This 79-page report documents how the government’s policy of forced resettlement has violated the economic and social rights of Tibetan herders. It draws on interviews conducted between July 2004 and December 2006 with some 150 Tibetans from the areas directly affected.

Since 2000 the Chinese government has been implementing resettlement, land confiscation, and fencing policies in pastoral areas inhabited primarily by Tibetans, drastically curtailing their livelihood. The policies have been especially radical since 2003 in Golok (Guoluo) and Yushu prefectures of Qinghai province, but have also been implemented in Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces and the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Many Tibetan herders have been required to slaughter most of their livestock and move into newly built housing colonies in or near towns, abandoning their traditional way of life.