China is in the final stages of a 15-year drive to relocate millions of nomadic herders into life in town, says the New York Times, which called it “one of the most ambitious attempts made at social engineering.” The government says the new life is a leap into modernity with less toil and more comfort. Some of the pastoralists openly miss their former lives and critics say the new settlements are forlorn places of joblessness. “Ecologists in China and abroad say the scientific foundations of nomad resettlement are dubious,” says the Times. The government says grazing harms the grasslands of western China.