China will invest more than 200 million yuan (US$24 million) in the
next decade to build the country's first large-scale oasis for
settlers in the southern rim of Alxa, in north China's
Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region.
More than 20,000 herdsmen needing protection from sandstorms in the
world's fourth largest desert will move to the settlement.
Yang Gensheng, a biologist from the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, said on Monday that building the oasis was like
"transplanting a 'biological lung' in the Alxa Desert, one of
China's four major sources of sandstorms."
He
said the oasis is expected to reduce dust-storm days by 10 percent
in the autonomous region's neighboring areas, and revitalize part
of the Alxa Desert.
The settlement will cover 70,000 hectares, equating to two-thirds
of Hong Kong's total space. Irrigation water will come from the
upper reaches of the Yellow River, 44 kilometers away from the
oasis.
The local government plans to plant 4,700 hectares of wind and
sand-proof trees, and reclaim 10,000 hectares of farmland in the
oasis. It will resettle a total of 25,000 herdsmen from the nearby
desiccated pastures.
Half the number of herdsmen in the Alxa League will be moved to the
oasis.
The Chinese government has already invested more than 100 million
yuan (US$12 million) to build irrigation networks and power
installations for the oasis.
About 5,000 herdsmen have already settled there and are growing
some 5,000 hectares of crops, vegetables and lucerne: an
environmentally friendly forage grass.
Full irrigation channels have opened, and green lucerne and wheat
seedlings have formed a sharp contrast with the yellow sand beyond
the farmland.
Dozens of shops and inns are operational along a kilometer-long
"town center" in the oasis.
The Alxa League covers 270,000 square kilometers of land, including
80,000 square kilometers of desert.
Due to decreasing rainfall and excessive grazing by domestic
animals, the amount of desiccated land in Alxa increases by 1,000
square kilometers each year.
The only option is to settle scattered herdsmen and let arid
pastures revive.
He
Yulong, 45, moved to the oasis with three other family members from
another part of the Alxa Desert two years ago. He, like all the
other people resettled, was provided with a 40-square-meter house,
a 60-square-meter sheep pen and 2 hectares of farmland, all without
charge.
Chen Lijie, a top official of Gargol Saihan Town -- where the oasis
is located -- said the settlement oasis is not only an
environmental project but also an aid project. He claimed, so far,
60 percent of the resettled herdsmen had doubled their annual
incomes and more than 90 percent of the settlers had visibly
improved their living conditions.
He
emphasized that the average annual flow capacity of the Yellow
River in the past few years stood at 56 billion cubic meters, while
the 10,000 hectares of irrigable land in the oasis would use less
than 80 million cubic meters of river water. "So the water
consumption of the oasis will not influence the flow in the lower
reaches of the river," he said.
(China
Daily May 8, 2002)