After three years’ endeavors, 28,000 herdsmen from 6,156
households have relocated from mountains and valleys in the
Sanjiangyuan region in
Qinghai Province and are leading a better life
in urban areas.
Local governments have set up 14 communities in the region’s
urban areas to settle these ecological immigrants. Construction of
infrastructural facilities concerning water and electricity supply,
medical care and education has been completed.
In the Sanjiangyuan region, located in southern Qinghai
Province, local people depend mainly on husbandry. Sanjiangyuan,
meaning “sources of three rivers” in the Chinese language, is a
place where China’s two longest rivers, the Yangtze and Yellow
rivers, and a transnational river, the Lancang River sprout. There
are five ethnic group autonomous prefectures and sixteen counties
in the region and it boasts the country’s most important water
source conservation and ecological functional zones.
Affected by global warming and human activities over the past 30
years, the Sanjiangyuan region has been increasingly suffering from
ecological deterioration. Since such eco-deterioration would
adversely influence the nation’s production power and its people’s
lives, governments at various levels attach great importance to
controlling the deteriorating trend.
The ecological rehabilitation project began in 2003 with
relocating local herdsmen a focal part of the process. Relevant
research undertaken by various government departments revealed that
it is completely feasible to relocate 80,000 to 90,000 people from
remote pastoral area to towns and villages in a decade.
Gazang Cairang, deputy leader of Golog Tibet Autonomous
Prefecture in Qinghai Province, said the Sanjiangyuan region is one
of the country’s most impoverished regions with a vast territory
and underdeveloped infrastructural facilities, coupled with reasons
such as retreating pastureland and a rising population. “Relocation
can relieve poverty in the region,” Gazang Cairang said.
Li Jincheng, vice governor of Qinghai Province, said how to deal
with the follow-up production problem after relocation deserves
government departments’ much attention.
Thanks to governmental direction and aid, the relocated people
have started varying businesses of their own, with most of the
families supplementing their income through manual labor.
Government statistics showed that besides state subsidies,
ecological immigrants in five communities including those in Darlag
and Chendu counties of Qinghai earned 1,500-2,450 yuan (US$181-296)
in additional incomes in 2005 through culling and digging up herbs,
taking part in services, doing business and transport, etc.
In addition, government departments have selected and
recommended 281 children of Sanjuangyuan eco-immigrants to receive
education in other parts of the country since 2004. In the
provincial capital city of Xining, a vocational school only open to
children of immigrants is under construction.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, November 3, 2006)
