Editor's Notes: Sun Jianbo, deputy to the National People's Congress, arrives in Beijing once again with the people's expectation and trust, to participate in this annual political event. He has brought 37 proposals this year, all of which represent the"voices of the people" that Sun has collected from his wheelchair. Among the 37 proposals, 20 are in regards to forestry and ecological protection.

Sun Jianbo,the secretary of the party committee of the Yuan Shan Group in Zibo,Shandong Province,deputy to the National People's Congress.[chinagate.cn by Zheng Liang]

 

As the secretary of the party committee of the Yuan Shan Group in Zibo, Shandong Province, Sun has led his company out of their most difficult period, and into a leading forest farm with a fixed asset of one billion yuan (US$154 million) and annual total revenue of over 500 million yuan (US$76.9 million).

“Forest farm workers can have their bread if they only rely on the government subsidy. But now, state-owned forest farms should find their way to balance environmental protection and economic benefits, as a result of the state-owned forest farm reform,” said Sun.

Since 1997, the Yuan Shan group has begun this reform step by step, and established a new mechanism with clear property rights, as well as separated rights and duties, between the forest farm and the group. The former is responsible for ecological protection and the latter for economic benefits. Meanwhile, the forest farms have purchased services from the employees who have contracted forestation lots and received annual bonuses based on their work performance. As a result, the forest survival ratio has reached as high as 90 percent, compared with less than 30 percent in the past.

Fire prevention is the key to protecting the forests. It requires investments worth over 10 million yuan (US$ 1.5 million) in public welfare each year, including the first professional fire prevention team in Shandong Province. Also, it offers free training to locals at 67 nearby villages.

“To mobilize local people’s awareness and action is the best way to stop a problem before it starts,” Sun explained, going on to say that “Fire alarms once rang over 50 times a year, but now we have maintained our record of having no fire alarms go off in 20 years.”

Since he was elected as an NPC deputy in 2013, he has been responsible to speak on behalf of 750,000 forest farm workers, and has gone to nine provinces, such as Jilin and Shanxi, to conduct field research.

In the past three years, Sun has submitted more than 70 proposals and suggestions to the NPC after having conducted researchin 30 state-owned forest farms across nine provinces in China, discussing hot issues such as state-owned forest farm reform and ecological resource protection.

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