Module 5 - China: Watershed Management Approach to Optimizing Incomes and Ecology in Poor Highlands

The projects have involved specialists in these areas. Following a two-year participatory planning process, during which staff collected information about local soil erosion control practices, the project proceeded to assist participating farmers to complete over 80,000 hectares of terracing and replant 160,000 hectares with forest trees and income-generating shrubs and trees, such as apple, pear, walnut, and apricot.

While the private sector has been reluctant to finance the types of investments involved, farmers share project costs by providing labor (up to 25 days per year) and by paying for part of the investment costs, with the share paid depending on the extent of private and public benefit of the investment. Overall, farmers contribute about one-third of the total investment. Local and provincial governments pay most of the remaining investment costs.

The lead implementing agency is the Ministry of Water Resources. Four provincial water resources bureaus and twenty county water conservancy bureaus have led project implementation.

Benefits and Impacts

Within two years, participating farmers were able to double and in some cases triple crop yields and replant previously barren hillsides, enabling over 500,000 farmers to improve their standard of living. Over 3,000 villages are now actively involved and working with over 1,200 microcatchments. By the end of Loess II, more than 3 million people will have benefited directly from the projects.

Lessons Learned and Potential for Wider Applicability

Much of the projects’ success has come from keeping project activities focused and simple and allowing each watershed group to develop its own terracing and reforestation plans. Overly complex designs for extension and agricultural programs can complicate implementation, take authority out of the hands of farmers, and limit potential for success. Major lessons learned were that similar projects are well advised to:

• Insist that, from the very start, farmers plan for grazing and livestock management.
  
  
• Allow local procurement for construction, terracing, and land reclamation, but use a strict quality control system for work at all levels, including random spot-checking.
  
  
• Import improved tree seedlings that can improve farmers’ ability to protect hillsides.
  
  
• Provide farmer-to-farmer exchange trips to pilot/project areas.
  
  
• Use a comprehensive media campaign to publicize project objectives and activities for a sustained period of time to ensure that they are widely known.
  
  
• Keep projects as simple as possible, given local circumstances and the objectives set.