UW Jackson School graduate and current Environmental Anthropology PhD student Barbara Grub is in the process of her dissertation research in the upper Baiwu watershed. Her research encompasses the roles of domesticated animals within Nuosu culture and economy, the knowledge that Nuosu have of raising livestock, and the interrelation between livestock and the environment. Here local sheep graze in late Autumn in a recently harvested and plowed field.

Livestock provide many goods for Nuosu villagers. Beyond meat, sheep also provide wool to be made into warm clothing, yaks provide milk for making into butter and cheese, cattle and water buffalo provide traction for plowing fields, and horses are used both for riding and for pulling carts. All of these animals, in addition to the pigs, chickens, and goats, provide manure that fertilizes the fields and meadows. They are a source of sustenance, money, and pride. Here a man uses the strength of his bull to plow the heavy, rain-soaked earth of his fields.