As plans to build over a dozen hydropower stations on Yunnan Province's Nujiang River seem to have been shelved due to environmental concerns, residents are still struggling in one of China's poorest regions. Environmental NGOs and some local officials are arguing that turning the region into a national park might be a solution to its stagnant economic growth.

The Nujiang River winds its way through "China's Grand Canyon" in Gongshan county, Southwest China's Yunnan province. Photo: IC

As one travels up the Nujiang River valley, terraced rice fields become more narrow on the increasingly precipitous mountains, perching on which are huts built with strips of woven bamboo or logs owned by people from ethic minority groups such as the Lisu and Nu peoples.

The scarcity of arable land means that residents of the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Southwest China's Yunnan Province are, at best, only just able to sustain themselves.

As such, local economic growth is falling short of being able to fulfill the local government's hope that the area can shed its reputation as the poorest prefecture in the country.

The pressure to develop out of poverty might outweigh the importance of environmental protection for the local authorities, as a result of their thirst for hydropower dams - both large and small - along "China's Grand Canyon."

However, these designs have long met with a storm of opposition not only from environmental protection groups, but recently from the national environmental protection authorities, who worry about the inevitable damage to the ecosystem and geological problems - including mudslides and earthquakes - such dams may cause.

After more than a decade of debate, the survey base of the Maji hydropower plant, which was once moving full speed ahead to prepare for one of 13 planned large dams, is covered with weeds. The name plate hanging beside the gate has been washed out by the rain while survey machinery and boats lie idle around the base.

The plans for large dams on the Nujiang have been thrown into uncertainty as, following the central government's greater emphasis on environmental protection, the provincial Party head of Yunnan has said that the construction of small dams will halt and that he will push for the Nujiang valley to become a national park.

Seeking development

The Nujiang, which springs from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, carves canyons across Yunnan before flowing through Myanmar and Thailand and is one of China's last pristine rivers that have yet to be impeded by major dams.

The river has become the subject of bitter controversy since the National Development and Reform Commission in 2003 gave the green light to a plan to build the 13 hydropower stations along the river.

The provincial government changed the plan to only include four large hydro plants during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15).

The border prefecture's annual taxation in 2015 reached 1.14 billion yuan ($180 million), accounting for only 6 percent of Yunnan's total. All the four counties administered by Nujiang prefecture are listed as national-level poverty-stricken counties.

Yielding less than 50 kilograms of grain per mu (0.067 hectares) on average, one family cannot support themselves even if they own 10 mu of land, Xie Yi, former Party chief of Nujiang, was quoted by the Nanfang Daily as saying.

"Hydropower projects can bring taxation, investment and job opportunities to the poor prefecture that suffers the absence of pillar industries," Yang Zhiwei, a local businessman who invested in small hydropower plants on tributaries of the Nujiang, told the Global Times.

A huge billboard saying "ore and [hydro] electricity make the town strong" still stands on the road to Bingzhongluo township which was included in the 13-dam plan.

While Wang Yongchen, a 61-year-old journalist-turned-environmentalist, admitted the economic benefits that the certain hydropower plants would likely bring, she argued that the damage to the local environment is not worth the money.

In a 2011 blog post, she said that building even a small hydropower plant changes the path of tributaries, reduces the amount of nutrients in the river's silt, raises the water temperature and damages nearby vegetation. All four changes can result in serious disruption or irreversible damage to the local ecosystem, she noted.

The Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, the Jinsha, Nujiang and Lancang rivers, are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, but the UNESCO World Heritage Committee issued China with an ultimatum in 2007, that they could be delisted if "no marked progress [in preservation] is made." The committee had previously expressed its "grave concern" over the proposed dams.

Echoing Wang, Yu Xiaogang, director of the Yunnan-based NGO Green Watershed and Goldman Environmental Prize winner, said that the area's unfavorable and fragile geological conditions should also be taken into account.

Along the valley, white patches on the mountains left by landslides are accentuated by the slopes' rich blanket of trees, with boulders rolling into and even across the river.

Poverty reduction was another reason to build the dams according to the project's supporters. By the end of 2005, the number of impoverished people in the region - at the time defined nationally as individual with an annual income of less that 2,300 yuan - reached 275,300, making up 60 percent of the agricultural population, and a total of 45,000 extremely impoverished households - defined then as a household with an income of less than 2,800 yuan - live in thatched houses, news site southcn.com reported.

In preparation for the dams' construction, many people have already been relocated.

