Agriculture Wars
Social costs of China's environmental protections policies
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| In remote Sichuan villages, wood remains the primary source of fuel. Some farmers worry that forest conservation programs threaten their access to timber for subsistence purposes (top). Flat land is at a premium in mountainous Sichuan. Here, farmer have taken advantage of a small plot along a roadway (bottom). |
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On a clothesline near Wu Keqiang’s vegetable garden hangs the blue cotton jacket that has symbolized the agrarian Chinese lifestyle championed by Chairman Mao Zedong since the 1949 communist revolution. Today, in this rural village and others like it, farmers may be hanging up their Mao jackets for good, as agriculture becomes an increasingly unreliable means of subsistence. Forty-year-old Wu now looks to other sources of income to raise his two young children.
Wu already supports his parents and grandmother. Six years ago, nearly all of Wu’s modest income came from timber harvested in hillside forests near his home in Sichuan's mountainous countryside, southwestern China. But that changed with the Chinese government’s 1998 ban on logging in natural forests in the west. China’s increasing efforts to promote environmental protection are leaving citizens like Wu wondering about an uncertain future.
In August 1998 the Yangtze River raged, killing nearly 4,000 in the deadliest flood since 1954. The damage was extensive, displacing millions and causing more than $36 billion in industrial and agricultural losses.
The disaster exacerbated the impacts of environmental degradation in the Yangtze basin over the past decades. Deforestation from mismanaged timber forests and clear cutting for agriculture had turned soil erosion and siltation into deadly and expensive problems. China’s premier at the time, Zhu Rongji, responded with sweeping changes to national Chinese forestry policy.
Logging Off
China’s Natural Forest Protection Program involves a complete logging ban in state-owned forests on the upper reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, and reduced logging in other regions. The ban covers nearly 233 million acres. Provisions for the reassignment or compensation of state-employed forestry workers are integrated into the policy. The government has largely delivered on the promise to compensate or reassign state workers, according to the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), an independent group reviewing the policy’s implementation. State logging enterprises have not been entirely dismantled, but instead moved into forest stewardship roles, allowing many former loggers to keep their jobs.
The logging ban hit hard in Tianquan County, where Wu Keqiang’s village lies nestled between mountains in Sichuan province. The timber harvest formerly accounted for more than one-third of Sichuan’s total revenue. The ban has drastically reduced money flow and prompted a shift to enterprises such as tourism and hydroelectric power.
Despite the massive economic overhaul, many believe serious environmental protection measures were sorely needed.
“Timber was the main income in the past,” said Li Weiyu, county commissioner, “but it brought damages, too.”
While state-employed foresters are compensated or reassigned, the ban has devastated many families who rely on timber for their livelihood. No compensation is provided to non-state workers, which means hard times for villagers like Wu.
“I’ve thought about moving, but that takes money,” said another villager, Zhu Guifang, 28, whose husband used to earn his income through logging. She is aware of the environmental benefits of the program, but it’s hard for her to weigh those against the immediate lost income.
Steady jobs are hard to come by, Zhu said, and she worries about the future. She hopes her son, now in his first year of school, will leave the village to attend college. “There is no future for him here.”
From Farm to Forest
The logging ban is not all Sichuan’s villagers have to think about. The Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) is a policy subsidizing the conversion of all agricultural land on steep slopes (greater than 25 degrees) to forest. Although the intention is similar to the logging ban—to curb soil erosion—the SLCP is more complex in its implementation.
Instead of applying to state land and employees, the SLCP demands private farmers cooperate in converting their cropland. The government grants a grain allowance and cash subsidy based on how much land is involved. Because the implementation of this program is less centralized—dealing directly with individual farmers—it requires greater provincial and village government involvement.
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| Downtown Tianquan, a bull stands before a new apartment building. Modern developments contrast with the traditional agrarian lifestyle still held by many Chinese. |
Driving through Tianquan County, it is easy to see how the SLCP could affect so many households. Highways wind across mountains, twisting past tiny vegetable gardens that cling tenaciously to miniscule roadside ledges bordered by nearly vertical bluffs. One would be hard pressed to spot a continuous acre of open land flat enough to avoid being marked for conversion.
Many farmers in Tianquan County have converted agricultural land with trees, keeping only very modest vegetable gardens. This doesn’t seem to have caused great concern so far—some villagers even noted an improvement in living conditions.
“In my case, it’s a great policy,” said 54-year-old Huang Chunfan, who claimed increased leisure time has provided new economic opportunities. “But our success is based on our own efforts,” he added. “If some farmers expect to live off subsidies alone, they will not have a good life.”
