Just as the image of sandstorms was beginning to fade from
people's memories, several hit north and northwest China this
spring, engulfing major cities like Urumqi, Huhhot, Beijing and
Jinan in dust clouds. The sandstorms sounded off alarm bells for
the Chinese government.
In the spring of 2000, a total of 12 sandstorms swept across
north and northwest China one after the other, necessitating a
visit by the then Premier Zhu Rongji to Hebei and Inner Mongolia to
inspect sand control work. That same year, a dust-storm sources
treatment project was launched around Beijing and Tianjin. It was
one of the country's six eco-construction programs.
The aim of the project, covering 75 counties, cities and
prefectures in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia,
was to limit potential sources of sandstorms through grassland
conservation, reforestation and/or rejuvenating cultivated land.
About 20.8 billion yuan (US$2.51 billion) in funds was earmarked
for Hebei alone.
Bashang in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, lies to the northwest of
Beijing. The two cities are no more than 200 kilometers apart, but
there is a difference of over 1,500 meters in elevation. Wasteland
reclamation for farming over the last few decades has ravaged the
area's natural vegetation and created vast desert-like areas. This
has made Bashang a key dust source area that directly threatens the
capital's ecological environment.
Despite this and some serious droughts in 2002 and 2003, sand
control has made some headway in Bashang's Zhangbei, Kangbao and
Shangyi counties.
"On the reforested land, dust is not raised even on windy days,"
said Kang Chengfu, vice director of Zhangjiakou Municipal Forestry
Bureau. "Reforestation is therefore one way that sand can be
completely controlled in another five or six years."
According to a door-to-door survey carried out in April in about
a dozen villages in this region, most interviewees said they
successfully reforested more than half of their cultivated land.
Wang Zhen from Baichengzi Village in Zhangbei County said his
village originally had 5,633 mu of cultivated land, of
which 3,111 mu has so far been reforested or re-grassed
(One mu = 0.067 hectare).
Records from the Zhangjiakou's Forestry Bureau show that since
2000, the city has reforested a total 6.63 million mu of
cultivated land. As a result of which, total over-cultivated area
has decreased from 10.5 million mu in 2000 to 7.3 million
mu today.
In spite of these promising results, the project still faces
certain challenges.
First, the government hasn't adequately compensated farmers for
their losses, which has in turn killed their enthusiasm or
willingness to reforest the cultivated land.
"Kangbao County has 1.2 million mu of cultivated land
to be reforested, and by the end of last year, 888,000 mu
had already been reforested," said Gao Ping, director of the
county's Forestry Bureau.
Gao added that farmers have gained a lot from selling their
grain in recent years. So, asking them to reforest their cultivated
land is a challenge, particularly if the government is closefisted
when reimbursing them for their losses: "They reforest two
mu of arable land, and only one mu's loss is
covered by the government."
Second, although the project was implemented five years ago in
Zhangjiakou, follow-up funding has not been provided.
"Shangyi County's forest acreage has reached over 1 million
mu," said Qiao Mei, director of the county's Forestry
Bureau. "Nonetheless, the government has almost no manpower or
financial investment to tend young forests, control the spread of
plant diseases, control pests, and prevent forest fires."
Gong Shujing, vice director of Zhangbei County's Forestry
Bureau, said that due to the shortage of funds, tending to forests
has become an arduous task. "Neither grass-roots forestry stations
nor forest rangers have been established or employed, which adds
greatly to the difficulty of the forestry sector's work in
protecting forest resources according to law," he said.
Third, reforestation is threatening Bashang's natural pastural
landscape.
Bashang, at an altitude of 1,486 meters above sea level, lies in
the adjoining region between the North China Plain and the Inner
Mongolia Plateau and is the source of the Luanhe and Chaobai
rivers. From time immemorial, it has been known for its vast
expanse of grassland, the nearest prairie land to Beijing.
Unfortunately, due to the over-reclamation of wasteland, the
prairie in Bashang is being depleted at a mean rate of 7,000
hectares per year, with its total area shrinking from 860,000
hectares in the 1950s to 510,000 hectares today, according to a
source with the Hebei Provincial Forestry Bureau.
This has made the ecological environment in Bashang extremely
fragile and increasingly unable to withstand the onslaught of
escalating duststorms.
It has also given rise to a tricky situation. According to a
forestry official from Zhangjiakou who asked not to be named, they
have had to prioritize now between protecting the endangered
grasslands and preventing the local ecological environment from
deteriorating even further. The latter option has won out for
now.
Yet another challenge that faces forestry officials is the fact
that the soil in the grasslands is not entirely suitable for
growing trees. So, although planting trees in Bashang might be a
quick-fix, it is by no means a permanent measure to curb
sandstorms, said Gao Juan from the Water Resources Ministry's
Department of Water Resources.
(China.org.cn by Shao Da, June 5, 2005)