阿尔泰草原大旱威胁哈萨克牧民

ALTAY, China — It has been a bad year for the big-tailed sheep. The grass in the high mountain pastures here in northwest China has been sparse, and the sheep have not eaten well. They are scrawny. That means the Kazakh herders have suffered, too.

中国阿勒泰——对于大尾羊来说，这是糟糕的一年。中国西北部的高山草地牧草稀疏，羊群吃不饱，全都骨肉如柴。这意味着哈萨克族牧民的日子也不好过。

"The drought has affected everyone," one herder, Aijamal, 32, who like many others here uses one name, said on a recent afternoon as she rode horseback and drove hundreds of sheep across a barren plateau. "We can't sell the sheep for the same price we did before."

最近的一个下午，32岁的牧民艾贾玛(Aijamal)骑马驱赶羊群穿过一片贫瘠的高原。“所有人都受干旱影响，”她边骑马边说说。“我们的羊卖不出以前的价格了。”她像这里的很多人一样，只使用单名。

Sheep that wholesalers bought for 1,000 renminbi, about $160, last year are commanding only 830 renminbi now, she said. The price drop has come as a big blow to the nomadic Kazakh herders whose families have for decades produced the most famous sheep in China.

她表示，批发商去年花1000元购买的羊现在只值830元。价格下跌给哈萨克族游牧民造成巨大打击，这些游牧家庭数十年来一直在饲养中国最知名的羊。

And the season for fattening up the sheep is at an end. Across this remote area of pristine grasslands and alpine forests, along the southern slopes of the Altai Mountains, nomads are in the middle of their annual multiweek autumn migration, as they bring their families, yurts and livestock down from the high pastures to lower altitudes for the winter. They are using horses, camels and flatbed trucks for transport, and horses and motorcycles to herd their animals. Clouds of dust rising from the steppes signal nomads on the move.

羊只长膘的季节已经到了尾声。牧民们每年秋季都会花费数周时间进行迁徙，他们正沿着阿尔泰山南山坡穿越未遭破坏的草地和高山林区，带着家人、圆顶帐篷、牲畜从高山草地向海拔较低的地方迁徙过冬。他们利用马、骆驼及平板货车充当运输工具，用马和摩托车驱赶牲畜。草原上飞扬的尘土说明游牧民正在迁徙。

This lifestyle has continued for centuries here, north of the Xinjiang region's desolate Dzungarian Basin and near China's borders with Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia, despite official efforts to force nomads to settle in newly built villages. The nomads pass the winter near the lower towns before making the reverse migration once the snows begin melting.

尽管政府迫使游牧民迁入新建的村庄，在新疆北部的准噶尔盆地，以及中国与蒙古、哈萨克斯坦和俄罗斯的边境附近，这种生活方式已经持续了几个世纪。游牧民们在纬度较低的城镇过冬，然后在雪开始融化时再进行反向迁徙。

A history museum in Altay pays tribute to this way of life. "The Altay region has been a paradise for nomadic peoples since ancient times," the text on one display says. "The Tiele, Scythians, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Rouran, Tujue, Mongol and Kazakh have lived here successively for thousands of years and created a splendid grassland culture. They have contributed to the history of not only the Altay region but also of Xinjiang and China."

阿勒泰的一个历史博物馆向这种生活方式致以纪念。“阿勒泰地区自古以来就是游牧民族的天堂，”一件展品的文字说明写道。“铁勒人、斯基泰人、匈奴人、鲜卑人、柔然人、突厥人、蒙古人及哈萨克族人相继在这里生活了数千年，并创造了辉煌的草原文化。他们为阿勒泰地区及新疆和中国的历史做出了贡献。”

The big-tailed sheep of the region, especially those near Fuhai Lake, have been prized for more than 1,000 years, according to the Ministry of Commerce website. During the Tang dynasty (618 to 907 A.D.), rulers in the area sent sheep as tribute to the imperial court in Xi'an. During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the region's mutton was served as official food to athletes from Muslim countries, according to an Altay government website.

商务部网站显示，该地区——特别是福海附近——的大尾羊早在1000多年前就受到人们的追捧。唐朝时期（公元618年-907年），当地统治者曾将福海大尾羊作为贡品献给唐朝宫廷。阿勒泰政府网站声称，在2008年北京夏季奥林匹克运动会期间，阿勒泰羊肉成为穆斯林国家运动员的官方指定食物。

Adult sheep can weigh more than 300 pounds, making them ideal for meat production. The sheep are known for tails that weigh more than 20 pounds, where they store fat for the winter.

成年羊体重高达300多磅（约合136公斤），因此非常适合做成肉制品。大尾羊以重量可达20多磅的尾部著称，大尾羊依靠尾部储存脂肪过冬。

One recent day, Aijamal — dressed in a turquoise sweater and a red head scarf (Kazakhs are mostly Sunni Muslims) and astride a white horse — was watching over 200 sheep. Her two children were in a mud-walled shelter nearby. She and her family were in the middle of their migration, driving the sheep down to winter pastures near a riverside village.

近日，身穿青绿色毛衣、头戴红色头巾（哈萨克族人大多数是逊尼派穆斯林）的艾贾玛骑着一匹白马，看管着200只羊。她的两个孩子待在附近的泥墙房中。她和家人正在进行迁徙，要将羊群赶往一个河畔山村附近的冬季牧场。

There, they would hire other herders to look after the sheep until the spring. That is an increasingly common practice among some Kazakhs, especially those who have traded their nomadic occupations for other pursuits.

