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China to Manage Well Three Gorges Resettlement
China will adopt a new method this year to accelerate the resettlement of residents away from the planned damming area of the world's largest hydro-power project at Three Gorges in Central China's.
Li Anchun was one of the first-group farmers in the Three Gorges reservoir region, who agreed to take part in the country's new resettlement scheme by moving farther away from their homes to more developed regions in east or south China.
Over 400,000 residents at the Three Gorges were scheduled to be resettled and to make way for the construction of the gigantic hydro-power project built over the Yangtze River before 2009, when the project is fully operational.
Nearly one year ago, Li was just as lamented to abandon his house and a small patch fields on a mountain slope by which his six-member family was fed.
However, after moving out with other 7,500 fellows from the construction site in China's midwestern region to coastal provinces and cities in August last year, Li was satisfied with fields allocated to him in Dafeng, Jiangsu Province.
Advanced farming and big market in the region have ensured him over 10,000 yuan of agricultural earnings this year, which made the 28-year-old farmer quite happy about his new life.
Officials with the Resettlement Bureau of Three Gorges Project Construction Committee visited Li and many other re-settlers this month, and found that most of the farmers have become cheerful.
Besides farming, they were even engaged in small businesses to catch up with the living standard of their new neighbors.
"The smooth transition of their lives is even beyond the expectations of the Central Government, which signifies the success of the experiment of the new settlement scheme approved by the State Council," said Zhang Baoqin, the vice-director with the bureau.
The new scheme has made local government more confident of keeping the schedule of the resettlement program, he said.
The world's largest reservoir project has required the work of an equally remarkable resettlement program. Over 1.13 million people, including farmers, urban and township dwellers, will be resettled to make way for the construction of the mammoth hydro- power station before 2009.
"To some extent, the resettlement work is even heavier than the construction of the hydro-power station, for it is crucial for the lives of over 1 million people," said the resettlement official.
The relocation of farmers is the toughest among all works of the Three Gorges resettlement, Zhang said, elaborating that the government should find some 26,000 ha. new farmland to compensate the farmers for their losses, and the promise of a prospect better than that in their original homes.
If all of the farmers are arranged in the new settlements near the big reservoir, as formally purposed, the government will have to reclaim new mountain slopes for farming, which would deteriorate the fragile ecology along the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze.
In order to find a way out, the commission under the State Council last year tried to select 11 better-off provinces and cities in the southern and eastern region to relocate the first group of Three Gorges farmers. On the average, one selected village received three to five resettled households.
The Central Government appropriated over 100 million yuan for the compensation of agricultural production and lives of the farmers. The selected villages provided the new comers with farmland, with a size and quality higher than the local averaged standard. Neighbors voluntarily planted rice, vegetable and other farm produce to greet the removed households.
Li Anchun was quick to start a scientific farming plan with the help of veteran farmers in his village. He segmented his farmland by growing cotton, setting up vegetable greenhouse, cultivating orchards and managing sericiculture.
"Even if one or two kinds of the farm produce meet sluggish market, the others can bring about income," said the farmer with a lessened home accent.
His experience has encouraged more of his fellows to follow the suit. This year, more than 40,000 farmers from the Three Gorges reservoir region are to move to the coastal areas, as confirmed by the resettlement official.
So far, new houses have been built, and preparations have been made for their arrival in August.
Zhang said that the number of residents at Three Gorges reservoir regions bound for other provinces will reach over 120, 000 by the 2003, when the first phase of damming is scheduled to be completed at the Three Gorges.
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