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China varies development modes for different regions
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-11 16:16
BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Staring out over the seemingly endless waves of
sand dunes and spare vegetation, Jia Mucan knows his family's way of life has
got to change. "I can't raise livestock here any more," said the nomadic
herdsmen with a sigh.
The 63-year-old Tibetan's family has for generations moved from pasture to
pasture with their animals. He still has a substantial herd of more than 300
cattle and sheep which he grazes in Maqu County of the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous
Prefecture in northwest China's Gansu Province.
Degenerating grassland in the region over the past decades has made it
increasingly hard for his six-member family to make a living like their
ancestors.
Gannan Prefecture used to flow with grasses, spring flowers and vegetation
and remains an important watershed of the Yellow River, the country's second
longest river.
Overgrazing and too-fast economic development over the past five decades has
sharply reduced the area's vegetation. Green coverage in the valley region has
dropped by 50 percent over the past 50 years.
Jia has had just about enough of the tenuous way of life and is seriously
thinking of the government's offer to move to a permanent settlement as many
other herders have. "I admire my friend Zhuo Majia's present life," he said.
Last year, Zhuo Majia's family resettled in a new village in Luqu County,
which was built by the local government especially for the herders.
Zhou's five-member family moved into a new house for which it paid less than
half the actual cost of construction. The Zhuos paid 30,000 yuan (3,750 U.S.
dollars) while the government paid the remainder of 62,000 yuan (7,750 dollars)
for the new home. The family now has clean tap water and cable TV and Zhuo is
planning to build a livestock shed for his remaining heads of cattle.
To improve living standards of people in the environmentally difficult areas
is a major theme of the 11th Five-Year Development Plan for the National
Economic and Social Development (2006-2010). The program's draft is expected to
be approved by the ongoing Fourth Session of the Tenth National People's
Congress.
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