Govt scheme halts shifting sands
Print Edition
FOR years, herdsman Gonpogya has watched helplessly as desert sands have slowly crept toward his grazing pastures.
His land lies next to Qinghai Lake, the country’s largest saltwater lake in the northwestern Qinghai Province, which was reduced to a historical low in 2005 after shrinking to 4,237 square kilometers due to desertification.
To stop the spreading sands, a government program has spent the past 10 years covering 4,000 hectares of desert land with buckthorn, spruce and scots pines, easing Gonpogya’s fears for the time being.
Thanks to their efforts, Qinghai Lake has bounced back. In 2012, it grew to a record 4,345 square kilometers.
This is just a small success in the fight against desertification on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, an area known as the roof of the world.
There are currently 21.6 million hectares of desert land in Tibet, accounting for 18 percent of its land area, said Lei Guilong, head of the regional forestry department.
Sanjiangyuan region, known as “China’s water tower” because it houses the source of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers, is the top priority for these efforts. At an average altitude of 4,000 meters, the region is a paradise for herders and wildlife, such as the Tibetan antelope.
Global warming and human activity since the end of last century have led to deterioration of the natural environment, shrinking wetlands, decreasing water levels in lakes and water flow in the headwaters, as well as increasing desertification.
In this year’s government work report, Premier Li Keqiang said forests, grasslands, rivers and wetlands are ecological riches and gifts of nature. He said they will continue to preserve the source of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers.
Hoping to repair the fragile ecological system, China established the Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve in 2000. Five years later, a 7.6 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) ecological conservation project was launched in the region. Last January, a second-phase conservation project (2014-20) for Sanjiangyuan began with an investment of 16 billion yuan.
This year alone, the region will see at least 800 million yuan spent on programs such as afforestation, prevention and control of forest pests, grassland degradation management and building a geographic information system, said Li Xiaonan, head of the Qinghai provincial Sanjiangyuan ecological protection and construction office.
Thanks to the efforts, the forest coverage rate in Sanjiangyuan increased from 3.2 percent in 2004 to 4.8 percent in 2012, and is expected to reach 5.5 percent by 2020.
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