A massive ecological project to return farmland to forest and grassland will soon be carried out in China's vast western region, which covers 56 percent of the country's territory.

The central government will allocate financial compensation and ration grain reserves for farmers in the region who will sacrifice their own land and replace the use of timber as cooking and heating fuel with coal and electricity.

Part of the plan, known as "Grain for Timber Project," for hina's economic growth is to optimize the environment in the country's inland regions while tapping its potential in order to bridge the gap between the eastern and the western regions.

This will the way of life for common folks, many of whom still live below the country's poverty line, said economists attending a national workshop on developing the western region held here in the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

This vast land that provides the raw materials necessary to boost the coastal areas' robust economic growth is the cradle of China's largest rivers -- the Yangtze, the Yellow, and the Pearl.

The frequent flooding of these major rivers in recent years, which is partly to blame for soil erosion at the upper reaches, has set off an alarm that the region's rich resources can not be exploited in a haphazard way. Maintaining the ecological environment is not only vital for providing food for the local inhabitants, but is also necessary for ensuring the fast economic development at the lower reaches.

A comprehensive strategy to promote sustainable development in western China is already being designed by the central government.

During a meeting on this topic, Chinese President Jiang Zemin stressed that the work of improving environmental conditions in the western region is a life-and-death matter for the success of the strategy.

Last year the Chinese government imposed a ban on irrational logging in many forest areas, particularly those at the upper reaches of major rivers, in a bid to curb soil erosion. Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics show that China's output of timber in the first seven months this year plummeted 22.2 percent on an annual basis to 14.77 million cubic meters.

"A price must be paid for greenery in the western region," Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji told officials in Yunnan Province during his recent inspection tour.

He said China has a grain surplus to pay the price of returning farmland to forest and grassland, and called on people in the region to be far-sighted enough to see that an improvement of the environment will ultimately be beneficial for agricultural production.

So far, the autonomous regions of Xinjiang Uygur, Ningxia Hui and Tibet, and Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces and Chongqing Municipality are involved in the project.

Sichuan has set a two-year target to increase its forest cover by 200,000 ha, and Yunnan intends to cooperate with the American Nature Preservation Association to establish the world's largest national park in the river valley along the mighty Jinshajiang River. The 15-km-long river canyon is one of the deepest in the world.

Zhoima, a villager in Zhongdian County in Yunnan, which is famous for its vast stretch of snow-capped forest, told Xinhua that people in her village are changing from their herding tradition to promoting tourism.

"There are not many trees left near the village after generations of logging. It is time for a change in our lives," she said.