Yu Kangzhen: Seize the Momentum to Advance Grassland Protection and Construction to a New Level
China's grasslands total nearly 6 billion mu, accounting for about 2/5 of the country's land area. Grassland is the largest terrestrial ecosystem in China, and also an important material basis for the development of grassland animal husbandry and the main support for herders' income growth. It plays a pivotal role in ecological civilization construction, economic and social development, maintaining border stability, and safeguarding ethnic unity.
The “12th Five-Year Plan” grassland work achieved remarkable results with outstanding highlights
The “12th Five-Year Plan” grassland policies closely centered on the overall work of the “three livelihoods” and the “three pastoral matters,” continued to exert efforts, established the new guideline of “organic integration of production and ecology, with ecology taking priority,” implemented a series of new grassland policies centered on grassland ecological protection subsidies and rewards, and promulgated and enforced new grassland regulations represented by judicial interpretations. At the same time, China's grassland law enforcement and supervision work also reached a new level, with the capacity building of grassland law enforcement and supervision continuously improving and the investigation and handling of grassland illegal cases continuously intensifying.
The years since the “12th Five-Year Plan” have been the period with the greatest intensity of grassland ecological protection and construction in China, the period of the fastest transformation and development of grassland animal husbandry, and also the period with the largest increase in herders' income. This is mainly manifested in four aspects.
First, the accelerated implementation of various grassland systems. Driven by the new grassland policies, the implementation of systems such as grassland contracting, basic grassland protection, grass-livestock balance, and grazing bans and rest periods has been significantly accelerated. As of now, a cumulative total of 4.25 billion mu of grassland has been contracted nationwide, accounting for 72.3% of the national grassland area.
Second, the accelerated recovery of the grassland ecological environment. In 2014, the livestock overload rate of key natural grasslands nationwide was 15.2%, a decrease of 14.8 percentage points from 2010. The decline in livestock carrying capacity has allowed most grasslands to recuperate. In 2014, the comprehensive vegetation coverage of grasslands nationwide was 53.6%, remaining above 50% for 4 consecutive years. The total fresh grass production of natural grasslands nationwide was 1.02 billion tons, exceeding the 1 billion ton mark for 4 consecutive years.
Third, the accelerated transformation of the development mode of grassland animal husbandry. Pastoral areas everywhere followed the approach of “determining livestock by grass, increasing grass to increase livestock, shed feeding and confinement, relying on science and technology, accelerating slaughter for market, and ensuring supply,” and under the premise of protecting grassland ecology, vigorously developed modern grassland animal husbandry. With the expansion of planted forage grassland and the promotion of shed and semi-shed confinement feeding, moderately scaled standardized breeding in pastoral areas developed rapidly.
Fourth, the steady growth of herders' income. During the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, the grassland subsidy and reward policy provided an average of 13.93 billion yuan in direct subsidies to herder households each year, and has become the main source of transfer income in herders' per capita income.
New situations and new tasks facing grassland work during the “13th Five-Year Plan”
The “13th Five-Year Plan” is the crucial five years for building ecological civilization and completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and also five years of tackling hard challenges. In recent years, the grassland ecology has generally improved, but the overall deterioration of grassland ecology nationwide has not yet been fundamentally reversed. The area of moderately and severely degraded grassland still accounts for more than 1/3, the grassland ecosystem as a whole remains unstable, and the grassland ecological environment that has been restored remains relatively fragile.
First, the task of improving the level of grassland resource management and utilization is arduous. China is a country with a large grassland area, but not a country strong in grassland resource utilization. From the perspectives of per capita resource quantity, resource distribution and utilization, utilization methods, carrying capacity level, and management methods, the level of grassland resource management and utilization in China still needs to be gradually improved.
Second, the task of consolidating the achievements of grassland ecological environment construction is arduous. With the advancement of industrialization and urbanization, grassland overutilization and insufficient protection persist, the livestock overload rate remains above 15%, nearly 1/7 of grasslands have not been allowed to recuperate, grassland degradation, desertification, and soil erosion remain serious, natural disasters such as sandstorms and rodent and insect biological disasters occur frequently, and in some areas destructive phenomena such as overload grazing, reckless reclamation, and reckless digging and gathering persist despite repeated prohibitions.
Third, the task of promoting the transformation and development of grassland animal husbandry and increasing herders' income is arduous. The economic structure of pastoral areas is single, the channels for herders to increase income are narrow, and the per capita annual income level of herders is still less than 80% of the average level of farmers. As the main source of herders' income, grassland animal husbandry faces the dual challenges of feed shortage and low development level.
Fourth, the task of vigorously advancing grassland governance according to law is arduous. China's grassland laws and regulations system is not yet sound, supporting departmental rules are incomplete, and local supporting regulations are very uneven among regions, mostly concentrated in pastoral provinces and regions, with very few in southern provinces and regions. Grassland supervision personnel are few, their quality is not high, and equipment is poor, so further consolidating and improving the level of grassland governance according to law remains a long and arduous task.
