Journal of Arid Land Studies Vol. 26(2016) No. 4

The languages and cultures of the Tibetan people vary geographically and they are rapidly disappearing due to modernization. The authors focused on the milk culture (milk processing system and milk product usage), which supports the pastoral subsistence and accurately described the milk processing techniques to preserve the Tibetan culture, and analyzed the diversity and characteristics of the Tibetan population from the perspective of the milk culture. The purpose of this paper is to understand the milk processing system currently utilized by the Amdo Tibetan pastoralists in Qinghai province, China and to examine the recent changes to their milk processing system and its factors. Amdo Tibetan pastoralists have used milk processing techniques, such as the fermentation process, cream separation process, and the additive coagulation process. They have established the fermentation process as the central milk processing technique in which they churned fermented milk to make butter, and heated, fermented, and drained buttermilk to make fresh dried cheeses. The cream separation process and the additive coagulation process were used only temporarily. They rapidly transitioned to using the cream separation process to manufacture most milk products like butter and fresh dried cheese when the Chinese government introduced the cream separator in the 1980’s. They only kept the fermentation process to make sour milk out of raw milk. These recent changes in the milk processing techniques were most likely caused by the fact that sour milk was a staple in their dietary lifestyle and the huge reduction in labor when they switched to using cream to make butter instead of fermented milk. The technical innovation was externally influenced, then adopted or unadopted according to the will and choice of the local people, resulting in a transition of culture.

For thousands of years, the camels were the main working pack animals in the nomadic pastoralist economy of Kazakh ancestors. Later in the 19-20th centuries, with the expansion of the network of dirt roads, camels were successfully used as draft animals, which caused spread of these animals beyond their natural habitat to the southern provinces of Russia.

The number of camels in Kazakhstan in 1927, in the Soviet period, has reached its maximum 1.69 million. With the development of mechanized transport, the value of camels as draft animals fell, at the same time the demand for camel specific products, such as milk, meat, wool, leather, was limited. Great damage to agriculture was caused by ill-conceived socio-economic reforms in the 1930s, which led to catastrophic camel population decline. Later, the number of camels slightly increased and stabilized, the level of selection and breeding work and the proportion of purebred animals have increased. Ever since Kazakhstan gained independence the total number of camels has been increasing gradually in the area of their natural habitat, which is associated with high profitability of camel breeding in deserts and semi-deserts of the south-western regions of Kazakhstan. Productive camel breeding allows involving these lands and its people in economically profitable production. Improvement of breed and productive qualities of camel is very important in the country.

The domestication of camels happened at the start of the III millennium BC in their natural habitats, for the dromedary in SE-Arabia, for the Bactrian camel in SW-Central Asia. Three steps of camel domestication and use are distinguished: for harvesting its body products, as transport animal (drafted, loaded, and ridden), as military animal. With the start of the I millennium BC the introduction of new saddle types and of hybridization techniques promoted, in all the arid expanses of Afro-Eurasia, the growing superiority of the loaded camel over wheels and draft transports, and of camelry over cavalry.

Kazakhstan dry steppe is one of important pasture lands of breeding of dromedary camels. In this study, we analysis the behavior patterns and habitat use of dromedary camels based on satellite (GPS) tracking data and to clear the relationship between an increase in the camel farm and climate change. The herdsman’s (or Owners) is decision the pastureland use by year-to-year rainfall. They are also known how to control the different grazing lands by the dry season and the rainy season in the same year. Camel’s behavioral pattern was different in the dry season and the rainy season. The result shows, the average value of the moving speed in the pastures of spring (rainy season) is 2.81 ± 1.64 km / h, and the average value of the grazing speed is 0.324 ± 0.241 km / h in same season. In addition, the average value of the moving speed in the pastures of the summer (dry season) is 4.85 ± 0.1278 km / h, and the average value of the grazing speed is 1.027 ± 0.128 km / h in dry season. More of the moving speed and deviation value of grazing speed Both the dry season, the variation is large, it can be seen that the movement speed is also nearly twice of the rainy season. However, 50% core area (MCP, Minimum Convex Polygon) of home range of grazing area in has been shown to be more of the rainy season, because we finding that in dry season the main food resources of camel is tree leaves and tree branches or shrubs. Recently, lot of studies shows indicated that continuous herbivory pressure has a positive effect on plant performance and biodiversity, known as “grazing optimization.” In this study, we established three sites of the different pasturage pressure and investigated relationship between pasturage pressure and the Simpson's Index of Diversity (D-value) based on field observations (measurements), GPS tracking and stocking of camels. We analytically examined a hypothesis of grazing optimization in which herbivory improves the photosynthetic ability of individual plants. We examined plant performance under various herbivory pressures and considered the evolution of plant phenology in response to a given herbivory pressure.

