from me was an old Tibetan lady with thick plaits, a beautifully embroidered blue apron and impressive reflective sunglasses. Pulling corncobs from a jute sack and peeling them to dry in the strong sun, she looked perfectly at home among the stone, Tibetan-style cottages surrounding her. But she’s likely been here longer than they have. The houses were provided by the Scenic Administration, who replaced the previous mud houses in order to provide a more ‘traditional’ aesthetic for tourists. Local residents are said to have responded positively to the new amenities in surveys. Ironically, one 37 year-old respondent said he liked the new houses because “now we can use the television and air conditioner, like (people) in the city.” (Pu et al. 2021)
As has often been the case during China’s economic rise, these changes in living standards come with a cultural price. Locals have reported that the time-consuming struggle of accommodating tourists has made it harder to teach children the local dialect, or to practice the unique guozhuang bonfire dance. This has been reinforced by the fact that tourists come here mostly to admire the mountains, unlike other ‘culturally rich’ regions of the Tibetan Plateau where cultural preservation is incentivised. Watching the Tibetan woman, I couldn’t possibly know all the complex ways these changes had affected her personally. But I also couldn’t help but feel uplifted when she looked up from her corncobs to smile at the teenage boy with his horse, who had stopped in front of her for a chat. Despite the losses, there’s no denying that keeping the economic heart of an area beating— and the young people around— is a lifeline for the older generation.
As climate change continues to destabilise mountain regions around the world through glacier loss, crop failure and natural disasters, it is the most cash-poor, ageing and isolated communities that will suffer the most. Therefore, state interventions that both alleviate poverty and strengthen local communities are an essential building block for climate resilience.
Sources:
Fang, Y (2008) Ecotourism in Western Sichuan, China, International MountainSociety
Foggin, J.M. And Yuan, C (2020) Promoting Conservation and Community Development Through Ecotourism: Experien6ces From Valued Conservation Landscapes on the Tibetan Plateau, Bishkek.
Li, Q et al (2022) Impact of Climate Change on Rural Poverty Vulnerability from an Income Source Perspective: A Study Based on CHIPS2013 and County-Level Temperature Data in China, doi.org
Obermann, K (2020) China’s Attempt to Create the World’s Largest National Park System, from Conservation China, The China Project
Pu et al, (2021), Local Residents’ Perception of the Impacts of Mountain Adventure Tourism: The Case of Siguniangshan Mountain Range, Tibet, Sichuan University, Chengdu.