(TibetanReview.net, Nov05’26) – Life may have become unexpectedly easier and more lucrative for some shepherds on the world’s highest plateau, after China began carpeting the area with solar panels in a drive to diversify its energy mix. However, to the vast majority of Tibetan herders on the plateau region, this has meant forced resettlement in urban towns and an end to the only way of life they have known.
Early indications are that China’s solar energy projects sprawling over hundreds of acres on the vast Tibetan Plateau are boosting incomes for some, reported Reuters Nov 4, citing such projects in Gonghe (Tibetan: Serchen) county and other parts of Tsohlo (Hainan) Prefecture in Qinghai province.
“It has made grazing much easier for us,” Li Yonglin, 25, one of those allowed to freely graze their sheep in a fenced solar park in the county, has said.
“In the morning, we simply open the gate to the sheep pen and don’t really need to look after them. They come back on their own in the evening, and we just pen them up.” Li has estimated the new approach had boosted his earnings to 50,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan ($7,496.14 to $8,995.37) from 10,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan when he followed the old way.
The report cited state media as claiming that by July this year, 6,330 households in five townships had benefited from 56 grazing sites in Tsolho Prefecture, an ethnically and culturally Tibetan area that encompasses Serchen, but did not disclose how many got grazing access.
The report cited one study as estimating that the region, sometimes called “the roof of the world”, where nomadic communities have grazed livestock for millennia, holds almost half of China’s solar energy potential, making it a focal point for renewable energy efforts.
Researchers and others have warned that such projects are eroding traditional ways of life on the plateau, where thousands of Tibetan nomads were resettled into rural townships in the early 2000s as the government sought to reverse ecological degradation.
“You can find some places (to graze) around the solar panels, but these are not suitable for nomads and shepherds to hold their livelihood,” researcher Tsewang Dorji at the Tibet Policy Institute in India’s hill town of Dharamsala has said.
Besides, solar energy installations fragment once-open grazing lands, making herders’ task of watching over livestock harder, another researcher has said, seeking anonymity in order to protect collaborators.
A small number of nomads were “tokenistically employed to graze sheep” but goats and yaks were generally excluded, Mandie McKeown, advocacy director at the Britain-based environmental charity Foundation for Gaia as said.
Evidence shows “This isn’t pastoralism as it’s traditionally been practised,” McKeown has said.
The report cited the government in Gonghe county in Tsohlo (Hainan) Prefecture of Qinghai province) as saying in 2024 that sheep from 16 households were allowed to graze in a solar park for part of the year.
Even so, wind rattling through solar farm posts and wires produced “persistent and unsettling” sounds that disturbed both people and animals, anthropology researcher Sanggay Tashi at the University of Colorado Boulder has said in an article in Jun 2026, citing people in Qinghai.
Besides, the report said, online government records in 2017 showed one undated complaint saying that Gonghe’s photovoltaic power stations had damaged grasslands, leaving sheep and cattle little grass to eat.
The report cited the records, which cited Hainan as the administrative region for the case without identifying the aggrieved person, as saying an investigation found no truth in the accusation, while adding that grazing was not permitted in the area.