A total of 80,000 people in north China's
Hebei
Province?are to be relocated from 2004 to 2010 in order to
fasten the progress of the Beijing-Tianjin sand-and-wind-breaking
project,
China Environment News reported on Tuesday.
Hebei Province is a barrier to protect Beijing and Tianjin from
sandstorm attacks, but at the same time, its northern part is also
a source of the wind and sands affecting the two municipalities.
Three large sandy regions lie in the province's Zhangjiakou and
Chengde areas, from where 50,000 and 30,000 residents will be
relocated respectively in the coming six years.
By 1999, 1.8 million hectares of? land in the northern part
of Hebei had become a major source of sandstorms affecting Beijing
and Tianjin. In 2000, the state launched a project to rehabilitate
the environmentally degraded areas that are contributing to the
problem.
Practice in the past four years has not only improved the
eco-environment in the project-related areas, but has also helped
145,000 impoverished people shake off poverty. Farmers' per capita
annual income in those areas has increased from 1,456 yuan (US$176)
before launching the project to 1,739 yuan (US$210) at
present.?With impetus from the project, Hebei Province has
developed ecology-oriented industries, such as "green" food, with
great resolution, in a bid to readjust the local industrial
structure and promote characteristic ecological economy.
The massive ecological construction has also promoted
eco-tourism featuring many prairie scenic spots in the
province.
Ecology-concerned relocation is to relocate population living in
environment-seriously-degraded districts, where the basic
requirements for subsistence and development of human beings are
deficient. Dwellers living in every region where the
eco-environment is deteriorated by human activities and could be
rehabilitated easily after people’s removal, and the cost of
relocation is lower than that of ecological construction on the
spot, are subject to ecology-concerned relocation.
Most of relocated farmers in Hebei are to be resettled in nearby
areas. While smaller villages are removing to bigger ones and
natural settlements to administrative villages, those in
mountainous areas will find homes in places outside the
mountains.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, August 26, 2004)