About 1.7 million trees have been planted in Nyingchi prefecture, in the Tibet autonomous region, over the past five years on 6,667 hectares of land, according to local officials.

Nyingchi prefecture is one of the most diverse places in the world in terms of biological resources. It is known as a natural museum of vegetation types or a gene pool of biological resources.

Official data shows that the prefecture has 4.45 million hectares of forest, accounting for 50 percent of its land, and its volume of stumpage rose more than 1.21 billion cubic meters each year, accounting for 10 percent of the whole country.

"Environmental protection is a tradition for Tibetan people, and this tradition is practiced as part of the family education in Tibetan families," said Tashi Tondrub, director of Nyingchi Forestry Administration.

"Like many Tibetan people, residents in Nyingchi prefecture also worship mountains and trees, and rivers where they live as holy sites that can be spoiled. This is a key factor in encouraging ecological conservation," said Tashi Tondrub.

To protect forests in accordance with the law, local governments have resorted to paying subsidies to the locals to promote ecological conservation.

In recent years, an average of 440 million yuan ($71 million) has been spent annually to support farmers in ecological conservation and stop them from cutting trees. Each household that has been allocated with a piece of land from the forests can get 4,000 to 10,000 yuan in subsidies, according to the forestry administration.

The forests are home many wild animals and that means animals can attack humans or livestock occasionally. Local governments compensate the families by paying 500 to 1,500 yuan for each livestock lost.

In Diqing prefecture, the forestry administration insures the livestock and that frees the government from providing compensation, said He Xiangcheng.

The Nyingchi forestry administration spent 10.76 million yuan to balance the economic loss for families who suffered an attack from wild animals in 2012.

The Nyingchi government has also promoted reforestation and planted trees on 7,372 hectares of land in 2013, more than the planned7,264 hectares. In 2014, Nyingchi plans to grow trees on a targeted 6,667 hectares.

In addition, Nyingchi steps up to prevent forestry disasters. Last year saw more than 10,000 flayers of fire safety being delivered to farmers and herdsmen, while 7.24 million yuan was spent on prevention tools for forest fires. As a result, only one forest blaze occurred in Nyingchi from January to September in 2013.

Nyingchi also reinforces the forest protection via setting up reserves and parks, including five natural reserves, two national wetland parks, and three national forestry parks. The prefecture has 3.17 million hectares of forests under protection, which accounts for 40.5 percent of the prefecture's land area.

Besides efforts for the protection of forests, the local government also encourages the local villagers to benefit from the conservation of forest resources.

"Nyingchi put 371 million yuan toward forest protection in 2013. About 144 million yuan of that amount had been spent on subsidies for ecological conservation for local villagers," said Tashi Tondrub.

"Each household gets an average subsidy of 4,600 yuan annually from the government by guarding the forest," said Yangyen in Gongdrong village.

Tashi Tondrub also said that the subsidy is used to raise the awareness of environmental protection to local villagers, and each household can generate an average of at least 4,000 yuan from the subsidiary system.

According to the local people, they not only rely on the support of the government, they also conduct business with the forestry resources, such as planting trees, collecting various fungus, wild herbs, and planting medical herbs.

Mainling is one of the counties in the prefecture which is well known as the birthplace of Tibetan Medicine.

"There are more than 1,000 species of rare medical herbs in Mainling County," said Champa Tenzin, one of the Tibetan medical experts from the regional Hospital of Tibetan Medical Science.

"First, we will do a survey for the distribution of medicinal herbs in an area of 3,000 square kilometers in Mainling, and this year we plan to plant 20 more wild medicinal herbs as a pilot project," said Tashi Dawa, chief of Mainling county.

According to the chief, this year his county will invest more than 25 million yuan on planting medicinal herbs, and they plan to expand the cultivating scale within three to five years.

Nyima is a farmer in a remote village of Mainling County and he has been planting medicinal herbs for four years, and he plants six kinds of wild herbs.

"Seven families work in my fields, and each family get a monthly salary of 4,500 yuan, I myself make an average income 100,000 yuan annually," said the 46-year-old.

(China Daily USA 07/25/2014 page5)