How to build the "Green Great Wall"
——The construction of the Three North Project to achieve a win-win situation with multiple ecological, economic and social benefits
【Economy Interface】
On the vast territories of China's northwest, north China, and northeast (three norths), there is a "Green Great Wall" that is rising, extending and expanding. This is the Three North Shelterbelt System known as "a successful model of global ecological governance" Construction project (referred to as "Three North Project"). The Three-North Project rejects eight deserts and four sandy lands in the north, protects the Loess Plateau and the North China Plain in the interior, and protects important places such as Beijing and Tianjin in the south. Nearly half of China’s ecological security and the lifting of hundreds of millions of people from poverty and prosperity are all related to this project. Closely related.
The State Forestry and Grassland Administration recently announced that the fifth phase of the Three North Project is about to be completed. In the past 40 years, the Three North Project has completed a total of 30.14 million hectares of afforestation and preservation. The forest coverage rate in the project area has increased from 5.05% to 13.57%, which has become a practice. Green water and green mountains are the vivid practice of the concept of "Golden Mountains and Silver Mountains".
What ecological, economic and social benefits has the project achieved? How did the Three North Land achieve a huge change from yellow to green? How to innovate the ecological poverty alleviation model so that more people can benefit from project construction? The reporter conducted an interview for this.
1. Ecological difficulties and green roads
Scenes
On the steep rock cliff with a drop of several hundred meters, layers of cypresses follow the Yellow River and stretch to the sky. This is the artificial cypress forest of the Three North Project of the Shanxi-Shaanxi Grand Canyon in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. Historically, the area where the Shanxi-Shaanxi Grand Canyon is located in the ruined gully area of the Loess Plateau has seriously lost more than 80% of its soil and water. After decades of unremitting tree planting and afforestation, it has now become an eco-tourism resort.
Green waters and green mountains were the long-term call of the Three Norths and the common aspirations of the people of the Three Norths.
The weather-beaten Three North Land is an important birthplace of the Chinese nation. In the natural changes of the sun and the moon, in the thousands of years of excessive demand by mankind, green has gradually moved away from this land, forests have disappeared, grasslands have shrunk, yellow sands are raging, disasters are frequent, and the land is barren and people are desolate... Synonymous with poverty.
In the 1970s, the area of desertified land in the Three North Region expanded at a rate of 156,000 hectares per year, and the number of wind-sand days per year often reached more than 80 days, forming a wind-sand-sand line stretching thousands of miles from Xinjiang to Heilongjiang. In the hilly and gully areas of the Loess Plateau where the soil erosion is the most serious, the annual erosion modulus per square kilometer reaches more than 10,000 tons, and 28 million tons of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers are washed away in the entire region each year; of the 1.6 billion tons of sediment flowing into the Yellow River each year, 80 % Comes from this area; 320 million tons of sediment are deposited in the downstream river every year, causing the downstream river bed to rise at a rate of 10 cm per year.
Without the green, the earth also lost its vitality and vitality. In the 1970s, the forest coverage rate in the Three North Region was only 5.05%, the land productivity was extremely low, and the people's life was very difficult. The grain yield per hectare of farmland was only about 2,000 kg, far below the national average. The four provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai bring in an average of 130 million kilograms of grain each year.
The land of the Three Norths suffered from famine, sand, and wind, and the people of the Three Norths suffered from barren land, lack of food, and lack of production. The fundamental reason was the lack of green grass and shaolin. When making the decision to build the Three Norths Project, the Party Central Committee pointed out that in northwest China, northern China, and western northeast China, sand hazards and soil erosion are very serious, timber, fuel, fertilizer, and feed are all in short supply. Agricultural productivity is low and unstable. It is a planned construction of a shelterbelt system with a combination of strips and nets, and is a major strategic measure to change the production conditions of agriculture and animal husbandry in this area.
For more than 40 years since the start of the construction of the Three Norths Project, the restoration of green waters and mountains has always been the top priority, large-scale tree planting, forestation and grass, and continuous restoration of the natural ecology. A total of 7.882 million hectares of windbreak and sand-fixing forests have been built, 336,000 square kilometers of desertified land have been treated, and more than 10 million hectares of grasslands and pastures with severe desertification and salinization have been protected and restored.
National desertification and desertification monitoring results show that since 2014, the area of desertified land in the project area has been continuously reduced, achieving a historic transition from "sand advancement and human retreat" to "green advancement and sand retreat". The average annual number of sandstorm days has dropped from 6.8 days to In 2.4 days, the three major sandy areas of Mu Us, Horqin and Hulun Buir were initially treated, and the area of desertified land continued to decrease.
2. Mechanism innovation and comprehensive governance
Case
Unfolding the map, people can clearly see that the Badain Jaran Desert and Tengger Desert firmly surround Minqin County, Gansu from southwest to northeast. In order to promote ecological governance, Minqin County has established and improved a long-term ecological construction mechanism of "the state has input, enterprises support, science and technology support, and farmers have benefits", and adhere to the principle of "who manages, who invests, who manages and protects, and who benefits." The principle is to adopt individual, joint household, and enterprise contract management methods to contract state-owned sand control ecological forests to households, and expand new income-increasing channels through management and management, development of under-forest special poultry breeding, and planting of Chinese medicinal materials. After scientific management, Minqin has become a green and hopeful place.
Green water and green mountains are the foundation and background of human existence. For more than 40 years, the Three Norths Project has made a lot of green sowing, insisting on the concept of a community of life with mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and grasses. It protects and restores severely desertified and salinized grasslands and pastures through science and technology, and through innovative financing mechanisms and purchase afforestation methods. Explore mechanisms for guiding state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, foreign enterprises, collectives, individuals, and social organizations to invest in project construction.
