The State Council, China's cabinet, issued a document Thursday to
detail a national program on converting part of farmland into
forest and grassland, marking the overall implementation of the
program after a three-year trial.
The Chinese government has promised to give millions of farmers
grain and cash if they give up growing crops on low-yield farmland
and turn them into forests and grassland for the sake of the
environment protection.
The document says the government would compensate farmers who stop
plowing on erosion-hit land to make way for forests, grassland or
wetlands.
Total investment by the government is likely to surpass 100 billion
yuan (some US$12 billion) when the program is completed by 2010,
making it one of the most costly attempts to restore China's
ecology.
The compensation is based on as much as 2,250 kilograms of grain
(in the south) or 1,500 kilograms (in the north) and 300 yuan
(about US$36) each year for every hectare of farmland given up for
forest, plus 750 yuan (US$90.69) per hectare in subsidies to
purchase seedlings.
Farmers can get the compensation for as long as eight years, and
will own the forests.
Although incomes of Chinese farmers vary in different regions, for
those who have struggled to raise enough to eat on arid farmland
for years, the policy provides an easy way to get rich and thus has
been widely welcomed by farmers in poor areas, according to an
official with the State Forestry Administration (SFA).
People have long cultivated the land recklessly, causing a vicious
circle of soil erosion and poverty, says Zhang Hongwen at the SFA's
Office for Conversion of Hill Farmland into Forest and
Grassland.
Soil erosion in the upper and middle reaches of Yangtze and Yellow
Rivers, the two biggest in China, has become rampant as the steep
land cannot retain water. The tradition of local farmers to plow on
slopes, the major landform in those areas, has made the situation
worse.
More than two billion tons of soil are washed into Yangtze and
Yellow rivers annually, making the region one of those most
vulnerable to soil erosion in the world.
China is now capable of carrying out the grain-for-environment
program thanks to adequate grain reserves, said the official.
China has banned logging in the upper and middle reaches of Yangtze
and Yellow rivers since 1998 after devastating floods hit many
parts of the country, which were closely linked to destruction of
natural forests along rivers.
Trials of the grain-for-forest program was launched in 1999 in 224
counties of western provinces such as Sichuan, Gansu and
Shaanxi.
By
the end of 2001, more than 2.2 million hectares of hilly or sandy
farmland had been converted into forests, grasslands or wetlands.
Some areas have reported improvements in the environment since
then, according to the SFA.
The overall program is to be carried out in 24 of 31 Chinese
provinces starting from this year. About 75 percent of hilly
farmland and 46 percent of sandy land in the upper and middle
reaches of Yangtze and Yellow rivers will be covered by forests or
grassland when the program is finished in 2010.
( June 21, 2002)