Local Environmental Knowledge and Sustainable Development of the Minorities in China

China is a multi-ethnic developing country with a low level of natural resources per capita, and a rapid rate of resource depletion. Mineral resources are being over exploited and wastefully excavated. Often the rich deposits are taken and the poor deposits discarded. There are also many other problems concerning freshwater retraction, forest cutting, field irrigation, livestock grazing, and cultivation, etc. Population pressure is also an inescapable problem. According to the latest figures published by the Statistical Bureau of China in February 1999, the total population of China had reached 1,248 million in 1998. China is becoming one of the most seriously desertified countries in the world, mainly because of the population pressure and over-exploitation.