More than 60,000 Tibetan herdsmen will be relocated from an ecologically vulnerable river source area in northwest China's Qinghai Province by the end of this year to better protect the source area of China's most famed rivers, including the Yangtze and Yellow River.

 

"By July more than 30,000 people from 6,000 households had been displaced. Another 30,000 will be moved out from the area within the year," said Li Xiaonan, an official in charge of ecology preservation in Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve said in an interview with Xinhua.

 

Scientists have been repeatedly warning the situation would continue to deteriorate because of climate change, overgrazing and increasing human activities in Sanjiangyuan, the source area of Yangtze River, the Yellow River and Lancang River.

 

Qinghai started in 2003 resettling herdsmen from Sanjiangyuan, home to the world's highest wetlands. Two years later, the central government initiated a 7.5 billion yuan (US$999 million) ecological reconstruction project in the area and relocation of herdsmen was stepped up.

 

Bai'ma Kangzho, 40, used to keep about 50 livestock and lived on the grassland until three years ago. Her whole family moved to the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Huangnan because of the pasture land degradation.

 

Right after she moved to Huangnan, agricultural technicians came to teach her to grow vegetables in the plastic greenhouse.

 

"I had never grown any vegetables before I moved here. Now the vegetables are growing well and I can sell them and earn 3,000 yuan a year," she said.

 

Qinghai Province has built 35 resettlement communities and 51 more are under construction. This year a total 61,899 herdsmen from 13,305 households will be resettled.

 

The program is seen as China's biggest resettlement project in terms of the population, in which 100,000 people will be relocated from the Sanjiangyuan area by 2010 to restore the ecosystem, according to government plans.

 

"The government has given every family a well-built house of 70 to 80 square meters, as well as plastic greenhouses to grow vegetables. Investment in housing alone has exceeded 200 million yuan," Li said.

 

"Each household is given a subsidy of 3,000, 6,000, or 8,000 yuan annually according to their financial circumstances," he added.

 

The provincial government has earmarked funds totaling 80 million yuan to give the herdsmen technical training, such as machine repair, cooking, and handcrafts, so that they could be more independent financially.

 

"To move the herdsmen from pasture lands they have inhabited for generations is not easy," said Deni, head of a community in Darlag County of Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Golog. "But due to erosion and desertification, more and more people are realizing the benefits of resettling,"

 

"The government has done a lot to persuade those who are truly reluctant to move. The relocation is in line with the will of the herdsmen, not by force," he said, noting many herdsmen felt easier after seeing the school, hospital, and the facilities in the community.

 

Deni said a few hundred households of herdsmen in Golog are voluntarily applying to resettle so the pasture land could recover from over-grazing.

 

Li Xiaonan said the resettlement project in Sanjiangyuan is proceeding smoothly and the preservation and displacement measures had proven effective.

 

"But it would take about five years to restore the ecology and at least 10 years to curb desertification in the region," he said.

  

(Xinhua News Agency October 2, 2007)