Observation and control of land desertification in China

Observation and control of land desertification in China;

China is one of the countries most seriously affected by desertification in the world, and the direct economic loss caused by desertification exceeds 54 billion yuan every year. China should take effective measures as soon as possible to curb the momentum of land desertification.

Land desertification in China mainly occurs in wind erosion areas, concentrated in northwest and northern North China. In the mid-1990s, the wind erosion area in China was 1.9 1.000 square kilometers, and the crisscross area of water erosion and wind erosion was 260,000 square kilometers. Among them, there are 790,000 square kilometers of light wind erosion, 250,000 square kilometers of moderate wind erosion, 250,000 square kilometers of strong wind erosion, 270,000 square kilometers of extremely strong wind erosion and 350,000 square kilometers of severe wind erosion. The most serious wind erosion areas are mainly distributed in the deserts and Gobi areas of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Tibet, Gansu and other provinces in the northwest. Compared with the results of the first remote sensing survey, the area of land wind erosion in China is increasing, and the area of wind erosion above intensity has increased from 660,000 square kilometers to 870,000 square kilometers, an increase of 32 percentage points. At present, the area of land degradation and desertification continues to expand at a rate of more than 3,000 square kilometers per year.

According to the analysis of experts attending the meeting, the causes of land desertification in China are mainly natural factors such as drought, lack of rain and strong wind, but unreasonable human development and construction activities are the main reasons for the continuous expansion of desertification. Outstanding performance in three aspects:

First, the development and utilization of water and soil resources are unreasonable, the cultivated land area is blindly expanded, and there is no effective unified management. Taking Tarim River in Xinjiang as an example, during the 24 years from 1959 to 1983, the area of desertified land increased by 15.6%, among which the severely desertified land such as mobile sand dunes increased by 39%.

Second, overgrazing leads to serious degradation and desertification of grassland. In the northwest of China, the former scene of "wind blowing grass and seeing cattle and sheep low" no longer exists, and it is replaced by sandy grassland of "a strong wind and a sand". According to relevant data, the number of livestock in China's pastoral areas has increased from 29 million in the 1950s to hundreds of millions at the end of the 20th century. Predatory management leads to serious overloading of grasslands, which is more than 3 times in many places. Grassland area decreased by more than 654.38 billion mu due to desertification and reclamation, and grass yield decreased by 30% ~ 50%.

Third, indiscriminate mining and excavation have caused serious damage to vegetation. Only in Yike Zhao Meng, Inner Mongolia, during the more than 20 years from 1960s to 1980s, more than 2,000 square kilometers of grassland were desertified due to deforestation. Experts attending the meeting believe that in recent years, although the ecological construction in China's sandstorm areas has achieved results in local control, the overall deterioration trend has not been effectively curbed, and the area of land degradation and desertification is still expanding.

The so-called desertification refers to creatures on land. The decline or even loss of its productivity is mainly due to the destruction of the natural environment by human beings. One of the most obvious places of desertification is in Sachl, south of the Sahara Desert. In the northern part of this area, sheep and camels are raised by nomadic or grazing methods, which eats up all the plants in the whole area and creates a bare land. However, in the humid and wide south, due to the over-reproduction of livestock and the lack of cultivated land, the whole area has gradually become barren.

Coupled with the shortage of water, people began to dig wells. When people gather together to look for water, there are more livestock, which accelerates the deterioration of the environment and encourages desertification. This vicious circle makes people's lives in this area generally very difficult. There is no rainy season in the Sahara desert, so it won't rain, but as long as there is a little moisture, plants sleeping underground will compete to sprout new buds, but soon, overgrazing livestock will eat them up ... So the desertified soil is still expanding silently ...

2. Countermeasures and suggestions for combating desertification

1. Strictly observe the law and discipline and punish administrative corruption.

Since the reform and opening up, China's legal system construction has entered a new stage, and a large number of laws and regulations have been formulated. Related to the prevention and control of desertification are Environmental Protection Law, Forest Law, Grassland Law and Soil and Water Conservation Law. At present, the prevention and control of desertification is being formulated, and a series of supporting laws and regulations are also being formulated. These laws and regulations are called laws and regulations because they are authoritative, serious and mandatory. A society ruled by law has no power over the law. It is illegal to substitute words for law and power for law, which is not allowed by law. Therefore, any violation of laws and regulations (including government actions) should be punished and corrected according to law. Otherwise, the invalidation of the law will only encourage administrative corruption and disrupt social order.

However, in our government departments at all levels, there are always people who regard the power given by the people as a personal privilege. It seems that laws and regulations are made for the people and are specially used to restrain them, but they cannot restrain themselves. In line with their own interests and departmental interests, administration according to law; On the other hand, they do everything possible to bypass "policy obstacles" and even find various excuses to ignore laws and regulations. It should be said that it is this kind of administrative corruption in law enforcement departments that has aggravated the destruction of natural resources and ecological environment in China. It is suggested that the National People's Congress, with the theme of "western development, giving priority to ecology", carry out targeted law enforcement inspections on laws and regulations related to environmental protection, promptly correct the problems existing in law enforcement by governments at all levels, and avoid the recurrence of the tragedy of ecological damage caused by large-scale development in history.

