By ALEXA OLESEN
(Virtual China, June 1) "Let trees sprout on the mountains; stop growing grain on hilly terrain; and keep livestock in their pens," declared Premier Zhu Rongji at a State Council meeting this week, according to a Wednesday article by the South China Morning Post's Willy Wo-lap Lam.
The edict, a classically structured piece of propaganda consisting of three balanced lines of four characters each, apparently came out of Zhu's recent inspection tours of China's Northern and Northeastern provinces. In those regions, lack of green spaces are exacerbating the fierce sand storms that have been blowing through Beijing this spring and contributing to a serious drought in the capital city.
In his speech, Zhu explicitly blamed the erosion and drought on the ambitious but short-sighted agricultural practices of Chairman Mao, according to the article. In the 60s and 70s, Mao instructed farmers to terrace hilly areas and plant rice or wheat. The new edict, issued this week by Zhu, forbids the very things that Mao championed, and will apparently also be accompanied by grain subsidies that should enable farmers to plant acres of trees rather than food.
Fragile & Overlooked
The subsidies, rather than the catchy edict, are the key. According to Dr. Ping He, President of the International Fund for China's Environment (IFCE) the problem in China is that up until now "government policy has never involved the local farmers."
"They want them to control the grain output but they don't give them money to compensate their loss," said Dr. He. "That's the failure of desertification control. No matter how much money you put into propaganda it wont work without economic incentives."
China's rapid growth over the past twenty years has meant increased consumption of fuel, food and water. The depletion of those resources have upset the balance of an already extremely fragile and overworked eco-system, and signs of the strain are clearly showing.
The past year has been the driest Beijing has seen in over 50 years, according to a Beijing Youth Daily article last week. The total rainfall last year was only half the normal average and that lack of rainfall has intensified the force and frequency of the winds that blow in from the Gobi desert. They sweep over Beijing, leaving in their wake a sandy yellow grit that covers everything.
Flooding & Erosion
A recent China Comment Biweekly article called "Behind the Sandstorms" explained that the storms were a symptom of a serious desertification problem throughout China. The article claimed that 40 percent of China's land mass was deserts and sandy wasteland, and that desert areas were growing by 2,460 square kilometres annually.
The article explained the financial cost of the environmental disaster (US$6.5 billion annually) and illustrated how conditions are worsening rather than improving. While in the 1960s China averaged around eight sandstorms a year in the 1990s that annual figure has climbed to twenty.
In order to protect Beijing from the yellow sand storms, plans are in the works to build a 100-square-kilometer forest belt around the city. This green belt will block the sand and wind and help to prevent flooding and erosion. Local governments in Beijing, Hebei Province and Inner Mongolia have all been enlisted to help with the program. Beijing city officials say they plan to use the greening project to uproot the migrant population that currently has formed its own organic belt of life around the city.
Zhang Yunchang, an official with the Beijing Municipal Afforestation Bureau, was quoted in the China Daily last week saying that the project would be a good way of clearing out Beijing's three million laborers from outside the city and that the project would be finished by 2002.
To reach Alexa Olesen email: alexa@virtualchina.net
