| Change and Hope in Gansu | ||||||||||
| By Yang Shun-bin, Translated by Tang Yau-yang, Photos by Huang Xiao-zhe | ||||||||||
The lush fields on the Loess Plateau in Gansu, China, used to support families quite comfortably. With climate change, human activity, and the highly erosion-prone nature of the loess soil, those verdant fields have become barren, and families have been forced into poverty and hardship. Governments and private organizations have been taking concrete steps to slow the worsening desertification and improve local people’s lives.
Former World Bank Vice President Ismail Serageldin famously predicted in 1995 that “If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.” Water is without question a precious resource. People can survive without petroleum, but not without water. When there is a lack of water to cultivate crops, human livelihoods are in peril too. This is the reality that those who live on the Loess Plateau in China are contending with. With an area of 425,800 square kilometers (164,400 square miles), Gansu Province is just slightly smaller than Iraq and a little larger than the American state of California. The Loess Plateau, approximately the size of France and spanning an area of 640,000 square kilometers in the upper and middle reaches of China’s Yellow River, covers about a quarter of Gansu Province. Jingyuan County in Gansu is almost entirely loess, not counting the portion through which the Yellow River flows. With an evaporation rate of 1,300 millimeters and precipitation of just 240 millimeters a year, the county is severely arid. The ecology is dangerously fragile on the Loess Plateau. It is infamous for serious soil erosion, which is great enough to change the color of the Yellow River (hence its name). That great river runs clear before entering the plateau, but becomes murky afterwards thanks to the run-off loess soil. Loess, a windblown sediment consisting typically of dust and silt, is by nature susceptible to erosion. But that is not the only destructive force at play in the area. Deforestation, over-grazing, and improper farming techniques have also contributed to the degenerated ecosystems.
The great Yellow River thus becomes the great Muddy River. The vast plateau retains little water because any precipitation passes right through it down to far below the surface. Plants are hard pressed to grow productively, and residents there have a tough time making a living. Even getting enough water to survive is a major undertaking. They need help. Outside help A Tzu Chi delegation visited Gansu Province in 1998 for a week at the invitation of the China Charity Federation. The delegation was tasked with assessing the feasibility of extending assistance to people in the area. Zhang Wen-lang (張文郎), a member of the delegation, recalled his utter shock when he learned how severe the water shortage was: Residents of Tongwei and Huining Counties told the delegation that local people generally took only three baths in their lifetime—once when they were born, once when they got married, and once when they died. The delegation also learned that it took a person several hours a day to fetch water for his family, and as the drought deepened and sources of water dwindled, they had to walk farther to get water. Cisterns to capture and store precious rainwater before it vanished into the thirsty ground could help, but at a unit cost of 3,000 renminbi (US$460), they were beyond the reach of most local families. After the delegation returned to Taiwan and reported their findings, the foundation decided to build cisterns for the local areas. Over the next 11 years, Tzu Chi sponsored the building of 19,060 cisterns in Gansu Province. Construction reached Jingyuan County in 2007. The county government established a Tzu Chi Projects Office, staffed with experts from the county water resources bureau, to coordinate and oversee the project. After completion, the cisterns relieved many families of their water problem and saved them the long trips to fetch water. However, a cistern can only be useful when there is rain. Sadly, due to climate change, Jingyuan County has been getting drier and drier over the last decade, according to Gu Bingbo (顧秉柏), from the Tzu Chi Projects Office. The drought has been so bad that he can feel its sting even in the county seat. The government has had to pump water from the Yellow River to lower-altitude locations on the plateau for irrigation and household uses. Those who lived at higher elevations and could afford the cost of relocation moved to