From 2005 to July this year I lived in Inner Mongolia, enjoying the eclectic mix of Mongolian and Han cultures. Mongolians are friendly and open, sturdy and smart, loyal and emotional. They have offered me their exotic cuisine, exhilarating music and exquisite fashions. But everyone who comes to Inner Mongolia, whether Chinese or Western, old or young, tourist or worker, always ends up admiring the magnificent Mongolian grasslands. Galloping along on a fast pony, sleeping under the stars in a cozy yurt and watching wild dancers leaping around a huge bonfire enchant one and all. Plus there's Naadam-a glorious Mongolian celebration that happens every summer along vast green pastures, which consists of lively Mongolian horse racing, passionate wrestling and nonstop schmoozing. But this stunning natural grassland ecosystem is now is danger. Over 40 percent of the grasslands are degraded; severe erosion has caused sandstorms to blow into the heart of Beijing.

Inner Mongolia constitutes a quarter of China's total grasslands. For centuries nomadic Mongolian herdsmen roamed freely on these areas, grazing goats, sheep, yak and camels. Today the grasslands are no longer open range. They are no longer as vast and endless as before. Both the human and animal population has swelled, putting pressure on the fragile ecosystem. Degradation of the grasslands, caused from farmers encroaching on the steppe and from herdsmen crowding too many animals into one place, has created serious environmental issues. Unfortunately both private and communal use and management of the grassland has led to overgrazing, increasing erosion, sandstorms and, in the worst cases, desertification. In the early 1980s, overgrazing became a serious problem in Inner Mongolia when the Chinese Government introduced "Grassland User Rights"-the right to utilize private grazing property.

Sandstorms, erosion and weather fluctuations are the result of upsetting the delicate balance of nature in the grasslands. Some scientists have linked degradation and specifically soil erosion with changing political/economic processes. The term "tragedy of the commons" relates to the phenomenon taking place on the Inner Mongolian grasslands. This phrase signifies a conflict for resources between individual interests and the common good that occurred in England from 1750-1860. Previously, for hundreds of years, English herders had grazed their cattle and sheep on common land. As long as no individual tried to graze too many cattle, everybody benefited from the common resource. With the advent of the English Enclosure Act too many people asserted their self-interest over the interest of the commons, and overgrazing destroyed the value of the common land.

On a first come, first served basis, Englishmen put up fences around the land they wanted, even pieces of the local commons. Village-controlled commons died because the chief beneficiaries were the local nobles who put up fences around land, which wasn't theirs, which by the definition of the law (because it was not planted with crops) was free for the taking. A few astute villagers enclosed their lands before the lords could steal it. In this way the livelihood and independence of the English peasantry eroded just like the soil. Incidentally, another unlawful and arrogant land grab occurred in the American West when pioneers simply stole land from the native peoples during the 16th-19th centuries.

Inner Mongolia has experienced similar land problems. From the 1950s to the 1970s the vast grasslands were collectivized and made into People's Communes. The government set up a three-tiered management arrangement. Grassland ownership (primary resource) was under the commune (the rural township); livestock ownership (secondary resource) was under the production brigade (administrative village), and implement ownership was under the production team (natural village); they were also responsible for herding. The system did not work well because no one cared to manage or maintain the commons as well as they did under traditional kinship practices that protected common lands.

The attitude that the pasture belongs to no one prevailed until the early 1980s, when the household contract responsibility system was introduced; in 1997 it became User Rights. But despite the change of status and introduction of User Rights, pastures are still seen as "eating from the big rice pot"-there is little community responsibility in place for sustaining this valuable natural resource. Furthermore, User Right policies were copied wholesale from farmed land to the grasslands with no consideration that livestock move about, while crops do not. In short, they are very different systems and require different modes of regulation.

This August is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Chairman Mao's first autonomous province. Inner Mongolians suffered gravely under the Japanese, were liberated, and now they prosper as never before. Let's hope the Inner Mongolians will resolve their land disputes before the fragile ecosystem is critically harmed. And let's hope they resolve their disputes in ways superior to Western systems.