The basic approach and key work plans for grassland work during the “13th Five-Year Plan”
The basic approach for grassland work during the “13th Five-Year Plan” is to continue to follow the requirement that “protecting the ecological environment is protecting productivity, and improving the ecological environment is developing productivity,” abide by the basic guideline of “organic integration of production and ecology, with ecology taking priority,” and adhere to protection first, prevention foremost, institutional control, key governance, and bottom-line thinking. We will fully implement the grassland ecological protection subsidy and reward mechanism policy, deeply implement grassland protection and construction projects, establish and improve grassland management and protection systems, focus on protecting and restoring the grassland ecological environment, and comprehensively promote the development of the grass-based livestock industry.
We strive to achieve by 2020 a comprehensive grassland vegetation coverage of more than 56%, stable total fresh grass production of natural grasslands above 1 billion tons, retained area of high-quality planted grassland reaching 170 million mu, basically implemented grassland contracting, grazing bans and rest periods, and grass-livestock balance systems, and grassland ecology entering a track of virtuous circulation; beef and mutton output in pastoral areas reaching 6.5 million tons, accounting for 50% of the national total output, the proportion of scaled breeding of beef cattle and sheep exceeding 40%, and marked improvement in the improved breed coverage rate, livestock slaughter rate, and disaster prevention and mitigation capacity of grassland animal husbandry, with major progress in modern grassland animal husbandry construction. We will focus on the following five areas of work:
(1) Stabilize and improve the grassland subsidy and reward policy. During the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, we will continue to implement and strengthen the grassland subsidy and reward policy. In accordance with the requirements of “not lowering the intensity of ecological protection, not lowering the level of subsidies and rewards for herders, strengthening support for grassland management and protection and the transformation of grassland animal husbandry, and increasing the intensity of performance evaluation,” and comprehensively considering factors such as grassland area, forage output, and the increase in beef and mutton prices, we will appropriately raise subsidy and reward standards, increase support for the transformation and upgrading of the grass-based livestock industry, and raise herders' policy-based income.
(2) Continue to implement grassland ecological restoration projects. Adhere to combining engineering measures with natural restoration and combining key breakthroughs with broad-scale governance, increase the intensity of projects such as returning grazing land to grassland, grassland governance in the Beijing-Tianjin sandstorm source region, rocky desertification grassland governance in karst areas, and the new round of returning farmland to forest and grassland, and strive to continuously improve construction content and raise construction standards. Comprehensively use means such as “retire, enclose, plant, and manage” to increase the governance of grassland “black soil beaches” and degraded grassland, promote grassland ecological restoration, enrich the biodiversity of natural grasslands, stabilize total fresh grass production, and continuously improve the production capacity of grassland ecological products.
(3) Solidly advance the development of the grass-based livestock industry. Strengthen infrastructure construction for the grass-based livestock industry, vigorously develop planted grass, strengthen the expansion and breeding of basic female livestock, promote the matching of improved breeds and improved methods, accelerate turnover and slaughter for market, develop moderately scaled operations, and innovate development models for the grass-based livestock industry according to local conditions. Actively cultivate new types of business entities, enhance the degree of integration of production, processing, and sales, and promote reasonable distribution of benefits among breeding, processing, and circulation links. Support the development of agricultural product circulation formats such as direct sales, delivery, and e-commerce, and encourage business entities to develop specialty industries that reflect grassland culture and ethnic customs.
(4) Actively and steadily advance the confirmation of grassland contracting rights. Explore the establishment and improvement of an information-based and standardized grassland rights confirmation and contracting management model and operating mechanism, standardize the transfer of grassland contracting and management rights, encourage the transfer of grassland contracting and management rights on the open market to specialized large households, family pastures, herder cooperatives, and pastoral enterprises, and allow herders to use contracting and management rights as shares to develop industrialized pastoral operations. Improve the reasonable, standardized, and diversified safeguard system for herders whose grasslands are expropriated, raise the proportion of herders in the distribution of land value-added benefits, safeguard herders' right to distribute collective economic benefits, and increase herders' property income.
(5) Continue to strengthen grassland governance according to law. Promptly revise the Grassland Law, adding systems such as grassland ecological red line protection, property rights and use control of grassland resource assets, departure audit of grassland resource assets, accountability for grassland resource damage, and grassland ecological compensation. Strengthen the construction of the grassland supervision system and village-level grassland management and protection personnel teams, increase the intensity of investigating and handling illegal grassland cases, and severely crack down on and expose criminal acts that destroy grasslands.
Grassland is the main battlefield for China's ecological civilization construction, and pastoral areas are also the main front for maintaining stability and harmony. During the “13th Five-Year Plan,” the task of strengthening grassland protection and building a beautiful China is extremely arduous. All grassland workers must further enhance their awareness of enterprise, opportunity, and responsibility, keep their mission and responsibilities firmly in mind, resolutely protect every piece of grassland that should be protected, effectively build every piece of grassland that should be built, and advance grassland protection and construction to a new level.