Ecosystem recovery effort in north China's Inner Mongolia, notoriously known
as the source of sandstorms affecting the national capital, is producing effects
in desertification control, Yang Jing, acting chairman of the autonomous region
said.
Ecological deterioration was constrained in China's north and northwest
thanks to the ecological attention paid to the country's Western Development
program, which was launched in 1999 and vowed to help the underdeveloped far
west catch-up with the coastal areas in the east economically, Yang noted.
As a result of land reclamation effort since the late Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911), more than 60 percent of the 1.18-million-sq- km territory of Inner
Mongolia, which extends from the country's east to the northwest, became
desertified.
The problem of desertification in Inner Mongolia and other provinces and
autonomous regions in the north and northwest has aroused great governmental and
social attention since Beijing and other eastern cities were repeatedly hit by
sandstorms since the end of 1990s.
The southeastern part of Inner Mongolia is only 400 kilometers from Beijing.
As a target region of the country's Western Development program, the
autonomous region began to arouse its farmers to concede farmlands for
afforestation after the program was launched.
Grazing was also banned in some areas to protect grasslands.
In addition to investment in the protection of natural forests and soil
conservancy, the region is also striving to build up a " Great Green Wall," a
forest belt to rein in deserts from intruding Beijing and Tianjin, a port
municipality in north China.
In 1997, 13.81 percent of the autonomous region's land was covered by woods
or forests, but the figure has now risen to 14.82 percent.
A recent telemetric survey showed that the desertified area in Horqin, a
major desert land, dropped from 5.06 million hectares in the 1950s to the
current 4.2 million hectares.
The desertified area in Tongliao city dropped from 2.34 million hectares in
1994 to 2.14 million by now, while the city of Chifeng, a sand-control pace
setter, experienced a 110,000-hectare drop of desertified area from 2.03 million
hectares a decade ago.
Yang said the desertification control project not only saw an improvement of
local ecology, but help boost the income of farmers and herders by the promotion
of afforestation technology.
As tree breeds with high economic returns are introduced into desertified
areas, Yang said, farmers got increased incomes and so were motivated in the
desertification control project.
Also, over 1.44 million farming households received governmental subsidies to
offset their loss of giving up their farmlands. Each family can get 550 kg of
grain and 200 yuan of cash (24 US dollars) from the government each year,
according to Yang.
