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Water Conservancy Project to Protect Pasture
China will initiate a large water conservation project to protect its largest natural pasture in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The project aims to cover 600,000 hectares of grassland within ten years. And the autonomous region is expected to harvest 700 million kilograms more of forage grass each year by 2000.
The central government will fund two-thirds of the total cost of 300 million yuan (36 million U.S. dollars), and the rest will be allocated by local governments.
Kang Yue, a senior engineer at the local water conversation office, said that the project will mainly adopt the spray irrigation and low-pressure pipe irrigation.
The autonomous region is the home to 70 million hectares of natural grassland. This largest natural grassland in China also serves as a "green shield" in the north.
However, about two-thirds of the grassland has been severely damaged by drought, excessive reclamation and foraging. The Xilin Gol Prairie in the autonomous region has degenerated into the main headstream of the rampant sandstorms that have slashed Beijing lately.
In recent years, large amounts of livestock has died due to the harsh environment, deteriorating with the lasting drought and infestation of locusts and mice in northern China.
Stunned during his inspection tour of the Xilin Gol pasture in May, Premier Zhu Rongji urged the local government to take effective measures to curb the deterioration of the pasture environment.
Kang said irrigation will help rehabilitate the natural grassland by replacing them with small sized high-yield forage bases.
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