China News Service, June 30, according to the website of the State Forestry and Grassland Bureau, on June 30, the State Forestry and Grassland Bureau issued a white paper on "Twenty Years of Returning Cultivated Land to Forest and Grassland in China (1999-2019)." The white paper shows that in the past 20 years, China has implemented 515 million mu of returning farmland to forests and grasslands, and the area of afforestation has accounted for more than 4% of the global green area increase over the same period. According to the current price assessment in 2016, the total value of the ecological benefits generated by the national conversion of farmland to forests was 1.38 trillion yuan, becoming a landmark project in the history of China's ecological civilization construction.
Data map: Hubei implements the project of returning farmland to forest and grass. Farmers use natural grasslands to develop animal husbandry, and gradually become a "wind-blowing grass and low-seeing cattle and sheep" landscape. Photo by Chen Quanlin
According to reports, the project of returning farmland to forests and grasses involves 25 provinces and regions across the country and 2,435 counties (including county-level units) of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Over the past 20 years, the central government has invested a total of 517.4 billion yuan to complete the afforestation area accounting for 40.5% of the total afforestation area of key national forestry ecological projects in the same period. The forest coverage rate in the project area has increased by more than 4 percentage points on average, and the ecological environment has been significantly improved.
The white paper shows that returning farmland to forest and grassland in the past 20 years has made unique contributions to farmers' income increase and targeted poverty alleviation. During the construction of the project, while the policy directly subsidizes farmers, local governments have cultivated advantageous resources and developed characteristic industries through mechanism innovation and model promotion, which has effectively promoted farmers' income increase and poverty alleviation. 41 million farmers across the country participated in the implementation of the project of returning farmland to forests and grasslands, and 158 million farmers directly benefited. As of 2019, households returning farmland have received a total of more than 9,000 yuan of national subsidy funds. From 2007 to 2016, the average annual disposable income of farmers returning farmland increased by 14.7%. This is 1.8 percentage points higher than the increase in the per capita disposable income of rural residents across the country.
From 2016 to 2019, a total of 39.23 million mu of land was returned to poor areas for farming and forestry, which accounted for 75.6% of the total 4 years. According to monitoring, as of the end of 2017, the new round of returning farmland to forests and grasslands has covered 31.2% of the poverty-stricken households in the archives, of which more than 50% in some counties in the western region. The project has a significant role in poverty alleviation, and some regions have truly achieved ecological beauty. , Prosperity of industry and prosperity of people
After 20 years of practical exploration, the project construction has formed a set of effective policies, regulations and management systems. According to the white paper, the State Council promulgated the "Regulations on Returning Cropland to Forests" and issued five documents. The relevant departments have formulated a series of regulations to form a relatively complete policy system. In terms of management, vigorously promote the "four provinces" of goals, tasks, funds, and responsibilities, and take the retired farmers as the basic unit and main body of the project construction, which has become the characteristics and highlights of the implementation and management of national key ecological projects.
The conversion of farmland to forest project supervises the whole process of progress, quality, construction period and capital use, and increases the promotion and promotion of various successful mechanisms, governance models and typical industrial development, to provide incentives for innovation in various areas and to provide demonstration and guidance on the practice of returning farmland to forest. Strong support. In addition, through a series of effective measures such as grading acceptance, publicized cash, file establishment and registration, registration confirmation, comprehensive monitoring, scientific accounting, etc., the technical means have been gradually upgraded, the management level has been greatly improved, and the quality of project construction and the legal rights of farmers returning farmland have been obtained. Effective guarantee.
The white paper pointed out that the current project construction is still facing difficulties in expanding the task of returning farmland to land, the subsidy and compensation policies need to be improved, and the long-term mechanism for consolidating results still needs to be improved. The next step will be to closely follow national strategies such as the National Master Plan for the Protection and Rehabilitation of Important Ecosystems (2021-2035), to plan production, living, and ecological space as a whole, and to persist on the basis of consolidating existing achievements. We will steadily expand the scale, comprehensively improve the benefits, promote high-quality development, continuously increase the supply of high-quality products such as green water and green mountains, meet the people's growing needs for a better life, and make new and greater contributions to building an ecological civilization and a beautiful China.
According to reports, the white paper is an important document that truly records the development process of returning farmland to forest and grassland in China. The whole book is about 16,000 words and is divided into 6 parts. They are the starting background, development process, policies and regulations, implementation management, construction effectiveness and future prospects.