new farming communities at lower elevations, but their neighbors who could not afford to do so had no choice but to stay and do their best to struggle along. After extensive discussions and coordination, Tzu Chi decided to help those poor families relocate too. For the first phase of the relocation project, the foundation chose a site in Laiyao Village in the town of Liuchuan to build new houses for 210 poor families, a total of 1,050 people, from the town of Ruoli. Construction began in March 2008, and the new village was inaugurated in early 2011. Following the success of the Laiyao settlement, Tzu Chi and the Jingyuan County government started constructing phase two of the relocation project in the town of Wuhe. Baita Tzu Chi Village, with a capacity of 300 families, was completed in September 2015. Aid distributions In addition to helping relocate underserved villagers, Tzu Chi has also been distributing aid to the needy in Jingyuan County. Wang Yi ($}/q), director of the Tzu Chi Projects Office, observed that of the 480,000 residents in Jingyuan County, 420,000 rely on farming to make a living. Among those, 140,000 live in mountainous areas; their harvests and livelihoods depend entirely on the weather. Despite persistent efforts, 70,000 of them still live below the poverty line. On January 7, 2016, more than 60 Tzu Chi volunteers from Taiwan, the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan, and Shanxi, and the city of Chongqing arrived in the town of Dongsheng, Jingyuan County, to distribute relief supplies to 395 families. Local volunteers and residents from the two Tzu Chi-built villages joined the visitors to staff this winter distribution. Dongsheng was the eighth town in Jingyuan County in which Tzu Chi had held winter distributions since 2011. All told, 24,000 people from 7,000 families have benefited. Bao Wei (包偉), party secretary at Dongsheng Village in Dongsheng Town, said that about 30 families from his village came to receive goods during the distribution. They were all disadvantaged families really in need of help. He thanked the foundation for assisting needy people in his village over the years: building cisterns, providing school supplies to students, and now giving items such as cotton-padded jackets, cotton underwear, comforters, and rice. After the distribution, the delegation visited some of the recipients in their homes. It took us an hour by car over bumpy roads to reach Tuoxi Village. When we arrived, we saw that it was no longer much of a village. We saw collapsed dirt walls, locked doors, and few souls. It appeared deserted. Most people had moved away. The loess we walked through on our tour of the village really left a mark on my mind. Though I deliberately took gentle steps, I couldn’t help but stir up a small dust storm along my path. The ground seemed to offer little support; my feet sank deep into the sand with each gentle step. This was archetypical loess terrain, a Tzu Chi Projects Office staffer explained to me. He said that I would have felt even more impressed by the dirt in Ruoli, another town in Jingyuan, because that was where the loess layer was the thickest. There was no water service in the area we visited, so residents worked hard to stock up water before winter set in. They also replenished their stock with snow, when it came. We visited the home of Zhan Yuan (展元) and his wife, Xie Cuijun (解翠均), both in their 60s. The couple’s two sons worked out of town, so they lived by themselves. The couple was very happy to meet us. It had snowed a few days before, and we saw no fewer than five buckets in their courtyard, containing either snow or slightly cloudy water. I thought that the water had been used previously, but I found out that it was unused water from melted snow, which had been muddied by the omnipresent loess dust. Following the couple into their kitchen, I saw a big basin of water. It was dark brown in color, perhaps from having been reused countless times previously. Some melted snow was being heated on a stove. Though murky, it would serve as their drinking water. After our visit, we walked outside and bade them farewell. It was at that time that I noticed a large tree in front of their house. “Did you plant this?” I asked them. “Yes,” they replied. “We planted it in 1968.” I did a little math. The tree was almost 50 years old. I figured that the couple probably planted it when they had first settled there. Though this area was so arid, the tree still clung to life tenaciously. Like the couple themselves, it was admirably perseverant.
