Conservation job lifts 700,000 out of poverty in SW China's Yunnan

A total of 170,400 people living under China's poverty line have been employed as government-paid forest rangers in southwest China's Yunnan Province since 2015, which has driven 700,000 people to cast off poverty, local authorities said Thursday.

As a province with abundant forestry and grassland resources and also a large impoverished population, Yunnan has invested more than 38 billion yuan (about 5.36 billion U.S. dollars) in ecological poverty-relief programs since 2016, to promote ecological protection while increasing the income of the poverty-stricken group, according to the provincial forestry and grassland bureau.

Forestry authorities in the province have tightened up personnel management of forest rangers and organized skill training, to prompt their internal motivation, according to Ren Zhizhong, head of the bureau.

"Almost every underprivileged family in areas hit hard by abject poverty in Yunnan now has a labor force that can enjoy stable employment by becoming a forest ranger," Ren said.

Editor: John Li