|
| HOME 主页 VITA 简历 RESEARCH 研究 TEACHING 教学 RESOURCES 资源 WUHAN 武汉 历史地图 |
|
Besides the building of dams and the loss of biodiversity, the deterioration of water quality is another essential threat to environmental security in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin. Obviously water quality in the Lancang River is an issue of primary concern to both China and the downstream countries, as the livelihood of millions of people depends on water from the river. However, rapid population growth and industrialization in China have made controlling water pollution especially challenging for decades, and the Lancang River Basin has been no exception. Water quality in the mainstream, tributaries, and lakes of the Lancang River, like in many other water bodies in China, has been worsening for many years. However, the recent dramatic turnaround in containing pollution in Erhai Lake, the largest lake in the Lancang River Basin, offers a rare refreshing example of how environmental degradation can be reversed in contemporary China. The "Erhai experience" has apparently not caught much media or scholarly attention outside of the Dali Bai Nationality Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, where Erhai Lake is located, even though it could provide invaluable insights into how the conflicting interests of various stakeholders in China today can actually be reconciled to some degree so as to contribute to environmental security and cooperation.
This section will first discuss the significant improvement in water quality in Erhai Lake since 2003, focusing on the specific drastic measures that the Dali Prefecture government has taken to control residential, agricultural, and industrial pollution around the lake in the past few years. While local government actions are undoubtedly the most immediate causes for the better water quality in Erhai Lake today, they are definitely not the entire story. Indeed in many other places across China, local governments who are fixated in promoting economic growth may even be the main culprit for environmental degradation. Compared with other large lakes near urban centers in China, Erhai Lake is really an exception rather than the rule in terms of pollution levels. Therefore it is important to develop an explanation for why the government of Dali Prefecture was able to take effective measures to protect the environment of Erhai Lake in recent years while experiences at other times or places have different outcomes. That is the main task of the second half of the section. Although Chinese official media often attribute the better environment in and around Erhai Lake to the political will and wisdom of local government leaders, on a deeper level the explanation lies in the unique combination of factors that have persisted since 2003 in Dali Prefecture. These factors prompted the prefecture government to act like a theoretically coercive outside agent to impose restraints on all local stakeholders, including itself, in order to ensure durable common-pool resource management.
Erhai (literally meaning "ear-shaped sea") Lake is the second largest lake in Yunnan Province and the largest lake in the Lancang River Basin in China. With an area of 250 square kilometers, Erhai Lake is about one and a half times the size of Washington, DC in the US. The 3 billion cubic meters of water in Erhai Lake is almost completely surrounded by high mountains, including the fourth tallest mountain peak (at 4,122 meters above sea level) in Yunnan Province. A small Xi'er River at the southwest corner of Erhai Lake flows into a tributary of the Lancang River.
Directly on the 128 kilometers of the Erhai Lake shoreline there are two major urban centers, namely Dali, the capital city of Dali Prefecture on the south and Gucheng on the west, as well as 11 townships and 48 villages. The number of people living in the 2,565 square kilometers of the drainage basin of Erhai Lake has already surpassed 800 thousand and is still rapidly growing. Therefore, preserving water quality of Erhai Lake has proven to be a challenging task, just like in almost all other lakes adjacent to big urban areas across China. Water in Erhai Lake started to deteriorate significantly in the 1980s with accelerated urbanization and industrialization around the lake, widespread use of fertilizers that contain phosphate or nitrogen, and increased fishing, fish farming, and other activities in the lake. To make things worse, a hydroelectric power plant was built in 1977 on the Xi'er River, through which the water of Erhai Lake flows eventually into the Lancang River. In the 1980s and 1990s the need for electricity production at the Xi'er River power plant led to a drop in water level in the lake by about 3 meters. As a result, nearly 10 square kilometers of land emerged along the lakeshore, most of which was converted by local villagers into fish farms (2 square kilometers), houses (half square kilometer), and farmlands (3 square kilometers). Moreover, some environmental scientists in China believe that the shrinking volume of water in Erhai Lake after the completion of the Xi'er River hydroelectric power plant may have been one of the contributing factors in the eutrophication of Erhai Lake.