This study examined the components of the milk of one-humped and two-humped camels kept in same area in Kazakhstan, in May (rainy season) and August (dry season) 2015. Milk was sampled from camels of the same age that grazed on the same pastures. The general component analyses of camel milk involved the nutrition values, protein and fat content. The milk sampled from two-humped camels was found to contain greater densities of these components than milk sampled from one-humped camels. The values of calcium, phosphorus, zinc, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, phenylalanine, and lysine were higher in the two-humped camel milk samples. The densities of general components in the milk from both one-humped and two-humped camels were lower in the August samples than in those from May. Free amino acid densities in all milk samples were, however, higher in August than in May. The observed increase in August was considered to be related to the consumption of dry grasses that require longer rumination time and hence an increased activity of rumen microorganisms, and their nutritional byproducts. It may also be necessary to consider the grass type and nutrition ingested by the camels as well as the season for milking with regard to the quality and composition of milk.

Family Camelidae includes Guanaco and Vicuna in South America and two-humped camels (Camelus bactrians and C. ferus) and one-humped camels (C. dromedarius) are distributed from Eurasia to Northern Africa. We reviewed studies on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA of camels. We collected 37 complete mitochondrial DNA sequences of Camelid including those of now extinct Camelops which distributed in North America from DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank International Nucleotide Sequence Database. Neighbor-joining trees were constructed for these sequences, and evolution of family Camelidae and genus Camelus are discussed with special reference to demographic changes of C. bactrians and C. dromedarius.

Increasing population growth and urbanization have taken place in Mongolia since the beginning of the 20th century. Using micro- and long-term analyses, this study examined how Mongols divide their time between living in urban and pastoral areas. Urban areas were chosen when children were of school age, jobs with high wages were available in urban areas, and livestock was lost due to natural disasters. Pastoral areas were chosen for summer vacation or childcare leave and in times of job shortages due to recession. Both occupational skills and social relationships are indispensable for adapting to unpredictable socio-natural fluctuations, which are developed from the experiences of moving between urban and pastoral areas starting in childhood.

There are two domestic camel species: the dromedary and the Bactrian camel. The distribution of the two domestic camel species is clearly differs, although they meet at the latitude corresponding to an average temperature of around 21°C. The Bactrian occurs in the eastern area of Afro-Eurasia continent; from Mongolia to Central Asia. While, the dromedary inhabits western area; from the Arabian Peninsula to the Sahara desert. In Kazakhstan, they keep both species and hybrid of them. The dromedary is dominant in the eastern Kazakhstan, around Almaty; and the Bactrian is prevalent in north-western part, around Aktobe. In our study, we found that nowadays, the geographic distribution of both camel species is greatly determined by the climatic factors; for instance the one-humped camel could be breed in environment where the annual average air temperature is above 10°C and the record low air temperature dips minus 38°C or above. It is difficult to keep one-humped camels in the northern region to the 45°N altitude. Also, economic demand is important factor for the geographic distribution of both camel species. Nowadays, the dromedary is dominant especially in Almaty region despite its severe climatic conditions. Because, Almaty is a largest economic center in Kazakhstan and in another side, the dromedary produce much more milk than Bactrian.