‘All the birds returned’: How China led the way in water and soil conservation | Conservation

It was one of the most ambitious environmental endeavors in China at all.

The Lewis Plateau, a area that extends more than 245,000 square miles (640,000 square kilometers), supports three provinces and parts of four others, about 100 million people. By the end of the twentieth century, this land, which was fertile and productive, was considered the most corrosive place on Earth, according to A documentary film for the world of environmental world John Dr. Liu.

Generations of farmers had cleared and planned the land, broke the soil slowly and destroyed the cover. Every year, the dust was easy to confuse the yellow river with silt (this is how the river gets its name), and to send the columns of Louis, and soft windows for the wind, across the Chinese cities-in that capital, Beijing.

Thus in 1999, the Chinese government took radical emergency measures by launching grains to Green, a pilot project supported by the World Bank financing, to promote the plateau and reflect the damage to excessive hills and forest hills that will become what the bank described in 2004. “The largest and more successful in the world’s water and soil project(Pdf).

The primary focus was to restore agricultural production and entered the plateau, but the dirt storms that are already descended from the cities that are already, “made people more cough,” says Peter Bridguter, Fakhri Professor at the Center for the Australian National University of Heritage Studies and Museum.

The World Bank participants spent more than three years in the design of the project, and working with experts, societies, officials and farmers on how to surround grazing and grazing for long, unusual but unusual livestock. Tree scraps, cultivation on hills, non -mini sheep and goats are banned. The scope of sustainable practices that have been clarified in some small villages has been expanded.

The project was unusually ambitious, and it was supported by the authoritarian regime in China. “If you want a big change, the Chinese system will be well adapted to make a big change,” says Bridgeter.

There were subsidies from grains and cash for people who convert agricultural lands into herbal lands, economic forests or protected environmental forests. There were tax subsidies and benefits to compensate for agricultural losses, long -term land use contracts and convert to more sustainable cultivation including orchards and nuts, and widespread tree transplantation programs.

By 2016, China has transformed more than 11,500 square miles of crop lands fed by rain to forests or herbal lands-with a 25 % increase in vegetation in a decade of time, according to a study published in Nature Climategh. Other studies have shown Great erosion discounts and Positive changes in plant productivity.

When the environment improved, all birds returned. The forest has developed its ecosystem naturally, “the forest factor Jan Roving I told the CGTN news channel CGTN.

It was not clear, however. There was some community resistance, especially the demands of planting trees on agricultural lands. “What about the next generation? A man said with Liu:” They cannot eat trees. “

In the early years, there seemed to be a correlation between the project and a sudden decrease in the grain crop. Over the years, officials discuss whether the program harms food security in China, despite studies I found that there are several factors in playing, and this return was improved at a later time.

It was too late, the early methods used in regreen the dusty hills were also a problem. “There was a lot of collective trees – not necessarily from the indigenous population – and in the coordination of farms, in other words, unilateral cultural positions,” says Bridgeter.

The masses of the masses eventually began to replace unilateral agricultural farms, which helps to increase wildlife, but there were also problems in water management, with the cover of booming trees and agriculture that exits more and more water from the yellow river system.

“It seems that there will be a point in which the vegetarian cover will be very successful in that it is actually swinging the water balance in the landscape, which reduces the possibility of water to go to rivers and is available for human use,” says Bridgeter.

“So this is another element that was not truly thought at first, because the goal was not” let’s settle the system “. But this is a good lesson on how to think about all these factors that are very carefully interconnected before starting these things.”

There was a great factor in the success and requirements of the program and the climate is still changing. The plateau sits in a transitional area between arid and semi -satirical climates. The various natural factors were in the region, in addition to unimaginable human activity Contribute to the fragility of the plateauI found a study of 2021. At the same time, the climate in this area showed warming and moisturizing, especially in the south in which the rains increased by 20-50 mm from 2000 to 2014. “

Bridgeter says that the climate surrounding the Lewis Plateau is changing, which means what was present, or even thrived, several decades ago that could not necessarily be returned. “But we can produce something, a system that results from the services of the ecosystems in a better scope, better and more regular quality than the systems that we have destabilized.”

“Given the speed of climate change, not only the climate, but hydrology and all other global changes associated with it, we need to think about what we want. What we want from our ecological systems is actually services,” Bridgel added.

“We need to think in reality about multiple discrimination operations … to develop a completely new way to think about how to manage the scene. In a way, the entire LoesS Plateau project is a good example of this, [even if] This was not the way of thinking at the beginning. “

Le Foshin, a former farmer, told the state’s official news port that the program has strengthened local workers. “I used to cut the trees for firewood, but I now plant them instead,” said 52 -year -old forest worker. “People were supposed to go away from work, but now they can find work with the yellow river. With the improvement of the environment, I think the life of the villagers would be more prosperous as well.”

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