I. Present Situation of Ecological Environment in the West Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, China has made great progress in economic development, greatly improved people's living standards, and achieved the goal of economic development in China ahead of schedule in this century. However, in the past 20 years, while developing the economy, the ecological environment in the west has deteriorated due to the unreasonable utilization of natural resources, which has seriously restricted the economic development in the west. It is against this background that the CPC Central Committee and the State Council made a strategic decision to develop the western region. However, the ecological environment in the west is extremely fragile. How to build the western ecological environment in a sustainable way while developing the western economy is the key to the success or failure of the western development. The ecological deterioration of Dunhuang has intensified, and the crescent spring, a wonder of mankind, is in danger of drying up. The deterioration of the ecological environment once again sounded the alarm to people. According to experts, desertification caused by water shortage has aggravated the difficulty of cultural relics protection in Mogao Grottoes. Among the 492 existing caves in Mogao Grottoes, more than half of murals and painted sculptures have problems such as peeling, hollowing, discoloration, crisp alkali and falling off. History clearly records many examples of oases and cities buried under hundreds of feet of yellow sand: the Silk Road, which has been replaced by yellow sand, goes out of Yangguan in the west, the ancient country of Loulan and Lop Nur, which are still known to modern people, and the little-known Qiemo, Jingjue, Ruoqiang and Shou Chang. Most of these oases and ancient cities were destroyed because of the large amount of sediment carried by rivers and the destruction of upstream plants. The disappearance of Guloulan is the most representative. Shanshan residents built water conservancy projects, and Peacock River and Tarim River were forced to stop flowing into Puchanghai, resulting in water cut off, Loulan abandoned, and an oasis flashing on the Silk Road finally disappeared. According to the author's investigation, the natural forest in Dunhuang has dropped sharply from 2190,000 mu in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China to more than1300,000 mu now, a decrease of 40%; Populus euphratica forest is only140 thousand mu, a decrease of 67%; The available grassland is reduced by 77%, and the existing grassland is desertification and salinization to varying degrees. The wetlands in Dunhuang are disappearing at an average annual rate of 20 thousand mu; The desertification area of land is increasing at the rate of 20 thousand mu per year. Qinghai Lake is the largest freshwater lake in China. The northwest corner of the lake has been surrounded by sand dunes of more than 10 square kilometers. The beach in the lake area is seriously salinized, and there are yellow sand everywhere around Bird Island. Bird Island was an island in a lake more than 20 years ago. 1978 became a peninsula surrounded by water on three sides, but now it has become a land island several kilometers away from the lake shore. In the section of the Yellow River in southern Hunan, the trend of grassland desertification is obvious, and the degraded area is increasing rapidly. The salon near Qinghai Lake in Haiyan County has moved to Huangshui Valley. According to the figures six years ago, there are 43,000 hectares of desertification around Qinghai Lake, and the natural shrub forest has dropped sharply from the previous 340,000 mu to the present 6.5438+0.4 million mu. Dunhuang and Qinghai Lake are just a microcosm of ecological deterioration in the west. Fortunately, the ecological and environmental problems in the western region have attracted the attention of the central high-level. The western region is also the birthplace of major rivers such as the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. The deterioration of the upstream ecological environment directly endangers the ecological security of the middle and lower reaches. In recent years, the Yangtze River and the Yellow River have flooded continuously. The main reasons are the reduction of forest and grass area in the middle and upper reaches, serious soil erosion, destruction of ecological environment and decline of water conservation ability. According to incomplete estimates, Guizhou, Sichuan and Chongqing have more than 600 million tons of sediment flowing into the Yangtze River every year, accounting for more than 60% of the sediment transport in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Every year, the sediment washed away makes the river turbid, the water quality deteriorates, the riverbed canals and weirs are blocked, the river channel expands and the river overflows. Many cultivated land was washed away and could not be re-cultivated, and the fertile soil formed in ten thousand years was destroyed by the flood. Northwest China is also one of the four major sandstorm areas in the world, and it is a high incidence area of modern sandstorms. Besides oases, there are desert Gobi and desertified land 1.4289 million hectares in Gansu province, accounting for 3 1.8% of the whole province. The sandstorm line formed around the oasis is as long as 1600 km, which is widely distributed in Hexi Corridor thousands of miles away ... From Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to Hexi Corridor, from Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to Qinchuan for 800 miles, the grassland is degraded, with fewer trees and more people. The extremely fragile western ecological environment we have is endangering the overall situation of the improvement of the national ecological environment. Second, the reasons for the ecological deterioration in the west The main reasons for the continuous deterioration of the ecological environment in the west are: natural factors and man-made destruction. One-sided pursuit of economic interests undermines the laws of nature. The history of human civilization is the history of interaction, development and continuous evolution between human beings and nature. In China, from the worship of nature in ancient times, to the confidence of "man can conquer nature" and the admiration of "science and technology" in the late 1950s, and then to the determination of the concept of "harmony between man and nature" for sustainable development, it is a difficult process of understanding, practicing, re-understanding and re-practicing, and every step has paid a heavy price. On the one hand, we must continue to develop, on the other hand, we must create the end of resource depletion, environmental pollution and ecological deterioration. (1) natural factors: due to the scarcity of precipitation and abnormal drought in most western regions, the upstream of wetland water sources was blocked for development, resulting in the river being cut off. Coupled with global warming, the snow line of Qilian Mountain and Altun Mountain is increasing year by year. Since 1950s, glaciers in Qilian Mountains have retreated in a large area, and the rate of retreat in some areas has reached more than16m per year. Therefore, the runoff of inland rivers originating from Qilian Mountain is decreasing year by year, from 7.855 billion cubic meters around 1950s to about 