China Reshapes Its West with Trees to Replace Crops
12/22/99
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Title: China Reshapes Its West with Trees to Replace Crops
Source: Xinhua
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 22, 1999
The western region on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and
Yellow River serves as a protective screen for the ecological
environment in China. Soil erosion in the region has become the most
serious issue in the country's environmental protection endeavor.
China now has started ecological conservation projects in the west
including virgin forests protection programs, soil erosion control
programs, water conservancy and irrigation projects, ecological
farming projects and desertification control projects. Tree felling
has been banned in the upper valleys of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers.
In the coming decade, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and four other
provinces and autonomous regions will jointly invest 120 billion yuan
(14.5 billion U.S. dollars) to conserve the forests in the upper
valley of the Yangtze; Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is to spend
five billion yuan to harness the Tarim River; in Shaanxi Province, the
state will invest 20 billion yuan to replant trees and grass on low-
yield farmland.
Hu Angang, an ecologist and economist with the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, is confident of the future in west China, According to him,
actual state investment in ecological protection programs in the next
ten years might exceed the planned figure of 200 billion yuan (24
billion U.S. dollars).
From now on, he said, the dearth of ecological projects in west China
must change, and a new era will be ushered in for China to tackle its
ecological deterioration.
In fact, in the past two decades, China has had rich experiences in
eliminating ecological problems in the western region. Taking
advantage of state-of-the-art technology, China has curbed soil
erosion on the Loess Plateau from deteriorating with many man-made
oases in desert regions.
Especially in the past two years, major breakthroughs have been made
in water resources exploration in arid areas in the west. According to
experts' predictions, the underground water storage for annual
exploitation has reached 16.3 billion cu m. The rich water resources
will benefit the green projects in west China.
It is the government's goal that by 2020, the forest coverage rates on
the upper reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers will be increased
to 45 and 27 percent from the current 22 and 10 percent respectively.
And by the middle of the next century, west China will boast a
beautiful landscape.