From 1992 to 2003 the quality of water in Erhai Lake almost continuously deteriorated. During those 11 years, total nitrogen in lake water more than tripled, from 0.20 milligram per liter to 0.61 milligram per liter. Total phosphor in lake water also increased dramatically, from 0.014 milligram per liter to 0.034 milligram per liter. In 1996 the lake experienced the first major outbreak of cyanobacteria that decreased visibility in lake water from 4 meters to 0.5 meters. However, it was the much worse second outbreak of cyanobacteria in July 2003 that served as a wake-up call for Dali Prefecture and became the turning point in the effectiveness of environmental policy implemented in and around Erhai Lake. Algae density in Erhai Lake in September 2003 reached 60 million per liter, compared with 25 million per liter earlier in 2003, 11 million per liter in 2002, and less than one million per liter before 1995. Since that second outbreak of cyanobacteria in 2003 the government of Dali Prefecture has implemented a series of drastic measures to protect Erhai Lake, and the outcome has been quite encouraging. Water quality in Erhai Lake improved from category IV to category III in the national standard for surface water quality from 2003 to 2004, and reached category II in January, April, and June of 2007. Visibility in lake water increased to nearly 2 meters in 2005 and to about 3 to 5 meters in 2007, which recovers to the level prior to the first major outbreak of cyanobacteria in 1996.
Compared with other lakes near urban centers in Yunnan Province or elsewhere in China, the dramatic reversal of the general trend of environmental degradation in Erhai Lake is a clear success story. For example, Dianchi Lake, the largest lake in Yunnan Province, has consistently been one of the most polluted lakes in China, even though it shares many characteristics with Erhai Lake. Both lakes are large, with Dianchi Lake about 20 per cent larger than Erhai Lake; both lakes are in mountainous areas at high altitude, with water level in Dianchi Lake at 1,885 meters above sea level and that in Erhai Lake at 1,974 meters above sea level; both lakes are right next to major cities that have large and fast-growing population and have substantial industrial and agricultural activities in the vicinity; both lakes suffered from deteriorating water quality prior to 2003. Despite all those similarities, Erhai Lake has been able to dramatically turn around the degradation of its water since 2003, while water quality in Dianchi Lake has been consistently among the worst in big lakes in China. The Chinese national standard for surface water quality (GB3838-2002) stipulates five categories, and the 7 annual reports on surface water quality in China since 2000 have all listed Dianchi Lake water as worse than the lowest category V. The latest monthly report for November 2007 gave the same result, with all five monitoring sites in Dianchi Lake reporting worse than category V water.
On a broader scale, water quality in China remains a serious environmental challenge and the situation has not improved in recent years. According to China's Environmental Protection Agency, total waste water effluent in China increased by 60 per cent from 34 billion ton in 1991 to 54 billion ton in 2006, and the proportion of residential (as opposed to industrial) waste water increased from less than 30 per cent in 1991 to over 55 per cent in 2006. Occurrences of harmful algae bloom ("red tide") in seawater around China increased from 22 times in 1998 to 93 times in 2006. Water pollution in Chinese rivers also worsened in recent years. From 2002 to 2006, the proportion of river sections (in terms of length) with water quality in category I decreased from 5.6 per cent to 3.5 per cent, that in category II decreased from 33.1 per cent to 27.3 per cent, and that worse than category V actually increased from 17.5 per cent to 21.8 per cent. Water quality in lakes is probably even more difficult to preserve than that in rivers simply due to the lack of constant flow of water in lakes. The overall situation of lake pollution in China has not ameliorated in recent years. The 2006 annual report on surface water quality in China covered 43 lakes in China, and water in 15 lakes was worse than category V. The 2005 report shows that 12 of the 48 lakes monitored had water that was worse than category V. Indeed Erhai Lake in Yunnan Province and Boyang Lake in Jiangxi Province are the only two major lakes in the National Environment Monitoring Network that have shown significant improvement in water quality since 2003 according to the annual reports on environmental conditions in China compiled by the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency.
The contrast between Erhai Lake and other large lakes close to urban centers in China was made even starker in the summer of 2007. At the time when Taihu Lake (near the city of Shanghai), Chaohu Lake (near the city of Hefei), and Dianchi Lake (near the city of Kunming) were all suffering from major outbreaks of cyanobacteria, water quality in Erhai Lake was near the best in decades. Actually when the Chinese government convened a national emergency meeting on the prevention of lake pollution in July 2007 in the aftermath of those toxic outbreaks in large lakes, the chief executive of Dali Prefecture was invited to speak to national and provincial-level government officials about the experience of Erhai Lake.
The most immediate causes of the turnabout in controlling pollution in and around Erhai Lake are obviously the drastic measures implemented by the government of Dali Prefecture since 2003. The first set of measures significantly limit activities directly in the lake and on its shoreline.
1. "Two revocations." The government of Dali Prefecture revoked 2,574 motorized fishing boats and 11,184 fish pound nets from a total of 2,966 fishing families around the lake.
2. "Three Restorations." The prefecture government ordered that all farmland, fish pounds, and houses on the lakeshore below 1,974.31 meters in altitude be restored into forest, lake, and wetland, respectively. These restorations have affected over 8 square kilometers of land area around Erhai Lake.
3. Finally, the government has also implemented a total ban on fishing in the lake from January 1 to July 1 each year. In the core protection zone in the lake for water life, the ban on fishing is all year round. During the six months of fishing ban, all the over 4 thousand fishing boats are moored in 10 fishing ports around the Erhai Lake. This measure directly affects 25 thousand fishermen and indirectly affects 210 thousand people in their families.
A second set of measures deal with the various sources of pollution around Erhai Lake.
1. Since 2003, the government of Dali Prefecture has closed hundreds of polluting factories such as paper mills, chemical plants, and cement factories in the Erhai Lake Basin. The government has also rejected investment projects that potentially threaten the environment around Erhai Lake.
2. The government of Dali Prefecture banned the production, sale, and use of cleaning products that contain phosphate and non-biodegradable plastic bags in the Erhai Lake Basin.
3. Local governments in Dali Prefecture have limited the use of fertilizers that contain nitrogen or phosphor and introduced projects to turn cow dung into biogas.
4. Several waste water pipelines and treatment plants have been built around Erhai Lake since 2003. The largest waste water pipeline is 17.2 kilometers long, 4 meters wide, and cost 410 million yuan (about US$ 51 million).
5. The townships and villages around Erhai Lake have introduced centralized garbage collection system. Moreover, 130 wetland assistant administrators, 100 river assistant administrators, and more than 900 rural garbage collectors are hired from different villages to patrol the lakeshore and remove garbage and dirty water.
A third set of measures attempt to educate and mobilize local leaders and mass public in protecting Erhai Lake from pollution.
1. Local government officials. In 2003, the governments of Yunnan Province, Dali Prefecture and its subordinate cities, counties, townships, and villages all signed documents guaranteeing the goals of controlling water pollution in Erhai Lake. If the goals are not achieved by the end of each year, local leaders will have to pay a fine or even be removed from their positions. In 2007 these local leaders signed another wave of guarantees for controlling water pollution in Erhai Lake.
2. The general public. In 2003, the government of Dali Prefecture mobilized 100 thousand people times and over 2 thousand garbage trucks in a "patriotic hygiene campaign" around Erhai Lake. Altogether more than 8 thousand tons of garbage was removed. Nowadays large outdoor advertisements can be seen everywhere around Erhai Lake that promote environmental protection. Two common slogans are "protect our mother lake" and "protect Erhai Lake like you do your eyes."