5.6 billion cubic meters at the end of 20th century, with the decrease rate exceeding 17%. (2) Human factors: According to the statistics of Dunhuang West Lake National Nature Reserve Administration, in the 1960s and 1970s, the upstream of Shule River and Danghe River were dammed, and the downstream protection section was cut off. Due to the loss of nourishing water, wetlands shrink, natural vegetation declines, a large number of shrubs die, and Populus euphratica forests along the river lose their regeneration ability. For example, at the junction of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Jiuquan, Gansu Province, there is a small town called Ejina Banner, where the death of Populus euphratica is a living example. Second, the over-exploitation of groundwater leads to the imbalance of groundwater recharge and discharge, and the groundwater level drops sharply. According to the data provided by Dunhuang Ministry of Water Resources, the net recharge of groundwater is 65.438+0.998 billion cubic meters lower than that in the early days of the People's Republic of China. For example, Yangguan Town in Dunhuang is known as the "second grape valley" in China. In recent years, due to the soaring price of grapes, large-scale migration has been carried out in Yangguan Forest Farm, and large-scale shelterbelts have been cut down to grow grapes, which has led to the continuous expansion of desertification area in Dunhuang and the increase of sandstorms year by year, which has brought great challenges to people's living environment. The deterioration of ecological environment caused by these human factors is widespread in Shaanxi, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia in western China. These run counter to the living environment of human beings, destroy the basic laws of human existence and will inevitably be retaliated by nature. Economists believe that the environment and the whole economy are inseparable, and the deterioration of the environment does not fall from the sky, but is based on the economic reasons of some societies. In China, there is no distinction between "economic growth" and "economic development" for a long time, and development is growth. After the reform and opening up, the state has also carried out large-scale energy and raw material bases, grain and cotton bases, transportation, water conservancy and other major infrastructure construction in the western region to help the poor and develop. These developments have undoubtedly promoted the economic growth of the western region. However, this way of obtaining economic growth mainly by consuming a lot of natural resources and energy has a strong color of government behavior and planned economy. In recent years, with the increase of grain prices, reclamation fever has appeared in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang and Ningxia. There are few real wasteland reclamation left, and tractors have entered woodland and grassland. All these have caused great damage to the ecological environment in the west. Third, the implementation of the western development should be synchronized with the western ecological environment: it is scientific and realistic to implement the western development and take ecology as the breakthrough point, because the ecological environment in the west is extremely fragile and endangers the ecology of the whole China, which is the choice for the sustainable development of the western development, because the ecological environment is the basic condition for our survival and long-term development and the foundation for the economic and social development in the west. However, the western region has a large population, a weak foundation and great pressure on the ecological environment. China's per capita resources are less than the world's 1/4, and the environmental pressure is indeed more than four times the world average. If we don't cherish and protect this limited resource and fragile ecological environment, once it loses its biological capacity or reduces its biological production capacity, people's living problems will be greatly affected. China's economic foundation is relatively weak, especially after its accession to the WTO, which puts forward new requirements for environmental protection. It will take a long time to adjust the economic structure and change the unsustainable growth mode and consumption mode, and our environmental protection will face great pressure and severe challenges. (1) Avoid wasting resources and damaging the environment. The detours taken by developed countries on environmental issues have paid a heavy price and brought us profound lessons. Therefore, we must deal with the relationship between economic construction and environmental protection, short-term and long-term, local and whole, adhere to the virtuous circle of ecological environment as the basis of economic development, and take the road of sustainable development in which economic construction, environmental protection and social development are coordinated. Vigorously carry out water-saving campaigns to eliminate waste. (2) The rational development, utilization and protection of water resources should change the previous practice of only considering industrial, agricultural and urban and rural water use, without considering ecological environment water use. It is necessary to protect water resources, fully develop sewage treatment technology, develop and utilize sewage as water resources, and strive to improve the reuse rate of water resources. (3) Do a good job in water conservancy to help the poor. The root cause of farmers' poverty in the western region is poor agricultural production conditions, especially poor irrigation and water conservancy infrastructure. Among the people who have been lifted out of poverty, 15% ~ 20% return to poverty every year. The main reason is also water resources. (4) Protecting the ecological environment in the western region means protecting and developing the productive forces. Protecting the ecological environment in the western region is not only related to the physical and mental health and life safety of the broad masses of people, but also an important guarantee for the modernization of the western region. Therefore, in economic construction, we must create a good living environment and ecological environment for the broad masses, and social productive forces will be developed. History tells us that sacrificing the ecological environment is a serious threat to the sustainable utilization of resources and the long-term survival and development of the Chinese nation. History should not and should not let history repeat itself, let alone let more serious adverse consequences repeat themselves under the impetus of greater forces. Therefore, the western development should establish a new concept of development and a new concept of resources. The concept of sustainable development should be established in the western development. Implementing the strategy of sustainable development of the western region is an unavoidable problem in the development of China in the 2nd/Kloc-0th century, because the development of the western region has got rid of the fragile predicament of the current economic system, social development system and ecological system, and it is of great significance to find a new strategy to get rid of the predicament and realize the coordinated and sustainable development of ecology, economy and society.