Rebuilt farmland preserves incomes and ecosystems, establishing tourism

After decades of excessive intense farming and overgrazing, Nangou village in the northwestern city of Yan'an was on the brink of environmental collapse by 1998.

Further environmental aggravation from summers of frequent flash floods posed great risks to dwellers and crops in the ravine, while raging sandstorms throughout the rest of the year would snap the buds of any grain.

Authorities in Wuqi county, which oversees the mountain hamlet, decided to persuade its farmers to give up agricultural endeavors that same year, to make room for walnut and apricot trees and rebuild the declining farmlands.

When mature, the plants were expected to offer farmers a more stable basic income, and help conserve the stark dirt hills prone to water erosion, which had been fueling sediment discharge into the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River.

But tillers expressed backlash - they were used to the extensive farming and feared that the changes would plunge them into a food crisis, according to Yan Zhixiong, then Party chief of the village.

"The farmers thought we were depriving their only means of livelihood," Yan said, who retired last year.

At the time, China was yet to launch its landmark reforestation program aimed at phasing out farming and grazing practices in environmentally fragile regions by offering subsidies to complying farmers. But the Wuqi government could not afford the sum.

"What did we do then? We did the math for them," Yan said, referring to their attempts to convince farmers that switching to cash forests would strike a balance, making them better of alongside the immense environmental values.

The reforestation effort in Wuqi that began 20 years ago was China's earliest government-led attempt to limit farming's impact on a fragile environment. One year later, the small county's initial trial morphed into a nationwide campaign to return degrading farmlands and pastures to nature.

Figures provided by the local government show the county has phased out farming on 163,000 hectares of land over the past two decades, and more than 2.1 billion yuan ($293 million) was handed out to complying farmers.