In the key soil erosion areas dominated by the Loess Plateau, adhere to the principle of unified planning of mountains, paddy fields, forests and roads, and the principle of combining biological measures with engineering measures. According to the scale of mountains and watersheds, comprehensive management has been carried out, and a total of 11.94 million hectares of soil and water conservation forests have been built and managed. The area of soil erosion was 447,000 square kilometers, and the area of soil erosion and erosion intensity showed a "two reduction" trend.
In the plain agricultural areas of Northeast China, North China, and the Yellow River Hetao, we adhere to the simultaneous development of multiple forest species and multiple tree species, combined with mesh belts, arbor, shrub and grass, to create 1.656 million hectares of regional farmland shelterbelts, effectively shelter 30.194 million hectares of farmland, and reduce dry heat. Disastrous climates such as cold spring, frost and other disasters are harmful to agricultural production. The protective effect of farmland shelterbelts alone has increased the annual grain output of the project area by 10.6 million tons. The farmland shelterbelt system in the Northeast has basically been completed, becoming a green barrier to protect the "big granary" in the Northeast.
Through continuous construction, Yan’an City in Shaanxi Province has achieved 57.9% of forest and grass coverage, an increase of 15 percentage points from before 2000, and forest coverage reached 36.6%, achieving a historic change from yellow to green, and adding more “green Yan’an” Ornate business card.
Langfang City, Hebei Province, in the greening process, focuses on greening around cities, towns, and villages, with the construction of river, canal, road, and embankment green belts as the line, and the construction of fast-growing and high-yield forests, famous and high-quality fruit bases, and characteristic flower seedling bases. , The combination of "point, line, surface", arbor, shrub, flower, fruit, and grass are combined to form a forest ecological network system with multiple forest species, multiple tree species, multiple levels and multiple colors.
Pingliang City, Gansu Province takes farmland forest nets, green passages, and greening of villages and towns as breakthroughs in building a new socialist countryside. The city’s 371,300 hectares of arable land have been sheltered by forest nets, and more than 2,000 kilometers of four-level highways of provinces, counties, townships and villages have been greened. .
The "Three Norths" project continued to plant greenery, allowing green water and green mountains to expand in the vast territory of the north of the motherland and enter the space where the people of the Three Norths usually live and produce.
In 2018, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the construction of the Three Norths, General Secretary Xi Jinping gave important instructions to the construction of the Three Norths, stating that "The construction of the Three Norths is a major ecological project implemented with China’s reform and opening up, and is an important part of the construction of ecological civilization. Iconic project. After 40 years of unremitting efforts, the project has achieved huge ecological, economic and social benefits, and has become a successful model of global ecological governance."
3. Green water and green mountains and golden mountains and silver mountains
story
In the past few days, Shen Wanbao, a villager in Baiyin Village, Yeti Township, Horqin Youyiqianqi, Inner Mongolia, carefully checked the growth of fruit trees in his orchard, and conducted field pest control management. The fruit in front of us is full of branches, and people's hope for a better life is pinned on. Over the past 25 years, two generations of Shen Wanbao and his father Shen Yusheng have used sloping fields to plant fruit trees year after year, exploring planting experience and enriching planting varieties. Careful management for a long time has turned barren hills into green hills. Now the 150 acres of fruit tree land produces 100,000 catties of fruits per year and the annual income is more than 100,000 yuan.
For more than 40 years, the Three North Project has concentrated on the development of green and rich people. The people of the Three Norths make full use of the abundant light and heat resources and vast land advantages given to this land by nature, adhere to the idea of eco-economic construction, and combine ecological governance with poverty alleviation and prosperity to build a forest, green a barren hill, and enrich the people. Sha Tu Ling has become a golden sand and silver mountain, a source of wealth.
The project area has built a total of 4.63 million hectares of economic forests, forming an important production base for dried and fresh fruits such as walnuts, red dates, chestnuts, peppers, apples, etc., with an annual output of 48 million tons of dried and fresh fruits, an increase of more than 30 times compared with 1978. The output value reaches 120 billion yuan. The growing economic forest and related industries have become an important pillar of regional economic development, and 15 million people have achieved stable poverty alleviation by relying on characteristic forest and fruit industries. The project area has formed a new pattern of eco-tourism development with a forest park network as the skeleton and wetland parks and desert parks as supplements. Currently, forest tourism in the Three Norths has received 380 million tourists, and the direct tourism revenue has reached 48 billion yuan.
The project construction not only enhances the regional ecological product supply capacity, but also enhances the economic and social development and the people’s material supply capacity, promotes the transformation of people’s lifestyle and consumption patterns, improves the soft power of the social and economic development of the construction area, and accelerates the society The flow and accumulation of production factors and the redistribution of social resources.
Green advances and yellow retreats, bringing vitality and vitality to this ancient land, injecting inexhaustible impetus into the sustainable development of regional economy and society, and turning green waters and green mountains into golden and silver mountains.
"The construction process of the Three North Project tells us that in the face of the harsh ecological environment, there is no way out to wait and see. Only when we stand up to build and protect the green waters and mountains can we have a better life. Experience has taught us that as long as we are under the strong leadership of the party, Drawing a magnificent blueprint under the guidance of correct development ideas, and having a set of operating mechanisms established in accordance with the laws of natural, economic and social development, we will definitely be able to reproduce the green waters and green mountains in the Three Norths, and let the people of the Three Norths find gold and silver in the green waters and green mountains. Mountain." said Feng Degan, party secretary of the Three North Shelterbelt Construction Bureau of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration.
(Reporter Li Hui)
Academic guidance of this edition
Lu Qi (Researcher, Institute of Desert Research, Chinese Academy of Forestry)
Guo Zhongsheng (Researcher, Northwest Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Xie Gaodi (Researcher, Institute of Geographical Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences)