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Disaster concentrates minds: massive flooding in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1998—which left thousands dead, millions homeless, and the economy poorer—marked a watershed in views about flood control. It helped officials recognize the damage caused by the destruction of natural systems that for millennia had sustained the country’s river basins and protected biodiversity.
“There was an awakening in all of China after the 1998 floods: people asked why, when we’ve been spending all this money (on flood protection), are these floods still happening and causing more and more severe damage? The emerging view is that floods must be managed under an integrated approach and in better harmony with nature.” says KyeongAe Choe, ADB senior natural resources management specialist.
That “new” thinking is partly behind the $55 million Sanjiang Plain Wetlands Protection Project, says Ms. Choe, who is in charge of the project. It was designed to manage watersheds in an integrated way to protect humans and biological diversity on the vast Sanjiang Plain in Heilongjiang Province in northeastern PRC. It will restore the wetlands’ function as a natural flood control and conserve a globally important area of biodiversity.
The Sanjiang Plain, an area covering 108,900 square kilometers, or the size of the Republic of Korea, is one of the PRC’s richest in globally significant flora and fauna. The plain supports about 37 ecosystems, 1,000 species of plants, and 528 species of vertebrates, including 23 globally threatened species on the World Conservation Union Red List. Ten of these are waterfowl such as cranes, storks, and swan. Geese, which require extensive, undisturbed wetlands during their migration and breeding seasons. The wetlands are also an important nesting and stopover for migratory birds on the northern end of the East Asian-Australian flyway.
Yet 5 decades of agricultural expansion have imperiled that rich biodiversity and the flood control that the plain’s watersheds provide. Just one fifth remains of the original forest and wetland cover.
Sanjiang’s problems are the result of intricately related economic interests competing for use of scarce natural resources, such as water, forests, and wetlands.
Area residents have drained wetlands to expand farmland—turning vast areas to grain production—and channeled floodwaters, contributing to hydrologic and microclimatic changes.
Forestry workers interviewed in the project preparation work reported that in some areas so much forest had been cut down they could not sustain working operations. To make ends meet, they were forced to turn some land to agriculture and to travel further afield to cut down trees.
The project, which started in mid-2005 and is funded jointly by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), PRC Government, and Asian Development Bank (ADB), will directly address the root causes of the problem rather than only the consequences.
It will generate global benefits from the protection of endangered species and conservation of ecosystems that are under threat. Improved watershed management and wetland habitat quality are expected to boost wildlife populations.
Immense networks of drainage channels, pumping stations, and flood-control dikes have altered the cycle of entire watersheds and destroyed millions of hectares of natural marshes and wet meadows on the plain.
They have threatened biodiversity and increased the risk of damage from severe floods and frequent droughts.
To put Sanjiang’s ecosystems back on a sustainable path, the project adopts an integrated watershed and wetland management approach that combines conservation of important biodiversity sites with the economic welfare of the people that live near and around them, using development of selected wetland and forest areas.
It will restore 3,433 hectares of wetlands and repopulate wetland natural reserves with globally threatened wildlife species. Six key nature reserves in 13 counties (of 18 counties on the plain) will directly benefit from habitat and wildlife protection.
Organizers expect the project to provide a model framework that can be expanded throughout nature reserves and important watersheds on the Sanjiang Plain and elsewhere in the PRC. It is expected to lead to a much larger forest and wetland restoration program.
“The PRC Government’s commitment to this project sends a strong signal to the region to recognize the importance of investing in watershed and wetlands protection,” says Wouter Lincklaen Arriens, ADB lead water resources specialist.
ADB’s own water policy promotes wetland conservation and improvement as an integral part of water resource management. Wetlands help alleviate floods, recharge groundwater, improve water quality, maintain ecosystems, and conserve biodiversity.
The project has identified four main threats. They include changes in hydrology and dessication, the development of wetland to farmland, the inappropriate use of resources, and a limited capacity for conservation of nature reserves.
Closely interlinked measures will remove these threats, increase forest cover in upper watershed areas, and improve water resources planning and management.
To discourage inappropriate use of resources, the project will help diversify income sources for poor farm households through, among others, intercropping, nontimber forest production, and ecotourism.
Village development plans, using a consultative and participatory approach, will help provide farmers with alternative livelihoods.
The project will also strengthen the capacity of local agencies in charge of watershed and wetland management, and of the nature reserves. Revenue from forest yields will be used to help cover the operation and maintenance costs of the reserves.
The Sanjiang Plain Wetlands Protection Project differs significantly from other wet-land conservation in the PRC in its close linkage of watershed management with the management of wetland nature reserves, and with the way it directly addresses the needs of the plain’s local residents.
“Biodiversity conservation and protection of wetlands will not be sustained without considering their economic impact, and without active participation and commitment from the communities affected,” says Ms. Choe. The project will, therefore, draw on community practices in watershed, wetland, and wildlife conservation.
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