3. Elementary school students. In 2004, Dali Prefecture commissioned the first textbook on environmental protection in the nation, used in a dedicated course on environmental protection for students in fifth grade in elementary schools and first grade in junior middle schools. Over 300 thousand students have taken the course in Dali Prefecture in the past three years.
Apparently all these measures and investments have contributed to the significant improvement in water quality of Erhai Lake since 2003. However, on a deeper level we still have to explain the effectiveness of government policies concerning Erhai Lake in contrast to the lack of success for other governments to control water pollution in large lakes elsewhere in China. The total fiscal investment required for the protection of Erhai Lake has been at least 3 billion yuan (about US$ 375 million), which is of course no small amount of money. However, that is definitely not the entire story. Much more money has been spent on controlling water pollution in other large lakes, such as Dianchi Lake or Taihu Lake, with mediocre results. Governments of other large lakes have also to various degrees devised similar policies of environmental protection to those for Erhai Lake, but their enforcement and outcome have left much to be desired.
I argue that the general success in controlling water pollution in Erhai Lake can be mostly attributed to a unique combination of factors that have persisted in Dali Prefecture since 2003. The role of local governments has been undoubtedly crucial, and the following conditions have helped to create the favorable incentive structure for local governments in Dali Prefecture to act decisively and persistently in protecting the environment of Erhai Lake.
First, the outbreak of cyanobacteria in the summer of 2003 was an unprecedented environmental disaster in Erhai Lake. Coupled with other major events that happened at the same time, such as the spread of the SARS epidemic disease, the situation in Dali Prefecture amounted to a severe social economic crisis of extraordinary proportions. According to a villager who lives on the Erhai lakeshore, in 2003 "lake water turned into stinking paint overnight. Even tap water smelled bad. We felt like the end of the world was coming. It was horrible." This unprecedented crisis, while clearly unfortunate on one hand, has nonetheless provided the necessary political capital for the local governments in Dali to act with a sense of emergency and to overcome the usual resistance by various stakeholders. The relative ease with which local governments in Dali Prefecture have convinced villagers to abide by the fishing ban in Erhai Lake, for example, was an interesting contrast with the difficulty in enforcing a similar ban on fishing in Dianchi Lake.
Second, the environmental situation around Erhai Lake prior to the 2003 crisis constituted a classical "tragedy of the commons:" everyone acting on his or her respective short-term rationality caused a collapse of the ecosystem in the lake. Active and timely intervention by the government of Yunnan Province in 2003 enabled the prefecture government in Dali to act like a coercive "outside" agent that enforces and monitors the radical restraints imposed after the crisis. In the immediate aftermath of the environmental crisis in 2003, the provincial government convened a meeting in Dali that proposed to build Dali into the central city in western Yunnan Province, but with a precondition that Erhai Lake be protected well. In a sense this allowed the prefecture government to impose harsh measures as if with hands bound. According to the party secretary of Dali Prefecture, "the key to governance of lakes is concrete actions and whether we dare to offend people." Being a virtual "outsider" has probably made the job of offending people easier.
Third, local governments around Erhai Lake have become the main beneficiaries of the environmental turnabout since 2003, which creates a lasting incentive for them to implement measures to protect the lake. Fiscally local governments have benefited enormously from booming tourism and the appreciation of housing prices around Erhai Lake. With unparalleled natural beauty and much improved environment, Erhai Lake has become a magnet for tourists from home and abroad since 2003. In 2003, Dali Prefecture received 5.5 million people times of domestic tourists and 120 thousand people times of overseas tourists. Total income from tourism in 2003 was 2.8 billion yuan (about US$339 million) plus US$29 million in foreign currencies. In 2006, total domestic and overseas tourists increased to 7.7 million and 208 thousand people times respectively. Total income from tourism in 2006 reached 5.8 billion yuan (about US$725 million) plus US$57 million in foreign currencies. At the same time, the cleaning up of Erhai Lake also helped to raise housing prices in Dali Prefecture. In 2007 the city of Dali is the third fastest appreciating real estate market in all of China, with many homes costing more than US$1,000 per square meter. Many people from Taiwan, South Korea, and the United States have bought lakeshore homes around Erhai Lake. Moreover, since Erhai Lake has been touted as a national model for environmental protection, local leaders in Dali Prefecture have enjoyed unprecedented prestige and fame. While that is certainly beneficial, it also means that they would potentially incur much higher audience cost if they later decide to negate their environmental commitments.