2. Decisions on environmental issues should be forward-looking and forward-looking.

China's decision to protect natural forests and ban natural forests in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River and Yellow River was made after the flood of 1996. The decision to prohibit digging and selling Nostoc flagelliforme and stop picking licorice and ephedra indiscriminately was made after the sandstorm hit Beijing in the spring of 2000. They all made up their minds after paying a painful price. In fact, whether it is a flood or a drought, as early as the late 1970s and early 1980s, scholars and the media issued warnings that "the Yangtze River is in danger of becoming the Yellow River" and "sandstorms overwhelm Beijing". China's top decision-makers are not indifferent, just because they involve a wide range of social interest groups, and the government's financial support ability is limited, so it is difficult to make decisive decisions. But all ecological and environmental problems have a kind of "superimposed benefit", which is only a stopgap measure. Without a fundamental solution, we can only get twice the result with half the effort, and we can't stop the accelerated deterioration of the environment. And once cured in the future, the cost will be higher and heavier, at the expense of the ecological environment, far exceeding the immediate and temporary interests.

It is suggested that the State Council should set up an expert advisory group and an early warning and forecasting system on various ecological and environmental issues, including desertification, so as to provide scientific basis for high-level decision-making by government departments.

3. Increase the state investment in desertification control in China, but the state investment has been insufficient for a long time. During the Eighth Five-Year Plan period, the state's investment in sand control was only 654.38 billion yuan, and it was difficult to implement local matching funds, because most of the sand areas were "old, small, marginal and poor" areas, and local financial resources were limited. A considerable number of people have not solved the problem of food and clothing, and it is difficult to come up with money to prevent desertification. From 65438 to 0999, the state invested more than 30 million yuan in sand control projects. According to the control area, the average investment per mu is 2.26 yuan, which is only enough to buy two or three small saplings, which is far from the actual needs (some experts think that the annual sand control fund needs 2 billion yuan). At present, in northwest China, the cost of afforestation per mu is about 100 yuan, and the afforestation of sand control project per mu needs 500 yuan to 600 yuan. In the past, the way was to mobilize farmers to invest in labor and make up for the shortage of afforestation funds. In today's market economy, the methods of low investment level plus administrative orders, rigid apportionment and free use of labor force are becoming more and more unworkable in the planned economy era. Moreover, the State Council has repeatedly demanded that the burden on farmers should not be increased. If we don't increase investment in sand control, the future work will inevitably decline. In fact, due to the lack of funds, many key problems in sand prevention and control, such as the popularization of water-saving technology, the breeding of excellent varieties, the prevention and control of pests and diseases, and the development and utilization of solar energy and wind energy, cannot be solved; Many grass-roots sand control units and workers, such as forest farms, nurseries, sand control stations and protection stations, have no guarantee of wages, and their production and life are struggling, making it difficult to carry out sand control work normally. At the same time, it also causes slow construction speed, low quality and scattered layout, which makes it difficult to form a scale; The management and protection force is weak, and it is difficult to consolidate the achievements of afforestation and grass planting. These present situations are extremely disproportionate to the strategy of shifting the focus of national poverty alleviation and economic construction to the central and western regions.

It is suggested that the state should not only raise funds through multiple channels, but also increase capital investment in combating desertification, and combine it with comprehensive agricultural development, farmland capital construction and projects; It is also necessary to formulate some corresponding preferential policies, implement the principle of "whoever manages, develops and benefits", and promote desert auction, lease loan, transfer and joint-stock cooperation, so as to form a new situation in which the state, collectives and individuals participate in sand control together and the whole society participates in sand control together.

4. The establishment of a national leading group to combat desertification is not a purely technical issue, but also a social and management issue. It involves all aspects of society, economy and ecology as well as various government departments such as forestry, agriculture, water conservancy and environmental protection. This is a complicated system engineering. One of the main reasons for the unsatisfactory prevention and control of desertification in the past is that all sectors of society are fragmented and it is difficult to form a joint force. Even one department is controlling sand, while other departments are making sand. All environmental problems are developed horizontally across administrative regions, while government departments that solve environmental problems are designed vertically. It is impossible to fundamentally solve any horizontal environmental problems if we adhere to this vertical administrative management mode of departmental division and geographical division. Therefore, we must also design our environmental administrative management system horizontally to avoid wrangling, internal friction, dispersion and duplication among departments and improve the overall efficiency of ecological construction projects.

Therefore, it is suggested that the national coordinating group to combat desertification be upgraded to the national leading group to be directly led by the State Council, so as to improve its authority and operability. According to the division of departmental functions, the office is still located in the State Forestry Administration. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the role of the "Senior Expert Advisory Group" to ensure the scientific and technological content of desertification control and increase the transparency of science and technology and planning and design.

