Groundwork: ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE IN A HOLOPARASITE FRONTIER

Director Luo slams the brakes abruptly in the middle of the empty road, splaying the jeep across its unpainted center.¹ He mutters curses about the camels chewing lazily on the branches of suosuo, the endemic saxoul shrub (Haloxylon ammondendrum), planted in orderly rows at the road’s edge. The bobblehead on the dashboard jolts into its dance with the hard stop. Slamming the jeep into park, Luo pops out of the driver door, looking for bigger stones in the roadside gravel. Without stopping to amass a stockpile he lobs them one by one, in quick and uneven rhythm. They land hard