Word: grasslands
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Notes of culture clash ring everywhere I wander in the vast construction zones that by the end of this year will turn a pristine stretch of virgin forest and grassland into one of the world's largest nickel-extraction sites. On the palm-fringed coast of Basamuk Bay, where the Ramu refinery will be situated, a chatty Beijing-born building engineer tells me that before the Chinese arrived, "the natives were completely uncivilized and running around almost naked." I voice my doubts, telling him that I've just talked to a nearby villager who described a PowerPoint presentation she recently...
...throwing sunblock, insect repellent and a T shirt or two into your bag. But if you're headed to Khao Yai National Park, the country's oldest nature reserve, there's one more advisable piece of gear: a Stetson hat. Three hours' drive northeast of Bangkok, this forest and grassland plateau counts as Thailand's cowboy country. Locals work the nearby ranches, occasionally dressed in Wild West outfits likely inspired by American soldiers who passed through during R&R from the Vietnam...
Nearly 20 years on, the crisis is far from over. Eight hundred thousand acres (2 million hectares) of grassland continue to turn into desert every year, and climate change, bringing yet more drought to dry land, hasn't helped. Still, if there hasn't been sweeping progress, there has been -for better and for worse - a lot of action. Beijing has sunk millions of dollars into the effort to stop the advance of the desert and has set up a system of laws to manage the land from afar; herders are being relocated and it's now forbidden to graze...
This kind of thinking ahead - though it comes decades after overgrazing began - will be necessary to recover one of the world's largest and most endangered grasslands. Solutions have to sustainable, but more importantly, they have to be useful, says Jim O'Rourke, who is helping organize the International Grassland and Rangeland CONGRESS in Inner Mongolia next summer. "'Preserving' is a touchy word. Preserving might mean locking [the grasslands] up," O'Rourke says. This land evolved with animals and people living on it, and keeping it healthy will mean resisting the urge to turn it into a museum...
...with organic cows. The government and the company reached an agreement under which the company will be allowed to keep its organic certification if it makes adjustments that include reducing the number of its cows - from about 2,200 to 1,200. The farm also plans to expand its grassland to about 400 acres from 325. Clark Driftmier, a spokesman for Aurora, said these plans had been in the works for at least two years and that its customers - whom he declined to name - have expressed support. Says Bruce Knight, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the USDA...