"Relocation seems to provide a better life; however, the more you move, the poorer you are," a local businessman close to the Nujiang government, who asked for anonymity, told the Global Times.

"Unable to raise cattle, pigs and chickens, or plant vegetables by myself, I have to buy everything but my income source is only an annual rent of 10,000 yuan," said He Yuwen, one of the 100-plus villagers that were relocated from rural Xiaoshaba to dense housing complexes in Liuku, the county seat, in 2006 before the dam project was approved.

"I am neither like an urban resident, nor a farmer any longer after we were relocated here," another villager surnamed Mi told the Global Times.

"If our houses had not been demolished, I would go back to farm," Mi said.

Time to shift

"All small hydropower plants on the Nujiang will be halted, and will not start development again," Li Jiheng, Party secretary of Yunnan, said in early March during the annual legislative session of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

Meanwhile, Li vowed to promote a plan to designate "China's Grand Canyon" as a national park. "Tapping into such a place should begin with protection," he was quoted as saying by the China News Service on January 25.

"The root cause of the policy change is that the development pattern - immoderate use of resources generating excessive production capacity - has come to a dead end amid economic downturn," Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs and author of China's Water Crisis, told the Global Times.

Yu Xiaogang told the Global Times that the central government has laid increasing emphasis on environmental protection, quoting President Xi Jinping's remarks as an example: a "green mountain" is a "golden mountain."

In addition, the anti-corruption drive has hydropower companies tightening their grip on massive investments, considering the probe into China Three Gorges Cooperation and the fall of Bai Enpei, the Yunnan Party chief between 2001 and 2011 who touted the hydropower project, Wang told the Global Times.

Development in another way

Environmentalists seem to have won a landmark triumph in the decade-long argument over the dams after the government pledged to halt the construction of small dams on the Nujiang.

"Instead of immediate suspension of dams, our victory refers to the fact that we delayed the government's decision and waited for a turning point created by the changing times, as the voice of environmentalists is weaker than that of giant hydropower developers and the government," Wang said.

"Years of several pioneers' perseverance, including Mu Guangfeng, an inspector at the Department of Environmental Impact Assessment under the Ministry of Environmental Protection, former premier Wen Jiabao and Yu, should be remembered for retaining a possibility that the next generation is able to appreciate the sublime beauty of Nujiang River and the valley," Ma said.

Although a national park is a constructive alternative to water infrastructure, the shifted focus has still created unease among environmentalists, who are worried that the park may turn into a cash cow, triggering rampant tourism development.

"Once park development begins, a massive influx of tourists and hotels, coupled with road construction, is likely to harm the environment in the long term," said Kang Xue, deputy director of Beijing-based environmental NGO Friends of Nature, told the Global Times, citing the problems that have been seen at other tourist attractions including poor sewage treatment and waste management.

Kang asked the provincial government to publicize a clear definition and planning documents regarding the national park before pushing development forward, to control the environmental impact.

According to a feasibility study report provided by the Forestry Department of Yunnan, a national park should focus on protecting and showcasing various resources worth State-level protection, unlike nature reserves, which mainly aim to preserve representative ecosystems, rare and endangered wild fauna and flora as well as natural relics.

In general, national parks sit between strictly protected nature reserves and scenic spots that are completely open to the public.

Areas open to tourists are required to make up no more than 5 percent of a park's total acreage while the percentage of park land given over to reserved areas should be over 25 percent, said the department, adding that the province had eight national parks by the end of 2015.

The marginalization of local residents by the intense involvement of large businesses is another of Yu's worries.

"The national park should not be entirely controlled by the government and large enterprises," Yu said, proposing community-based tourism in which villagers are properly paid, their culture and customs are respected, and they decide what the tourists do and see.

As local villagers are forbidden to hunt and fell trees in national parks, some residents living near such parks were encouraged to find work in park maintenance, such as patrolling the area, picking up trash and leading tours, whereas some opened businesses, selling local specialties and handicrafts, according to the department.

About 5 to 10 percent of the parks' operating income was allocated for supporting community development, the department added.

Sensitivity remains

In spite of the rising importance that Beijing attaches to environmental protection as detailed in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), the Chinese president's and the provincial head's steadfast statements, hydropower projects remain a touchy topic in Yunnan.

The government avoids giving clear answers to questions about the future of the large hydro plants. The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Water Resources, the provincial department of water resources in Yunnan declined the Global Times' interview requests.

The provincial energy administration "suggested" that the publicity department refuse to be interviewed, explaining in a statement that drafting of the policy on developing and managing medium and small plants is still underway.