China Gives Priority to Fighting Land Erosion in Three Gorges Area

Standing at the Port of Wushan, in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, passengers could not help staring at a line of big, white Chinese characters on a mountain slope on the other bank of the Yangtze River, which read: Protecting Water and Land Is Beneficial to the Nation and the People.

Posters carrying this kind of slogans are seen wherever you go in the Three Gorges Area which covers part of Chongqing and Hubei Province and is home to the multi-billion U.S. dollars Three Gorges Dam Project now under construction.

Over the past few years, local governments at different levels in the area have exerted enormous effort to create greater environmental awareness among the public over the past few years. In Kaixian County and Chongqing, alone, the local government has allocated some 650,000 yuan for the purpose.

"It is necessary to make greater publicity on fighting land erosion," said Shang Jucheng, an official from the Environmental and Resources Committee of the National People's Congress, who has been leading a group of reporters on a tour along the 6,300 kilometer-long river, the third largest in the world, to witness local land-protection programs and try to find out any irregularities.

During the tour, the reporters were impressed with the efforts local governments have made over the past few years to deal with the issue with the support of the central government and local people.

A number of pilot programs were launched in the area by local governments to prove how farmers could benefit from protecting land and water in their villages and surrounding areas.

Pointing to the green mountains and waters around, Jiang Mouhai, head of Hong'en Village, Kaixian County, told reporters that before government-financed environmental protection was launched in 1996, the villagers lived in a miserable state, which had barren land, frequent floods and an annual per-capita income of mere 200 yuan. Since 1996, local villagers have succeeded in afforesting the mountains and leveling the farmland, to quadruple the per-unit grain yields and double their per-capita income.

Jiang, who was re-elected the head last year after a five-year tenure, said the village commission plans to increase the power supply capacity and make the villagers accessible to cable TV and telephones.

The experience indicates that it is a must to let farmers benefit from environmental programs and policies, said Shi Liren, an official from the Yangtze River Water Conservancy Committee.






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