July 2,2019--Seguola Village of Mainri Town, Bayi District, Nyingchi City, means "golden courtyard" in Tibetan, is a beautiful village located by the Yarlung Zangbo River. 10 years ago, due to the influence of natural factors, desertification in the Yarlung Zangbo River area was very serious, which affected villagers' lives. In 2009, villagers implemented the sand control and afforestation project. Nowadays, hundreds of thousands of trees have been planted in the village, with an area of 46.67 km2.

 

In the past 5 years, Nyingchi City has accumulated 240 km2 of afforestation, 300 km2 of desertification control, 120 km2 of forest tending, built more than 6.67 km2 of economic seedling base, and completed 70 ecological security barrier construction projects, with a government investment of 260 million yuan RMB. At present, urban green area of the city reaches 5.3185 km2; green land area reaches 5.2441 km2; green coverage ratio and green land coverage ratio reach 42.55% and 41.95% respectively. By the end of 2018, Bayi District has been awarded the title of national ecological civilization construction demonstration zone; Nyingchi City has won the title of national ecological civilization construction demonstration city. There are 6 counties (district), 44 townships and 395 administrative villages in Nyingchi City being named as ecological counties, townships (towns) and villages at the autonomous region level.

 

Nyingchi City has actively formulated a series of policies to crack down on illegal acts of deforestation and forest destruction, completely stopped commercial felling of natural forests in non-natural forest engineering areas and state-owned forest farms to restore and develop natural forest resources, carried out comprehensive treatment of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands, implemented air, water, and soil pollution prevention and control, and increased ecological environment protection funds year by year. In the past 5 years, the city has invested 955 million yuan RMB special funds into ecological environmental protection, and taken comprehensively measures to improve the environment in key areas, such as sand factories, prefabrication factories, construction sites and others. There are 152 sand factories in the whole city and 57 factories after the rectification.

 

With the expansion of Nyingchi Mainling Airport, construction of Lhasa-Nyingchi Railway and the Nyingchi High-grade Highway as well as other infrastructure projects, the problems restricting the development of ecotourism have been further solved. Nyingchi City has continually increased investment to promote eco-tourism and drive local people to increase their income and get rich through industrial integrated development. Nearly 30,000 farmers and herdsmen from 1,500 households directly involve in eco-tourism of the city; eco-agriculture drives about 78,000 people from 19,000 households to increase their income and become rich.

 

Villagers of Medog's Yadon Village have once suffered from poor natural conditions, scarce production means and inconvenient transportation. In recent years, with the opening of the Medog Highway and the improvement of communication means, eco-tourism has begun to rise in local area. Chodron, a villager, takes this opportunity to start her family hotel business. Her family's annual income has increased from less than 10,000 yuan RMB one year ago to more than 200,000 yuan RMB now.

 

Meanwhile, Nyingchi City has combined ecological environment protection with poverty alleviation. 10% of the national key ecological function transfer payment funds have been used to purchase employment posts every year. The city has provided posts for poor people with working ability, such as forest rangers, natural reserve administrators, environmental protection supervisors and others, so as to continuously stimulate people's enthusiasm to protect and construct ecology. The number of ecological posts exceeds 32,400 in the city; annual per capita income has realized an increase of 3,500 yuan RMB.

By:Liu Fang, Zhu Nan