Abstract
China has been undertaking several major ecological restoration programs in recent years, including the Sloping Land Conversion Program, the Natural Forest Protection Program, and the Desertification Combating Program around Beijing and Tianjing. This chapter summarizes how these programs have been initiated and implemented, and what the main challenges are in carrying them forward. It seems that with huge government investments, tremendous progress has been made in implementing them. However, in order to complete them successfully and to fundamentally improve the ecosystem functions and services, it is essential for China to have a more balanced and comprehensive approach to ecological restoration; adopt better planning and management practices; strengthen the governance of program implementation; emphasize local people's active engagement; establish an independent, competent monitoring network; and conduct timely and high-quality assessments of the program effectiveness and impacts. We believe that in each of these areas, the international community can and should provide a wide range of technical assistance.
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Readers interested in this literature can refer to Chapter 2 for a comprehensive review.
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They are called forestry programs because they have a clear forest orientation and are managed by the State Forestry Administration. Notably, there have been other ecological restoration programs, such as the water and soil conservation ones undertaken by the Ministry of Water Resources and the farmland and grassland protection ones administered by the Ministry of Agriculture. However, the geographic coverage and public investment in these programs are generally much smaller.
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This is equivalent to roughly US$70 billion given the current exchange of $1 = 6.85 yuan.
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In certain places, the carrying capacity of the degraded farmland and grassland ecosystems has become so abysmal that the farmers and herders have no choice but to get resettled to other more viable locations. Understandably, the degraded lands will be covered in the rehabilitation effort in this case. The question remains, though, how to guarantee the farmland and grassland around the newly resettled sites will not be degraded in the future.
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The shelterbelt network in the Three Norths, once fully developed, will constitute a vast belt of 400–700 km wide and 4500 km long that parallels the Great Wall. Thus, it is often called the “Green Great Wall” by the government and the media (SFA, 2002).
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Of the 1740 nature reserves, 198 are national ones, 583 provincial ones, 289 municipal ones, and 670 county-level ones (SFA, 2006).
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Included in them are over 300 rare and endangered animal species, including panda, tiger, elephant, monkey, and crane, as well as more than 130 rare and endangered plant and tree species (SFA, 2006).
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Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (project 0624018). The authors are grateful for the comments and suggestions made by many participants of the International Symposium on Evaluating China's Ecological Restoration Programs, held on October 19, 2007, in Beijing. They appreciate Lanying Li and Erin Shi for their assistance.
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Yin, R., Yin, G. (2009). China's Ecological Restoration Programs: Initiation, Implementation, and Challenges. In: Yin, R. (eds) An Integrated Assessment of China's Ecological Restoration Programs. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2655-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2655-2_1
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