Final Report - Asian Development Bank

TA 4721-PRC: Preparing the Shaanxi-Qinling Mountains Integrated Ecosystem Management Project
Final Report Appendix 7
A. Project Impact
DETAILED PROJECT DESCRIPTION
1. The Project impact will improve rural wellbeing based on sustainable conservation and use
of QM resources. The project seeks to address the inter-relationship between sustainable biodiversity
conservation and livelihoods through introducing market-based approaches to biodiversity
conservation. The key performance indicators include: reduction in land area experiencing land
degradation and soil erosion; expansion of critical habitats within protected areas or landscapes with
effective conservation plans, successful protection endangered and non-priority species; employment
creation, increased rural incomes and poverty reduction; and increased tourism revenues and
business opportunities in both high volume activities in the ex-situ zones, and high value/ low volume
and impact activity in the QBCDA zone.
2. Poverty reduction over the longer term, especially in the QBCDA area, will be strongly
related to the non-farm full-time employment opportunities and the extent that QBCDA residents can
gain access and rights to use forested landscapes. Direct full time employment generated by the
Project investments in the QBCDA area is estimated to reach 500 by 2020 – based on the home-stay
facilities, small business generation and maintenance of conservation forests, the road and path
improvements. Additional jobs could result from other investments identified through implementing the
QBCDA strategy such as enterprise development, and the indirect employment from the Project
financed sustainable livelihood activities and job opportunities within the ex-situ zone.
3. Direct and indirect employment creation in the QBCDA area is conservatively estimated to
be 1,000 by the early 2020s. If the majority of these jobs are filled by QBCDA residents or QBCDA
residents with land rights the potential exists that most poverty households will benefit from or be able
to exit from poverty as a direct and indirect consequence of the Project.
4. Based on current estimates of number of poverty households in the QBCDA zone could fall
from more than 900 or 74% of the registered resident population in 2005 to about 200 in the early
2020s which would represent a decline from 70% to 20% of the QBCDA households. In addition, the
non-farm jobs provide substantial increases to existing income levels in the in-situ.
5. The Project’s long term impact on employment and poverty reduction in the ex-situ zone and
the total PA would be less dramatic but still quite impressive – associated again with a small
population, limited full-time non-farm employment and low net farmer incomes in the ex-situ zones and
the total PA. Potential longer term benefits for the ex-situ zone, include direct employment estimated
at 870 full-time jobs in the ex-situ tourism enterprises but this number could more than double to about
1,800 to the extent that planned follow on investments take place.
6. If 40% of these jobs target the poverty households in the ex-situ zone, the ex-situ poverty
household count would fall from 980 to 260, with the result that the ex-situ poverty rate would decline
from the 2005 rate of 28% to 7%. Combining the ex-situ and QBCDA estimates, the number of poverty
households in the PA would fall from the 2005 number of 1,890 – or about 40% of the PA households
– to 460 or 10% of the 2005 number as a consequence of the direct, indirect and demonstration
impacts of the Project on employment.
B. Project Outcome
7. The Project outcome in 2013 will be an effective integrated landscape management system
providing sustainable livelihoods for the population of the Project Area that can be demonstrated to the
wider QM. The project outcome emphasizes how the Project will demonstrate medium term success
in e.g. integrated landscape management, habitat protection, the protection of endangered species,
increasing income from tourism as visitors increase from 300,000 to approximately 1.2 million,
treatment of tourism waste streams, the number of farmer households and villages in the QBCDA and
ex-situ areas participating in and benefiting from project activities, and tourism revenues sufficient to
generate a surplus for transfer to QBCDA biodiversity conservation.
8. The investments provide the foundation for the replication of the Project models and
approaches to the wider Qinling Mountains. The sustainable financing mechanisms will derive
revenue from the commercial tourism enterprises that will finance selected investments in the PRoejct
Area and in other parts of the Qinling.
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