Fourth, local governments around Erhai Lake implemented a complex compensation scheme that helps to avert the "tragedy of the commons." For instance, after the 87 limekilns in a township in the Erhai Lake Basin were revoked, the local government compensated each family for 5 thousand yuan (about US$605), provided small loans for them to start breeding cows, and then helped to start a dairy plant that buys milk from farmers. As another example, after the half-year fishing ban took effect, the Erhai Administration currently compensates 5,171 fishermen in 5 special fishing cooperatives at 25 yuan (about US$3.3) per person per month and also puts millions of fry in the lake every year to help raise output during fishing seasons. Although the compensations are not enough to cover the losses of farmers and fishermen due to the imposed restraints, to those individuals the money probably more than make up for the difference between the immediate benefit of unconstrained withdrawal of resources and the discounted long-term cost of environmental disasters down the road.
In conclusion, the "Erhai experience" demonstrates that successful management of common-pool resources may be possible under certain conditions. Erhai Lake is probably unique in many aspects, yet the lessons from the dramatic turnabout in its water quality are clear. Local governments must play a pivotal role in the management of environmental resources, and the key to success probably lies in devising durable mechanisms to shape the incentive structures of all the stakeholders involved and thus to turn a potential "tragedy of the commons" into sustainable governance of common-pool resources.
* The government of the People's Republic of China should:
1) declare environmental security a component of national security and establish it as a strategic priority for the country.
2) incorporate environmental criteria into the evaluation of local government officials.
3) revise sub-national tax code so that local governments become the main beneficiary of increased income from tourism and appreciation of property values that result from better environment.
4) lead by example in applying principles of sustainable development and environmental protection to central government projects and investments.
5) increase spending and international cooperation on the research and development of water pollution control, waste water treatment, environment-friendly manufacturing and agriculture, alternative energy sources etc.
* The government of Yunnan Province should:
1) develop a strategic plan for sustainable development in the Lancang River Basin, with emphasis on pollution control, land and water use planning, and sustainable tourism.
2) lead by example in applying principles of sustainable development and environmental protection to provincial government projects and investments.
3) start demonstration projects for residents in lake or river basin areas to use environment-friendly production.
4) employ information technology to establish a network for county and township governments and village committees to monitor water quality and to report natural or man-made hazard events in lakes or rivers.
5) set up official channels with Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam for the sharing of information on weather conditions, natural hazards, river levels, and pollutant or toxic spills.
* The private sector should:
1) apply principles of sustainable development and environmental protection both to domestic projects and to investments in Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
2) expand telecommunication services to remote areas to facilitate the exchange of information potentially vital to disaster prevention and response.
* The NGO's should take actions to promote awareness of and solutions to environmental risks to individual, local, and national security.
* International donors and USAID should:
1) work with the Chinese government to strengthen the information-sharing capacity of local environmental protection bureaus, water resource bureaus, forestry bureaus, and tourism bureaus.
2) support research and development as well as local efforts to expand the utilization of water pollution control, waste water treatment, environment-friendly manufacturing and agriculture, alternative energy sources etc.
3) provide funding for research projects in environmental and social sciences in institutions of higher education in Yunnan Province to study the environmental impacts of economic development in the Lancang River Basin.
4) help local media in Yunnan Province to disseminate the above information and research findings to the general public.
