The Horses in Modern China – 3

Land degradation, too, makes pasture land less available for grassland husbandry. World Bank figures show that China has the third largest area of grassland after Australia and Russia. However, vast swathes of its grassland have become degraded; the Loess Plateau region and other extensive western areas have suffered especially badly. According to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) National Bureau of Statistics, from 2004 to 2017, China lost
16.5 per cent or 43 million hectares of pasture land of which Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang accounted for 38 per cent and 36 per cent of the total loss, respectively.