http://www.bjreview.com MARCH 26, 2020 BEIJING REVIEW 29
Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar
Comments to linan#bjreview.comOUT OF POVERTY
percent of whom came from impoverished
families.
Tasang is one of the employees. “I have
been working in the nursery since it was es-
tablished. The job enables me to make money
near my home and take care of old and young
family members,” she said.
The business has also been a personal
therapy for Tashi Palden. As a teen, he was
hit by a tractor, which damaged his hearing.
The accident disrupted his school education
and left him depressed about his future. But
his parents supported him to come out of
the depression and do something to earn his
own living.
Emboldened by the success of his initiative,
his plan now is to keep enlarging the nursery,
plant more saplings and make “the villagers’
purses deeper.”
The green initiative
In the 1980s, the Central Government allo-
cated funds to green the banks of the middle
reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo. In 1983, the
Tibet Regional Government set up an envi-
ronmental protection department. That year,
the Ķ rst forest was grown in Shannan to Ķ ght
sandstorms. In the following decades, more
than 45 million trees had been planted along
the river in the city, forming a green belt 160
km long and 1,800 m wide by mid-2019. An
additional 4,400 hectares of forests are ex-
pected to be created in Shannan this year.
The efforts have paid off. The roads linking
Shannan and Lhasa are not buried by sand
any longer. And the air Tuality in Shannan and
nearby cities has improved. In 2018, 96 per-
cent of the days in downtown Shannan had
excellent or good air Tuality. In Lhasa, the Ķ g-
ure was 99.7 percent in the Ķ rst 11 months of- “When I was young, our courtyard and
living room would often be covered with layers
of white sand brought in by the strong winds in
winter. But in recent years, we are seeing fewer
sandstorms and my house is much cleaner,”
Tashi Palden told Beijing Review.
Significant progress has been made
in Tibet’s eco-safety barrier project, which
includes afforestation in the valleys of the
region’s six major rivers, including the Yarlung
Zangbo. Tibet had 16.02 million hectares of
forests, with a forest coverage ratio of 12.14
percent and a growing forest stock of 2.28 bil-
lion cubic meters, according to a white paper
released by the State Council, China’s cabinet,
in March 2019.
A new market
The greening project is pushing up the demand
for saplings and bringing business opportunities
for locals. More nurseries are springing up in
Shannan. The city today is home to more than
50 nurseries and many experienced sapling
growers.
As Tashi Palden puts it, “Planting saplings
can turn a wasteland into a land of milk and
honey, which both protects the environment
and creates jobs for impoverished local resi-dents who can’t go to distant places to look for
jobs. So why not do it? ”
Protecting the environment has been an
effective way for locals to shake off poverty.
Since 2001, the Central Government has
paid 31.6 billion yuan (4.5 billion) in eco-
compensation to the autonomous region
for protecting its forests, grassland, wetland
and key ecological reserves, according to the
white paper.
According to a Tibet Daily report in early
March, reforestation efforts will continue in
2020, with 62,820 hectares of new forests
expected. More than 1.24 billion yuan ( 178
million) has been set aside for the refor-
estation and other greening projects. It is
estimated that more than 90 percent of ru-
ral Tibetans will get jobs in the reforestation
projects.
“In 2019, 150,000 people in Tibet cast off
poverty and 19 counties were removed from
the poverty list. Extreme poverty has been basi-
cally eliminated in Tibet,” Qizhala, Chairman of
the regional government, said at the third ses-
sion of the 11th people’s congress of the region
on January 7. This year, he added, more follow-
up funds have been earmarked to prevent
Tibetans who have risen out of poverty from
slipping back into it. Q
(Chogyal contributed to this report)An aerial photo of the green
belt of forest along the
middle reach of the Yarlung
Zangbo River in Shannan,
Tibet Autonomous Region,
in July 2018COU
RTE
SY
PH
OTO