This paper explores the demographic impacts of the implementation of the “Grand Development in West China” policies and environmental rehabilitation projects in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It analyses the interaction between the environmental reconstruction and environment-related migration in this region. The intertwined nature of environmental, ethnic, and poverty problems not only bears negatively upon the “alleviation of poverty conducing to the accruement of wealth” of the poverty-stricken population, but also hinders the rehabilitation of the environment. It brings forth some opinions regarding improving the capacity of regional sustainable development through environmental migration.