Planting trees, halting agriculture Desertification and degenerated ecosystems in the area have made the government and residents realize the gravity of the situation. They have therefore stepped up their efforts to protect the local ecology, in parallel with Tzu Chi’s efforts in building cisterns and relocating people to more hospitable communities. The Hasi Mountains in Shimen, Jingyuan, host the only natural forests in the county. They also serve as the source of drinking water for neighboring towns. Therefore the government has designated the area as a provincial nature reserve. The county forestry bureau has set up forest protection stations and hired people to care for the environment. These people are predominately local residents because they are more familiar with the terrain and also because the county wants to create job opportunities to help locals transfer away from jobs that contribute to arid soil and degenerated ecosystems. Over-grazing and pests once devastated these forests and its vegetation, but today, in the middle of winter, we could see lots of pines and other vegetation on the Hasi Mountains in the distance. This is due to the protective measures the government has implemented in recent years, including converting farmland to forest and closing mountains to allow the forests to regenerate. These measures have yielded impressive results, with forest coverage now reaching 50 percent. There was a time when 154 families lived in the village of Laoya, Shimen Town, but today only two families remain. Wang Shuangxing (王雙行) and his mother are among the few people who still live there. Wang works for the forest protection office. Before dawn, he fetches four buckets of water home so his mother will have water to use during the day. At five he grabs a shovel and leaves for work. He patrols the hills on foot for ten hours a day before returning home in late afternoon. During his patrols, he puts out fires and ensures that people do not trespass with their goats to graze. He also sprays insecticides in the spring and finds open spaces to plant more trees. The 2015 tree-planting goal for the Hasi Mountains was 20,800 saplings. Wang Shuangxing said that he also makes a note of each tree that is withering from dehydration during his tours. Then he notifies people to come in a motor vehicle with buckets of water to irrigate the trees. A donkey delivers water to places inaccessible by car. A lot of care has gone into these trees. Wang is apparently quite proud of his involvement, but still he views his work as just a job, not a calling. Given the chance, he would not hesitate to leave this land for someplace else where a living is easier to make. China started its reforestation efforts in 1980, but a lack of expertise and persistence undermined their effectiveness through the decades until 2002, when the nation started two policies: a conversion of farmland to forest and the use of drip irrigation. These two initiatives have delivered marked results. The policy of converting farmland to forest originally drew sharp criticism and resistance from farmers. They felt that they were already hard pressed to eke out a living without the government taking some of their land away from them. To placate concerned farmers, the government started handing out annual subsidies based on the acreage farmers gave up for the program. Farmers in Jingyuan County knew that, given the drought, continued farming would yield them next to nothing anyway, so they willingly complied with the government policy. The mountainous area in the county has seen its land under the program grow in size each year, reaching 41,200 acres in 2015. To reduce soil erosion, local town governments grow drought-resistant plants such as Korshinsk peashrub on the idle land. They also plant fruit trees with robust root systems, which serve to preserve soil and water underground and produce fruit above ground. A bonus is that the fruit can be sold for money. Jingyuan County also plants trees for reforestation. Local government agencies are responsible for planting and caring for these trees. At first, public servants carried containers to water tree seedlings, but that was hardly an efficient method of irrigation. Later, they switched to drip irrigation. When they plant trees, they also install underground tubing. Water towers are built at high points and, based on the weather, they release water to be delivered directly to the roots of trees. This irrigation method has greatly boosted water absorption and hence the trees’ survival rates. Furthermore, the Jingyuan County government has also closed its forests, encircling them with wire to prevent herdsmen and goats from entering. Goat grazing has led to deforestation and soil erosion in the past. The county government continues to appropriate 20 million renminbi (US$3,100,000) per year for reforestation. County employees also donate a hundred renminbi (US$16) a year to help the crusade.
Eco awareness Winds blow fiercely in Jingyuan County “from spring to winter,” according to a local limerick. These unceasing winds have contributed to the formation of the loess terrain as well as to the hard lives of local residents. Gu Bingbo, from the Tzu Chi Projects Office, recalled his visits to poor people in the town of Liuchuan in 2008. The dust storms in spring were so severe that they enveloped the sky and turned it brown. Visibility was diminished to such an extent that people could not see the road in front of them. The dust was all-penetrating. Leaving a door closed but unsealed for the night all but guaranteed that its occupants would wake up and find sand, lots of sand, in their mouths. The limerick describes it vividly: “Shake the sand from you in the morning, and you become a few ounces lighter.” It was no wonder that local residents would use old, thick cotton clothes to make remnant quilts and hang them on their doors to provide insulation against the chill and, just as importantly, the sand. “But nasty sandstorms like those are becoming fewer and further between,” said Gu. “We had only a couple of them last year.” He attributed the marked improvement to the government’s environmental policies, the beneficial effects of which can now be clearly felt in Jingyuan County. The county has around 165,000 acres of planted trees so far. Though the trees are still small, the land is now at least decorated with greenery and grass. If the policy remains in force and is executed as stipulated, these areas will no longer be bare stretches of brown loess. The success of the reforestation efforts in Jingyuan has prompted neighboring counties and cities to follow suit, further compounding the benefits already manifested in Jingyuan. Can the Loess Plateau be successfully rehabilitated through careful management of reforestation programs like these? The jury is still out, but it is clear that environmental awareness has taken root, resulting in concrete actions on the part of governments and the private sector to restore vegetation to their land. In due course, perhaps in a decade or two, some of the small trees will have become big trees, and likewise some grass patches might sprawl into prairies. Then some locals who have moved away may one day be eager to return home—to greener pastures. |
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