Food Source vs. Conservation

The villagers knew that their actions could be detrimental in the long run. In 1971, people were so desperate for food that the regional government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to drain the Cao Hai lake in hopes of increasing crop production. At the same time, villagers removed trees from the surrounding hills in an attempt to increase cropland and pasture-land. The results were dismal: there was a loss of fish protein; most of the lake bottom was found useless for crops due to exposed bedrock and inappropriate soils; local weather patterns changed dramatically; soil erosion increased along the hillsides; pests ravaged what crops did grow; and ground water levels dropped to such a degree that it was difficult to find drinking water. Not only did the local population suffer, but the migratory birds vanished. These unforeseen troubles so shocked the people that in 1982 the provincial government built a dam to restore the lake. Unexpectedly, but fortuitously, many of the birds returned. So many returned that in 1985 Cao Hai became a nature reserve.

Unfortunately, even with the re-establishment of the lake and its wetlands, and the designation of a nature reserve with an extensive headquarters and a staff of twenty, problems persisted. The uplands continued to deteriorate as crop yields decreased, grasses thinned, and rain tore gullies in the hillsides. Lake resources were degraded from overuse. In only a few decades, the total fish catch per year declined from over one hundred and fifty thousand kilograms to less than twenty thousand. Even though the villagers knew that destroying wetlands, overfishing the lake, and overgrazing the hillsides were detrimental to their own well being, they could not afford to let the resources rest. With problems in just getting enough food, farmers created marginal cropland by destroying wetlands, which forced hungry birds to feed directly on farmers’ fields. Crop damage inten-sified conflict. In response, the reserve raised the lake levels to flood some of the reclaimed farmland. This action put some distance between the farmers and the birds and stabilized the wetlands at a level sufficient for the tens of thousands of birds in the reserve. But resentment toward the reserve intensified. Relations grew acrimonious, and the villagers angrily demanded compensation from the reserve.

Imagine not being able to grow enough food to make it through the winter, and then being asked not to fish because the birds need the fish. The farmers had had enough. One day when the reserve staff came to Yangguanshan village to destroy the illegal fishing nets, the farmers appeared with knives and hoes in their hands and chased reserve staff out of their village. The reserve staff was so taken aback that they soon realized that in order to accomplish any long-term protection for the birds, their efforts must focus on the local people as well as the birds. In 1993, the Cao Hai Nature Reserve joined forces with the Guizhou Environmental Protection Bureau, the International Crane Foundation from Wisconsin, and the New York-based Trickle- Up Program to alter its approach to managing the reserve. Their new approach placed priority on improving the lives of those most adversely affected by nature protection. The project helped them use the resources in the reserve, along with alternative resources, through an innovative micro-lending program.

This new venture attempted to change two key relations—those between the reserve and the local people, and the relation between the people and the land. Instead of following a narrow, bird-oriented mission, reserve leader Chen Zhende and his staff saw their task as guiding the local people in economic development in a way that would heal the damaged land while raising family incomes. Through this process, the local people would see the reserve as helpful. If the economic development was sustainable, the project would also reduce the detrimental pressure on the land and help the birds survive. Because the villagers were the chief custodians of Cao Hai’s waters and hills, the new project attempted to empower them by giving the villagers the knowledge and means to pursue ecologically sound alternatives to development.

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