Gansu and Xinjiang Pastoral Development Project

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The project development objective of the Gansu and Xinjiang Pastoral Development Project for China is to promote sustainable natural resource management by establishing improved livestock production and marketing systems that would increase the income of herders and farmers in the project areas. The project would empower farmer and herder households in project areas to better manage their grassland resources and improve the forage and feed production on arable lands. More efficient and quality focused livestock production would increase the farmers and herders incomes and generate marketable surplus to improve living standards. Developing efficient livestock marketing systems in the project counties would also increase the efficiency of the whole livestock production system and contribute raising the living standards of farmers and herders. The global environmental objective of the project is to maintain and nurture natural grassland ecosystems to enhance global environmental benefits. More specifically, the project aims to mitigate land degradation, conserve globally important biodiversity, and enhance carbon sequestration, through promotion of integrated ecosystem management in the grassland, desert, and forest ecosystems of the Qilian Shan, Tian Shan, and Altaishan mountain ranges in Western China. The global environmental objective would be achieved by implementing community based grassland management in selected project areas with high global biodiversity values; providing incremental investments for implementing grassland management plans; and carrying out monitoring of these grasslands' habitats. The project has five components: (1) Grassland Management and Forage Improvement; (2) Livestock Production Improvement; (3) Market Systems Development; (4) Applied Research, Training, and Extension; and (5) Project Management, Monitoring, and Evaluation. The project will finance works, equipment, materials, Technical Assistance (TA) and training. Communities will contribute their labor. This constitutes the Baseline Scenario. The GEF Alternative builds on the Baseline Scenario b y conserving key mountain grassland eco-systems and their biodiversity and carbon storage capacity in selected sites of global environmental significance. Four of the five project components have incremental GEF financed activities that will: (a) conserve global grassland values and native livestock agro-biodiversity; (b) support applied research, training and extension for multiplication of indigenous grassland species for rehabilitation of degraded grasslands and the protection of native sheep and yak; and (c) establish integrated grassland management monitoring processes at provincial, county and townships levels.