Rethinking “Ecological Migration” and the Value of Cultural Continuity: A Response to Wang, Song, and Hu

Comment by J.M. Foggin, in response to: Wang Z.M., K.S. Song, and L.J. Hu. 2010. China’s largest scale ecological migration in the three-river headwater region. AMBIO 39 (5–6):443–446. The author argues that Ecological Migration (EM) policy is all too often accepted with little critique in China. EM remains an untested social experiment at an enormous scale—with potential devastating long-term social, cultural, and possibly environmental consequences; some of them irreversible. For Tibetan pastoralists in the Sanjiangyuan region in southern Qinghai Province, the implications are clear. It is argued that the extent to which the policy is implemented should be constrained; new approaches should be further researched, trialed, and adopted where appropriate; and more accessible forms of service provision should be developed. With social concerns over EM raised EM should no longer be promoted regardless of consequences.