Poverty Alleviation of Ministry of Environmental Protection

　　【Overview】 In 2010, in accordance with the requirements of the state for poverty alleviation and development, for the current and future development of Weichang County and Longhua County of Hebei Province, the Ministry of Environmental Protection did many practical things by project construction, promoted economic development by environmental protection and improvement, continued to expand the field of poverty alleviation and development, promptly improved the poverty alleviation patterns, conscientiously conducted fixed-point poverty alleviation, solved some practical problems in the current economic and social development, further enhanced the consciousness of environmental protection, market economy and self-development of the two counties and established the long-term mechanism for enriching the people and vitalizing the county, which was affirmed by the State Council Leading Group of Poverty Alleviation and Development and welcomed by local residents.

　　【Fixed-point poverty reduction objectives and tasks】 In June 2010, it issued the "Planning of the Ministry of Environmental Protection for the Fixed-point Poverty Alleviation in 2010" and on this basis, assigned the specific tasks and determined the objectives and basic principles of the poverty reduction in 2010; proposed to guide and help the two counties to develop the planning for poverty alleviation by environmental protection and the planning for environmental protection in the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, guide and support the two counties to comprehensively improve the rural environment, support the two counties to strengthen capacity building for environmental protection, enhance the construction of national nature reserves and increase efforts on regional pollution control, and support the two counties to strengthen trainings of  environmental protection personnel, and clarified the tasks and specific measures as well.

　　In 2010, based on the actual situation of the two counties, the Ministry of Environmental Protection put forward pertinent suggestions for the economic and social development of the two counties: In the economic development, Weichang County should pay attention to environmental protection to vitalize the county by ecological construction; develop scientific planning and organize the construction and development projects on schedule under the guidance of scientific outlook on development; close down a large number of scattered small starch factories; actively develop ecological agriculture and organic farming, pay attention to the combination of planting and breeding industry and make a rational layout with appropriate proportions of various industries. In the economic development, Longhua County should give full play to its advantages in mineral development, agricultural processing and utilization as well as tourism development. In mineral development, it should strictly regulate and improve the threshold of development enterprises, particularly for environmental protection, to embark on a way of sustainable development.

　　【Work conference on fixed-point poverty alleviation】From July 6 to 8, 2010, Vice Minister Zhou Jian of Ministry of Environmental Protection headed a delegation composed of representatives of relevant business divisions to conduct field research in Weichang County and Longhua County of Hebei Province and held the work conference on fixed-point poverty alleviation. The meeting assigned the tasks of the “Planning of the Ministry of Environmental Protection for the Fixed-point Poverty Alleviation in 2010" and demanded relevant divisions to effectively strengthen the communication and cooperation with the two counties and adopt effective measures to promote the anti-poverty work according to the division of tasks.

　　【Rural environmental protection and construction of nature reserves】 The Ministry of Environmental Protection conscientiously implemented the policy of "award for promoting governance", actively promoted the comprehensive improvement of rural environment and constantly increased investment to strengthen the construction of nature reserves. In 2010, together with the Ministry of Finance, it supported the construction of three rural environmental improvement projects in Weichang County and Longhua County of Hebei Province with investment of 2.6 million Yuan, and supported the construction of Hongsongwa National Nature Reserve Project in Weichang County with investment of 4 million Yuan.

　　【Environmental regulatory capacity building】Facing the poor situation of capacity building of the environmental monitoring stations and the serious shortage of infrastructure in the two counties, the Ministry of Environmental Protection urged the two counties to carry out special research on the overall framework and key projects for poverty alleviation and development and, starting from project construction, enhance the capacity for environmental supervision and environmental monitoring. In 2010, the central government allocated 10 million Yuan of environmental protection funds for the two counties, including 7 million Yuan for the leachate treatment and ecological management projects of garbage hazard free disposal sites in Weichang County and 3 million Yuan for biogas projects by comprehensive utilization of manure in Longhua County. As for environmental monitoring projects with central government’s special funds for emission of major pollutants, it mainly accelerated the standardized construction of environmental monitoring centers in the two counties and provided 71 sets of monitoring equipment for them, including ion chromatography, cold vapor atomic absorption mercury analyzer and UV-Vis spectrophotometer to enhance the capacity and level of environmental monitoring of the two counties and help them to reach the basic standard for county-level environmental monitoring stations.

　　【Training and exchange】  The Ministry of Environmental Protection attached great important to the environmental protection training of leaders and cadres in the two counties, included training of the leaders and environmental protection bureau heads of the two counties into the planning for environmental protection knowledge trainings of party and government leaders and the planning for on-the-job trainings of prefecture-level city environmental protection bureau heads, provided various preferential policies for their special trainings of environmental monitoring and supervision and supported their trainings through giving priority to them in boarding and lodging arrangements and training funds and reimbursement of travel expenses, etc. The Ministry of Environmental Protection actively selected and sent young leaders with high quality and strong work capability to act as cadres in the two counties. In 2010, two leaders of Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences and China Environment Daily were sent to Longhua and Weichang to strengthen the human resources support for the two counties.