Bureau of Hydrology, Ministry of Water Conservancy, Government of the People's Republic of China, ed. 2001-2007. Annual Report on the Quality of Surface Water Resources in China.
Cai, Xiuping and Qitang Wu. 2006. "Hupo fuyingyanghua zhili" (Control of lake eutrophication). Shuili Tiandi (Water conservancy world), Issue 5, May, pages 25-27.
Che, Zhimin, Xuan He, and Taiqin Xu, editors. 2006. Yunnan Economic Yearbook (2005). Beijing, China: Xianzhuang Shuju.
Gao, Zhengwen, Junchen Zhao, Shaotian Chen, ed. 2005. Yunnan Shengtai Qingshi Baogao 2004~2005 (Report on the condition of ecosystem in Yunnan 2004-2005). Kunming, China: Yunnan University Press.
Li, Chengzu, Hao Wu, and Chao Pu. 2007. "Tongshou wuran zhi tong Dianchi he Erhai yuanhe mingyun jiongyi" (Suffering from pollution, why did Dianchi and Erhai have very different experiences?). Xinhua News Agency, June 28.
National Environmental Protection Agency, Government of the People's Republic of China, ed. 1990-2007. Annual Report on Environmental Conditions of China.
Tu, Xubo. 2006. "Dali jiada Erhai liuyu wuran fangzhi gongzuo lidu" (Dali intensifies work to prevent and treat pollution in the Erhai Lake Basin). Dali Daily, December 5.
Wu, Jisong. 2001. "Dui woguo shui wuran fangzhi de jidian kaolu" (Some considerations on the prevention and control of water pollution in our country). Shui ziyuan baohu (Protection of water resources), Issue 2, pages 1-3.
Wu, Jisong. 2003. "Yong xunhuan jingji linian chuangxin shui wuran fangzhi duice" (Use the concept of cycle economy to innovate strategies of prevention and control of water pollution). Zhongguo shuili (China water conservancy), Issue 5A.
Yan, Changzhou, Xiangcan Jin, Jingzhu Zhao, Bing Shen, Ningbo Li, Changzhu Huang, and Zhonghua Xiong. 2005. "Yunnan Erhai de shengtai baohu ji kechixu liyong duice" (Strategies of ecological protection and sustainable utilization of Erhai Lake, Yunnan). Huanjing kexue (Environmental science), Volume 26, Issue 5, September, pages 38-42.
Yang, Huanzong and Daming He. 2001. "Baohu Yunnan shengtai huanjing, jianshe luse jingji qiangsheng" (Protect the ecosystem and environment of Yunnan and build a province with a strong green economy). In Guojin Xi and Jiazhen Zhang edited, Xibu shengtai (Western ecosystem), Beijing, China: Central Party School Press.
Yang, Luyu, Lin Wang, and Baozhen Wang. 2001. "Woguo shuiziyuan wuran zhili de jishu celue" (Techniques and strategies in controling pollution of water resources in our country). Jishui paishui (Water supply and drainage), Issue 1, January, pages 94-101.
Yu, Nan. 2007. "2006 nian Dalizhou lvyou chanye renqi wang" (In 2006 the tourism industry in Dali Prefecture prospered). Chuncheng Evening News, January 23.
Yunnan Provincial Statistical Bureau. 2007. Yunnan Statistical Yearbook. Beijing, China: China Statistical Press.
Zhao, Jin, Ying Zhang, Liu Liu, and Peican Duan. 2007. "Hupo baohu zhili de chenggong zhilu: 'Erhai jingyan' xinwen diaocha (shang)" (The road to success in the protection and governance of lakes: news investigation of the "Erhai Experience," part I). Yunnan Daily, September 26, page 1.
Zhao, Jin, Ying Zhang, Liu Liu, and Peican Duan. 2007. "Kechixu fazhan de yangben: 'Erhai jingyan' xinwen diaocha (xia)" (A model of sustainable development: news investigation of the "Erhai Experience," part I). Yunnan Daily, September 27, page 1.