5. Incorporate environmental costs into the economic accounting system, and take ecological construction as the performance evaluation index.

Any economic development and construction will have a negative impact on the ecological environment, with advantages and disadvantages. However, whether the benefits are great or the disadvantages are great, and how to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages depends on the assessment of environmental costs. For example, in recent ten years, 220 million mu of grassland in Inner Mongolia has been damaged to varying degrees by digging Nostoc flagelliforme, of which 60 million mu has become desert and the rest is in the process of desertification. Therefore, the direct economic loss caused to animal husbandry reaches 3 billion yuan every year, and the ecological damage loss is immeasurable. It also triggered the contradiction between farmers and herdsmen and triggered social problems that affected national unity. Therefore, this economic activity of plundering resources should be banned.

However, for a long time, our performance evaluation of grassroots cadres only included economic development indicators, but not ecological construction indicators. Especially in the poverty alleviation goal, we blindly emphasized increasing the number of livestock and grain production, thus encouraging herders to cross pastures and farmers to destroy forests and grass to open up wasteland for farming, and the resulting soil erosion and land desertification were not included in the assessment. Therefore, in order to maximize the rapid growth of economic indicators, some government officials and government departments do not hesitate to pay the ecological environment in exchange for "political achievements" during their term of office. This is the fundamental reason for quick success and instant benefit, short-term government behavior and short-term decision-making It can be seen that environmental problems are rooted in our social and economic structure and system. Without changing the social and economic structure and system that are incompatible with the ecological construction goal, the efforts to improve the environment will not achieve much. At present, what we urgently need to solve is to bring environmental costs into the economic accounting system and the specific content of ecological construction into the performance evaluation indicators of governments at all levels.

6. Strictly control the environmental population capacity, and combine returning farmland to people.

The capacity of environment to population is the basis of making social development plan. The ecology in western China is extremely fragile, easy to destroy and difficult to recover. "The land is vast and the population is sparse" is only a superficial phenomenon. Due to the limited environmental capacity, the population in many areas is already over-saturated. Relevant data show that the total population of desertification areas in northern China has reached 400 million, an increase of 160‰ compared with the beginning of the People's Republic of China. The land area of Xinjiang is10.6 million square kilometers, and only 4.5% of it is an oasis for human survival and reproduction. At present, the population density in agricultural areas is 200-400 people per square kilometer, which is equivalent to that in eastern coastal provinces. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only 6.5438+0.5 million people around Taklimakan Desert, and the population density was 2 people per square kilometer (including desert and Gobi). In 1980s, the population increased to 510.3 million, and the population density reached 8 people per square kilometer, which exceeded the standard of 7 people, the critical index of population density in desert areas stipulated by the United Nations. The reasonable population density in the valley of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is no more than 20 people per square kilometer, and now this area has reached 90 people, which greatly exceeds the land carrying capacity. Overfarming and overgrazing have led to sandstorms. Southwest China has high mountains and steep slopes, poor soil and serious rocky desertification after vegetation destruction. Rocky desertification makes the land lose its productivity permanently, so it is more serious and more difficult to control than desertification.

Returning farmland to forest and grassland should be combined with "returning people" In areas with poor living conditions, the population exceeding the environmental capacity should be gradually moved out and transferred to small towns, so as to fundamentally solve the repeated problems after returning farmland to forests and "relying on mountains to eat mountains", continue to destroy vegetation and give nature a breathing space for recovery; At the same time, developing small towns with certain scale effect, absorbing rural surplus labor force and transferring agricultural surplus population can also promote the development of various industries, increase people's income and ease the contradiction between population pressure and land carrying capacity in the west.

7. Protection, restoration and reconstruction of desert ecosystem

The fundamental reason for the formation and expansion of desertification is the man-made destruction of desert ecosystem (including desert, Gobi system, grassland system, forest system and wetland system in arid and semi-arid areas), and the internal stability and imbalance of the system due to the intensive development and utilization of water resources, biological resources and land resources in the system. In the past, on the one hand, we planted trees and grass to prevent desertification through biological and engineering measures, on the other hand, we destroyed the desert ecosystem and created new desertification land. In fact, it is precisely because of the destruction of the desert ecosystem that although we have built the "Three North" shelterbelt and implemented the project of preventing and controlling desertification, we have not been able to curb the pace of desertification expansion as a whole. It can be said that the real reason for frequent sandstorms in the past half century is not that there are too few artificial vegetation, but that too many natural vegetation have been destroyed. The local improvement of the small environment cannot offset the overall reversal of the big environment.

In view of this, it is necessary for us to adjust the strategy of sand control, from one-sided emphasis on the development of artificial vegetation to active development of artificial-natural arbor-shrub-grass composite vegetation; From simply protecting oases to actively protecting the entire desert ecosystem including oases. Only by rebuilding the desert ecosystem can we fundamentally curb the momentum of desertification expansion, reverse the passive situation of desertification and soil erosion prevention and control, and effectively improve the macro-ecology and environment in the northwest region.