Politics of deflection, climate change, and contested narratives of land degradation in eastern Tibet

Since the late 1980s, Indigenous Tibetan pastoralists and their animals have been characterized as vandals of their ancestral land in Chinese state development policies. This portrayal is largely based on the narrative of overgrazing leading to land degradation. Another emerging narrative, discussed mainly in natural science publications and increasingly mentioned in Chinese policy documents, attributes land degradation to global climate change. Drawing on longitudinal ethnographic research conducted with Indigenous Tibetan pastoralists in eastern Tibet – focusing on their interpretations of land degradation – this article argues that a comprehensive and equitable analysis of human impact on land degradation in the Tibetan Plateau must consider the specific histories and ongoing practices stemming from state-led environmental policies since the 1960s. The article presents a broader conceptual argument about how externally imposed narratives of land degradation function as a means for the Chinese state to deflect responsibility for their actions, either by blaming Tibetan pastoralists or attributing any forms of land degradation to the apolitical and universal concept of climate change.