The Special Ecological Zone Of A Resource-Depletion-resistant Type In Dongchuan, Kunming, Yunnan, China:A Feasibility Study

Abstract:Dongchuan district of Kunming, Yunnan, China is characterized by high, shattered and worn-out mountains, steep slopes, and frequent geological disasters. Its degenerated ecological function is not only extremely holding back its industrial transition, but also posing a serious threat to the ecological and economic security of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze river.Special ecological zones (SEZs) have some success stories of their establishment in China and abroad. However, those SEZs are mostly found in the areas that feature a much better ecological and industrial condition, making perfection still more perfect. Comparatively speaking, there are few, very few cases of theoretical studies and hands-on practices in the establishment of such SEZs in the areas that are ecologically most fragile and resource-depleted as well as economically less developed in transitional growth.In view of the megatrends of global ecological issues, I revisit Dongchuan’s ecological and economic problems. In the face of the district’s issues of resources depletion, ecological deterioration and its increasingly prominent bottleneck of unsustainability in regional economic development, and with the focus on the restoration and improvement of the leading ecological function of water and soil conservation in Dongchuan, I comprehensively evaluate its present and future economic and social development, its characteristics of ecological environment, history, culture and location as well as its exploitation and utilization of resources, etc. I also analyze Dongchuan’s present ecological environment and ecological carrying capacity, and with the SWOT method I make a research into the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat of the SEZ that is to be established in Dongchuan. Thus, I attempt to propose the goal, tasks and measures for ecological protection and governance in different zones with a focal point both on the establishment of the pioneering and experimental zone of ecological barrier projects in the lower reaches of Jinsha river, and on the solution to the issue of limited development space in Dongchuan. Finally I set the tasks of the ecologically zoning protection and governance, the protection of ecological functions, the ecological restoration and reconstruction, the ecological recovery of disused mines, and the construction of security system of resources and environment.With a lot of elaborations, I conclude that the construction of SEZ in Dongchuan is scientifically feasible.