Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
China. These pressures have been felt most keenly
in China's state-run farms. These farms were
formed from the properties of wealthy landlords
following the communist revolution in China.
Since this point, these farms have been subject to
state plans for increasing food production, which
often have little concern for the ecological impacts
of these increases. Outside the state farm system,
peasant farmers now work within communal
farms. These communal farms were designed to
help peasant farmers escape poverty and the yoke
of unjust landowners. Many of these communal
farms have been located on more marginal (often
sloping land), which had been left over following
the formation of state farms. In this context,
communal farms have often not enabled farmers
to escape poverty and have led them to adopt
unsustainable land-use practices that actively
contribute to land degradation.
A final contributory factor to soil erosion in
China has been the large-scale forest clearances
that the state has sanctioned. These forest clear-
ances have, in part, been used to support China's
expanding timber export economy (see
Chapter 5)
.
They have also enabled the freeing up of more
land for agricultural food production. The end
result of these deforestation processes has been
the increasing exposure of often vulnerable soils
to the processes of wind and water erosion and
nutrient loss. Taking all of these factors into con-
sideration, political ecology reminds us that the
causes of soil erosion are rarely simple and local
in origin. While soil erosion may ultimately be
down to the unsustainable practices of the peasant
or state farmer, or the logger, these practices are
intimately connected to national land reform
policies, the expanding export of MDF timber
products and China's emerging role in the
global economy. Addressing the problems of soil
erosion in the long term would appear to require
a consideration of local soil management tech-
niques alongside global trade and national land
laws.
4.4.3 Soil restoration in the Loess
Plateau
By way of conclusion it is important to consider
the types of remedial policies that are currently
being developed in China to address soil erosion
problems. Arguably the most significant remedial
action to the effects of soil erosion has been
developed in the Loess Plateau. The Loess Plateau
is located in northwest China and, as its name
suggest, is characterized by large deposits of fine-
grained wind-blown soil (loess). Soil erosion has
been a long-term problem on the Loess Plateau.
Over a period of time a combination of heavily
sloped land, fine-grained soil and unsustainable
agricultural practices generated a desert-like
landscape that was unable to effectively support the
50 million people who lived on the Plateau (see
Plate 4.3).
During the 1990s the Chinese government
and the World Bank combined forces and initiated
the Loess Plateau Project. The first Loess Plateau
Project saw $252 million invested in the region.
This first round of investment was followed by a
further investment of $239 million as part of the
second Loess Plateau Project. This funding has
been used to support one of the largest projects of
landscape transformation seen anywhere in the
world. The Loess Plateau Project has sought to
transform the landscape of the Plateau from a
series of steep eroded slopes to a complex network
of terraces. These terraces are important because
they significantly slow the rates at which soil and
nutrients are transferred from the land and make
agricultural practices far more productive and
potentially sustainable. The project also sought to
facilitate the natural regeneration of areas of the
landscape by planting trees, grass and shrubs.
The World Bank claims that the Loess Plateau
Project has had significant environmental and
socio-economic impacts. In terms of soil erosion,
they point out that sediment transfer from the
area to the Yellow River has reduced by some 100
million tons a year. In socio-economic terms, the
World Bank points out that since the inception of
