Millions of residents on the Loess Plateau in northwest China
are enjoying the benefits of the first large-scale water
conservation scheme in China supported by the World Bank.
The 4.2-billion-yuan (US$517.8 million) Loess Plateau
Rehabilitation Project was launched in 1994 and completed last
year.
It has helped to improve the environment in the plateau area
worst hit by soil erosion more than 35,000 square kilometers in
Shaanxi,
Shanxi, and
Gansu provinces and the
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The World Bank supplied a US$300 million loan for the
initiative.
Guo Sanren is among 3.2 million people in the area who have
benefited from the project.
"With the money from the project, we planted trees and carried
out a comprehensive renovation on barren land. After several years
of hard work, the total annual income of my six-person family
increased from 8,000 yuan (US$986) in 1999 to 14,700 yuan
(US$1,813) in 2005," Guo said.
According to statistics from the project's administrative
office, the net annual income of local farmers increased from 585
yuan (US$72) per person in 1994 to 1,624 yuan (US$200) in 2005; the
number of people living in poverty decreased from 988,000 to
253,000 people.
Tian Wanquan, deputy director of Shaanxi Provincial Water
Resources Department, said that about 10,000 square kilometers of
land was renovated by the project in Shaanxi.
"The vegetation coverage rate in the area covered by the project
increased from 17.47 percent at the start to 36.24 percent at its
completion," Tian said.
(China Daily March 21, 2006)