What happens to Tianquan County’s rural farmers beyond the promised eight-year subsidy period is unknown.
Leaving the Land
Throughout Tianquan County, the story is similar: those too old to find off-farm jobs are idle; many able-bodied workers compete for a few temporary positions. In one roadside village of about 50 households, a group is socializing in front of a modest wood and plaster house. Inside, between walls lined with newspaper, a man hurriedly buttons a worn army jacket and shoulders a crude sledgehammer. He is headed to a temporary job at a construction site up the road, he said. As he leaves the room, he grumbles about the inconsistency of such work.
Another villager, 50-year-old Gao Xixu, walks in and takes a seat at the table. Both she and her husband are retired, but her two sons are migratory workers, chasing difficult and often dangerous industrial jobs from city to city. Currently they are on opposite sides of the country—one in the western province of Yunnan and one in Shanghai, China’s largest port. Gao only sees them once a year, when they bring about 1000 Chinese yuan ($120) each. Gao’s sons call monthly to greet her, but spare the details of their work or living conditions. “They have a hard life,” she said.
Gao Fuquan, a government official in one of Tianquan’s rural villages, described the situation bluntly. “There is nothing for the people here to do with no logging and no land for crops.” A handful of villagers find migratory jobs, he said.
The lofty conservation goals of China’s forestry programs suggest policymakers are making efforts to catch up with environmental standards set by other industrialized nations. However, according to a CCICED report, the Chinese government’s aggressive implementation of these programs has neglected key needs of rural village farmers who depend on the land. “The program has had major impacts on household employment and income in many communities and has also, in some cases, resulted in limited access to timber and other forest products for self-use,” the report said.
Although a permanent alternative to lost agriculture and forestry income has yet to be
defined, the growing tourism industry may help to offset farmers’ losses. Increasingly, hotels and resorts are springing up in western provinces, giving tourists access to formerly isolated wilderness areas and creating jobs for locals.
In a village just outside Sichuan’s Bifeng Gorge Nature Reserve—an ecotourism destination opened in 2003—residents who used to depend on agriculture now take advantage of increasing tourist traffic for extra income. They rent spare rooms to visitors, open restaurants or sell crafts by the roadside.
But replacing lost cultural heritage for rural Chinese farmers may be impossible. Even if some villagers benefit from new industries, the influx of tourism and development will undoubtedly impact the simple but relatively secure lives these farmers now have no choice but to abandon.
Green GDP in China
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Though the majority of China's 1.3 billion citizens still rely on public transportation, private car ownership topped 10 million in 2003, and continues to grow rapidly. Photo by Patrick Wellever |
China may be known for supplying the world with cheap labor, but the Chinese economy is also one of the world’s top consumers.
“China has become the biggest buyer in Asia,” said David M. Lampton, director of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University. And this explosive economic growth brings environmental costs.
What makes China the biggest buyer today is continuous and dramatic economic development. While neighboring countries such as Japan and South Korea have undergone economic downturns, the annual gross domestic product in China—an economic benchmark that represents the yearly value of goods and services produced—increased by more than 9 percent in 2004.
According to The Economist magazine, this is typical for China, which has maintained an average economic growth rate of 9.4 percent since 1978. The Chinese economy’s powerful growth is based on its 1.3 billion people and booming consumptive culture.
However, Chinese economic development also brings industrial pollution and vast consumption of natural resources. GDP does not account for these negative effects or indicate the prospect for environmentally sustainable development. Critics argue GDP actually exaggerates economic development because it ignores the long-term costs of industrial pollution, while reporting short-term economic returns.
In 2004, the Chinese government began phasing in the concept of “green gross domestic product” (GGDP) into official economic reports.
GGDP is calculated by factoring the cost of environmental damage and natural resource consumption into measures of economic growth. Norway implemented the world’s first GGDP statistical method in 1987. But a standard for calculating environmental damage and natural resource consumption has yet to be agreed upon, which makes GGDP a complex and controversial figure.
Chinese officials have started regional pilot GGDP programs in several provinces.
According to Xu Xianchun, from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the bureau has been working with Norway to account for natural resource consumption. Chinese officials are expected to fully implement a standard GGDP nationally in 2006, after the regional pilot programs are evaluated.
But because of the Chinese merit system, the government officials responsible for regional pilot programs may be the biggest obstacles to implementing national GGDP.
In China, local officials are evaluated by their regional economic performance. Calculating GGDP means lower economic growth report cards for local officials, which negatively affects their performance evaluations.
Resistance to using GGDP is likely to be especially strong in regions where natural resource consumption and industrial pollution is highest—regions where the new GGDP would promote the environment but not a local official’s job standing.
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