They lost all their ancestral assets -- rice paddies, fish ponds
and even houses, but their income nearly tripled in three years.
More importantly, they have finally bidden permanent farewell to
the ferocious floods that plagued them every summer.
While this season's floods on the Yangtze River, China's longest,
kept raising the water level in Dongting Lake, the 580 farmers of
Xipanshanzhou Yuan, a small village on Chishan Island in the center
of the lake, saw it as a chance to make money instead of a threat
to their lives and property in the past.
"The floodwaters will bring plenty of natural feed for the fish we
kept in the fishing cages in the lake, and our per capita income
this year is expected to increase by 150 yuan (18 dollars)," said
village chief Zhou Shiwei.
Just four years ago, the villagers' income was the last thing on
Zhou's mind during summer, as the surging floods reduced his duties
as village chief to only one thing -- organizing the villagers to
protect their property.
Even so, their efforts often were in vain and their village
wascompletely inundated in three of the four years between 1996 and
1999.
The village's vulnerability was due to a simple fact: it was just
too close to Dongting Lake, China's second largest freshwaterlake
and also a major buffer for Yangtze floodwater. Actually,
thevillage was founded in 1972 when farmers looking for extra
farmland and living space reclaimed the lakeshore and part of the
lake.
There were thousands of villages like Xipanshanzhou in the middle
reaches of the Yangtze, where millions of farmers, one generation
after another, had turned many fertile yet flood-prone wetlands and
riverbanks into rice paddies and fish ponds. These villages,
similar to the polders of the Netherlands, were known as"Yuan" in
Chinese, or "areas circled by embankments".
In
the devastating floods which hit the entire Yangtze River basin in
1998, many "Yuans", including Xipanshanzhou, experiencedembankment
breaches and suffered huge losses, prompting the Chinese government
to launch a comprehensive project for flood control the following
year.
A
key part of the project was to "give back land to the lakes". This
meant the government would persuade and help most farmers living in
the unsafe "Yuan" areas to give up their land and move to new
higher and safer village sites.
Xipanshanzhou was one of the first villages to be evacuated. In1999
every villager got a government subsidy of 15,000 yuan (1,800US
dollars) to build a new house in a high place on Chishan
Island.
As
the village had given up almost all its 106-hectare farmland, the
villagers had to find a new income. With help and guidance from the
Worldwide Fund of Nature (WWF), a partner of the Chinese government
in wetland protection and restoration, the villagers quickly learnt
the skills of pig and duck breeding, as well as fish farming using
fishing cages.
According to latest figures from the WWF, the average household
income in Xipanshanzhou has now reached 5,700 yuan a year (700 US
dollars), much higher than the pre-relocation level of 2,000 yuan
(250 US dollars).
"We had filled up the lake for a bit more land and the possibility
of a better life. Now that we have returned the land to the lake,
we find ourselves really leading a good life through the new
business of animal breeding," said Zhou Shuhan, an old villager.
"Moreover, flood fighting is no longer an annual routine for
us."
So
far more than two million people along the middle and lower reaches
of the Yangtze River have moved out of their old homes in the
"Yuan" areas and started new, safe and prosperous lives, according
to government statistics.
As
a result, the water surface area of several major lakes connected
to the Yangtze has increased by more than 1,400 square kilometers,
creating extra floodwater storage of over 10 billion cubic
meters.
During this year's flood season, there was no dangerous situation
reported along the 3,500-kilometer main Yangtze dykes. Experts said
that the improved buffer function of those enlarged lakes should
not be dismissed.
"Dykes and embankments are certainly important, but the harmony
between man and nature is more important," said Minister of Water
Resources Wang Shucheng.
(Xinhua News
Agency September 4, 2002)