Following two years of remarkable pilot efforts to turn soil
erosion on vulnerable lands into forests and grasslands in western
China, the country plans to extend its successful ecological
rehabilitation efforts nationwide.
An
ambitious plan is under way to withdraw all of China's existing
cultivation on low-yield lands and slopes prone to soil erosion and
eventually turn those areas into woods or grassland over the next
10 years, China Daily was told by the State Forestry Administration
(SFA).
The central government is expected to pour a record 140 billion
yuan (US$16.8 billion) into the effort - the largest ecological
program ever launched in China - to pay for the costs of grain
rations and cash compensation for farmers forced to give up
cultivating the lands, as well as providing seedlings for them to
plant trees or grow grasses.
Under the proposed grain-for-vegetation environment plan to be
submitted to the
State Council for approval, over 70 percent of the funds will
be earmarked for grain-supply, with over 9 percent to be handed to
farmers as cash subsidies and the remaining funds to be used for
seedlings, according to Zhang Hongwen, director of the office for
conversion of slope farmland into forest and grassland.
More than 300 million people -out of the country's 80 million rural
households in 1,100 counties of 24 provinces and autonomous regions
- are expected to benefit from the program.
Trial work for the extended grain-for-environment project is likely
to officially kick off this year. The initial project was
established in 1999 in 224 counties of 13 western provinces and
autonomous regions, including
Sichuan, Gansu
and
Shaanxi provinces.
More than 1 million hectares of sloping farmland have been
transformed, and an additional 730,000 hectares of barren land now
have vegetation, according to SFA's statistics.
During the past two years, the grain-for-environment policy has
encouraged Chinese farmers with low-yield, sloping farmland to
plant trees or grass on the area. Governments at all levels are
responsible for compensating farmers with grain and cash.
The compensation is based on 150 kilograms of grain and 70 yuan
(about US$8.50) given each year for every mu (0.07 hectare)
of farmland converted to forests. Farmers can receive the
compensation for eight years.
Grain and cash promised by governments in 1999 have been paid in
full to farmers, and about 70 percent of the promised compensation
for the year 2000 has been fulfilled, Zhang said.
China has an estimated 14.7 million hectares of low-yield sloping
lands suitable for woodlots or grass-growing (including sloping
farmland located on hillsides with a 16 to 25 gradient that has
caused serious water loss and soil erosion) and lands with desert
encroachment.
Soil erosion has become the top menace to China's ecological
environment, damaging about 3.7 million square kilometers of land
or 38 percent of China's total territory.
More than 2 billion tons of soil is washed into the Yangtze and the
Yellow rivers annually, making the region one of the world's most
vulnerable soil erosion areas.
"Two-thirds of the eroded soil comes from sloping farmland," Zhang
said.
Forestry officials and experts are confident that a 10-year
nationwide program focusing on the recovery of China's worsening
vegetation cover -- caused by growing population pressures,
consequent excessive reclamation and soil erosion over past decades
-- can make a valuable contribution to stemming the surging
exploitation of the country's environmentally vulnerable western
regions.
"It is difficult for China to face up to a situation in which the
Yellow River has continued to run dry due to persistent droughts
and worsening soil erosion while the Yangtze River tends to be
muddy or turbid, with more floods induced because of soil erosion,"
Zhang said.
The two rivers are not only the major cradles of Chinese
civilization in history but also the country's key bread baskets
today.
"All sloping land will be turned into forest and grassland," Zhang
added.
(China
Daily November 5, 2001)