What is the Loess Plateau
The Loess Plateau is a continental plateau in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River in China. It encompasses 640,000 square kilometers, which is approximately the size of France (“Loess”, par. 2). And its name is gained from the mineral-rich windborne sedimentary loess deposits, which are usually “hundreds of meters thick in many places” (“Loess”, par. 2). In the ancient times, the Loess Plateau was highly fertile and easy to farm, which contributed to the development of early Chinese civilization around the Loess Plateau and nowadays, “a home to more than 50 million people” (“Restoring”, par. 1). However, it is not as prosperous as the ancient times’ one anymore.
Deforestation in the Loess Plateau
Nowadays, deforestation is such a heated global issue in our society, but there are many people who still have not realized what is happening around them. In this case, Loess Plateau covers most parts of seven Provinces in China, and it is affecting thousands of people who are living there due to deforestation. According to what I was informed during my history class, there are three major deforestation events occurred in Chinese history. One of them happened during the Qing Dynasty when the Emperor gave order to cut down trees for building palaces or transforming forest to farm land.
Also, there are many causes of recent deforestation, which includes a broad range of both social and economical factors. One of the major causes of deforestation is due to overpopulation, which places pressure on lands for products and housing. Also, this increases the need of agriculture in order to feed this dramatically increasing human population. Also there is a short term view of forest management, which trades in the forest for short term economical benefits at the expense of long term environmental problems (“Deforestation”, par. 3).
How to save the Loess Plateau
The first solution is that the Chinese government should establish a more comprehensive law system about the punishment for deforestation because the one we have right now is not powerful enough. Establishing new laws is not that hard and the amount of funds to be collected is not huge. However, officers that are in charge of management may not follow the law themselves. Corruptions may happen and officers usually give many people shortcuts in exchange of their own benefits. This solution may be working for preventing future deforestation, but it cannot bring back all the trees that have already been cut down.
If the law is not useful, then we need to find solutions among people. Every household living in the Loess Plateau should be assigned a certain forest area. She or he is responsible for taking care of the trees in that area and report to government agencies immediately if there are any tree stolen cases. I think this solution is not expensive, but lots of communication is needed and people may cut down the tree in his area for his own benefits.
A more dramatic potential solution is that the government makes every tree in Loess Plateau have a GPS in it and the forest keeper has the receiver. If any damage happens to a tree, naturally or artificially, he will receive the signal and get there right away. Government should also set up a program for people who love trees from the forest. According to this program, people from all over the world choose their own sapling every spring, and then hire workers to plant it. After they adopt the tree, they should be responsible for paying all the bills that come along the tree’s growth. When the tree is mature, they can either take it back home to make things out of it, or leave it in the forest. In this way, we would be able to track every tree in Loess Plateau, but the current technology cannot prevent technical limitations.
Another feasible solution is the recovering project. We can recover forest by return farming land to forest and increase planting trees. Also, we should try to build different forests for different purposes, such as wood for construction, wood for defending the flood, wood that grows quickly, and wood that are used for cooking. It seems like a huge project and it is certainly costly, but I think once the forest is rebuilt, the outcomes would overweight all the inputs.
What will happen to the Loess Plateau
Thinking from those aspects, I believe that recovering project is the best choice for Loess Plateau right now. According to the plan of recovering, the government should collect all the farm land, which was transformed from forest years ago, from farmers and give them the rights to plant economic crops on the rest of the land. Because farmers will lose part of their income, which used to generate from the farm land, the government should give them subsidy annually and encourage them to give up more land.
After collecting all the land, the government should make plans about how to rebuild the forest through different methods. On one hand, they should recover the forest to its former appearance; on the other hand, several complementary projects such as water conservancy project, mine control project, and farming project are also important. The government should hire experts in forestry to make this comprehensive plan, divide Loess Plateau into several zones for different types of trees and build a system of watering. At the mean time, mining activities around this area should be controlled strictly.
There are many advantages and disadvantages come along with this solution. The funds for the recovery would most likely come from taxes, which means that all the Chinese people are going to pay for this project regardless of any prospective disagreement. There may be some tycoons who are willing to support this tremendous project, but the majority of the cost will still be covered by normal people. Also, it takes years for a tree to grow up, and even longer for them to form forest. If some people cannot wait patiently to see the results, instead they will simply want to shut down the project.
However, the following advantages can override those disadvantages. First of all, this project will create jobs for the nation and lower the unemployment rate. During the plantation period, thousands of workers are needed, which will attract people to come thus stimulate the local economy. Secondly, the ecological environment of Loess Plateau after the project will become much better. The forest can prevent water loss and soil erosion during heavy rain, which will lead to the further prosperousness of the forest and from a virtuous cycle. Last but not the least, people who are living in Loess Plateau will live completely differently compare to their former lives. They will have a much better living environment and greater economy along with a growing population. At the mean time, they are the people who are responsible for maintaining this area and make sure deforestation never happen again. After the basic forest is formed, the other different types of wood will be supplied to the whole country for sustainable development, which is essential to the nation.
The hope for the Loess Plateau In short, it is clear that the problem of deforestation in Loess Plateau cannot be solved immediately and easily, but as long as people keep working on recovering, it will get better and better in the future. One day, I hope that Loess Plateau will become a worldwide known scenic spot. As the saying goes, “Forest is the lung of earth”, so deforestation is a problem not only for Chinese people, but also for everyone living on the earth. Starting from Loess Plateau, we are going to save the earth.