他们会在那里雇佣其他牧民看管羊群，直到春天。在一些哈萨克族人中，这种做法越来越普遍，特别是那些放弃游牧，从事其他工作的人。

"We'll stay here for a few days," Aijamal said as she got off her horse. "Then we'll go down after the sheep have eaten."

“我们会在这儿待几天，”艾贾玛边从马上下来边说。“羊群吃完草后，我们将继续往下走。”

She said she and her husband had just sold 80 lambs to two wholesale meat merchants, ethnic Uighurs who were among the few Uighur buyers visiting this year. Officials in Xinjiang have been restricting their movements because of a surge in ethnic violence.

她表示自己和丈夫只向两名维族肉类批发商卖出了80只羔羊，他们是今年前来买羊的为数不多的维族买家。由于民族冲突加剧，新疆地区的官员限制维族人的活动。

Many Uighurs resent rule by the Han, the dominant ethnic group in China, and hundreds of people have been killed this year amid violence in Xinjiang. Chinese officials blame terrorist groups among the Uighurs, though insurgency experts and scholars of Xinjiang say they have seen no evidence of a widespread terrorist influence.

许多维吾尔人对汉人的统治感到不满。汉人在中国的人口中占多数。今年已经有数百人在新疆的暴力冲突中死亡。中国官员将这些事件的责任归咎于维吾尔人中的恐怖组织，不过，研究叛乱活动和新疆问题的专家和学者称，他们没有发现恐怖主义在新疆拥有广泛影响力的证据。

The shortage of buyers has also contributed to the drop in the price of sheep, Aijamal said. "Before, the Uighurs would come north from Urumqi to buy our sheep," she said, referring to the capital of Xinjiang, a vast region that makes up one-sixth of China. "But now many of them can't come."

买家的稀缺还导致羊肉价格下降，艾贾玛说。“以前，维吾尔人会从乌鲁木齐北上来买我们的羊肉，”她说。新疆地域辽阔，占中国国土面积的六人之一，乌鲁木齐是其首府。“但是现在，很多人都来不了。”

But the drought has been a much bigger problem. This year, it killed 8,000 animals and destroyed 3,800 square kilometers of crops in northern Xinjiang, according to a report in the state news media. Three million animals lack sufficient drinking water. The Civil Affairs Bureau said 800,000 people were affected, and officials estimate the economic loss at 4.7 billion renminbi, or $760 million.

而更加严重的问题是干旱。官方媒体的一篇报道称，今年，干旱共导致新疆北部8000头牲畜死亡，3800平方公里的庄稼受到破坏。目前，有300万头牲畜缺乏足够的饮用水。民政局称，受灾人数达80万人，官方估计，经济损失可达47亿元人民币，合7.6亿美元。

Some nomads were leaving earlier than usual from the summer pastures so their sheep could graze lower down. North of the town of Burqin, near a mountain pass, a man named Los'han was dismantling his yurt with his family and tossing their furniture into the back of a white flatbed truck. Nomad families sometimes split the daily rental rate of $100 or more for a truck and driver for their migration.

一些游牧者比往常更早地离开了夏季牧场，好让羊群到南边吃草。在布尔津县北部的一个山口附近，一位名叫罗斯汉(Los'han)的男子正在和家人拆掉毡帐，同时把家当扔上一辆白色的平板卡车。在迁徙时，游牧民族家庭有时会合租一辆卡车和司机，分担每天至少100美元的费用。

"My older brother is watching our sheep in the mountains," said Los'han, 40. "He'll bring them down to join us."

“我哥在山上照看我们的羊，”现年40岁的罗斯汉说。“他会把羊群赶下山和我们汇合。”

East of Altay, in the area of Koktokay, a nomad on horseback pointed to some of his 200 or 300 sheep. Way too thin, he said.

在阿尔泰东部的可可托海地区，一个游牧者骑在马上，指着他的一些羊说，太瘦了。他总共有两三百头羊。

"Soon there won't be any grass," said the man, Urzbek, 62. "Maybe next year there will be none at all, because it hasn't rained."

“很快就没有草了，”这个名叫乌尔兹别克(Urzbek)的62岁男子说。“可能明年就什么草都没有了，因为没下过雨。”

He lives with his family in one of a half-dozen white yurts by a road leading to the Koktokay nature park, a Yosemite-like valley with towering granite peaks through which the Irtysh River flows to the Arctic Ocean. In the park, nomads were coming down from the summer pastures each day with camel caravans.

他和家人住在通向可可托海国家地质公园的公路旁的一座白色毡帐里，周围还有五座这样的毡帐。可可托海国家地质公园是一个类似约塞米蒂谷的地方，有高耸的花岗岩山峰，额尔齐斯河经由这里流入北冰洋。在公园里，每天都有游牧者带着骆驼队从夏季牧场走下来。

On this morning, Urzbek's daughter walked among their sheep to help ensure that none of them wandered off. A half-dozen camels that his family owns loped in formation, tied together, near the dry hills. Then there was the horse on which Urzbek rode. "My horse is more important than my life,” he said.

这天早上，乌尔兹别克的女儿走在羊群中间，帮助确保不会有羊走散。他家养的六只骆驼绑在一起，保持着队形，在干旱的山峦附近阔步前行。跟在后面的是骑在马背上的乌尔兹别克。“我的马比我的命还重要。”他说。

He began riding off. "I need to keep the sheep in line," he said. He whistled and cracked a short whip to get the sheep moving.

他开始策马远去。“我得把羊群看好，”他说。他吹了一声口哨，甩响了短鞭，驱赶着羊群。