Sep

Conservation Pilot in China’s Grasslands Helps Local Farmers

YUNWUSHAN (Sept. 9, 2012) – As autumn begins in the reserve, the grassland habitat in Ningxia Province’s Yunwushan Nature Reserve is scattered with yellow blossoms and blue medicinal herbs. Global Environmental Institute (GEI) conducted a follow-up assessment on the progress of its conservation project where we piloted the Conservation Concession Agreement pilot to combat desertification and improve farmers’ livelihoods.

The pilot project has been a great success:

Protection of this distinct ecosystem has improved;
Illicit herding rates were reduced to practically zero;
Having received protection subsidies and production capital from GEI as well as the reserve, participating households were also able to increase production efficiency and explore additional opportunities for income generation.

In addition to these successes, the upcoming harvest is anticipated to be very rich. The program supported pilot households to plant 127 new acres of pastureland, which can be harvested more efficiently thanks to the 23 lawn mowers bought by the reserve. Plus, due to more frequent rains, hay production this year was extremely high. Yields of additional livestock feed for annual plants like sorghum and oats and perennial plants like alfalfa appear to be very high as well.

GEI also visited several pilot households which were selected at random. One of the households sold ten head of cattle for a gross profit of 4,500 RMB per head, which is equal to 3,000 RMB net profits per head. Additionally, new acreage was added through the project to provide additional grazing areas for cattle and sheep during the winter months.

Annual forage-sorghum – GEI 2012

Perennial forage-alfalfa – GEI 2012

Next steps for grassland conservation

To continue the success of the work, GEI and members from Wildlife Conservation Society (WSC) hosted a workshop on conservation on September 10. The workshop was called “Training Session on Agricultural Techniques for Grassland Conservation Concession Agreement Projects.”

During the training session GEI gave an overview of its experience and lessons learned from implementing conservation agreement programs over the years. WSC program officers gave an overview of their work conducting grassland conservation agreement programs in the Qiangtang region in Tibet.

Multiple technical experts from the Reserve gave a presentation to pilot households on how to use scientific methods for rearing livestock, preparing livestock feed, forage planting and management processes and for planting and managing marketable species of apricot trees in the project area to provide an additional source of income.

A description of these and other farming techniques and recommendations have been compiled into an Agricultural Cultivation Hand Book and have been distributed to project households to maximize agricultural sustainability and provide new income for the project households.

The reserve also organized members from the pilot households to visit the herbarium and museum to strengthen their awareness of flora and fauna living in the reserve.