Youyu Spirit Exhibition Center is located in Youyu Cadre Academy, which covers an area of 1600 square meters. The center was launched in July 2013, and is an important centre to study and uphold Youyu spirit. The exhibition centers, around President Xi Jinping’s important instructions on Youyu spirit, tells the story of Youyu’s party members and officials serving the people and forging Youyu spirit, and shows the process of how the officials and people worked in solidarity to control sandstorms and plant forests.
In September 2019, Youyu Spirit Exhibition Center was rated as a national patriotism education study base. In October 2020, Youyu Spirit Exhibition Center added a poverty reduction column and showcases the answers to the questions of who to receive support, who to provide support, how to support and how to exit through pictures, material objects and charts. Since the opening of the center, it received over 300,000 visitors cumulatively, which is about 80,000 visitors annually.
In October 2020, based on the need to develop a poverty reduction experience exchange base, Youyu renovated the center, and added a column themed “Youyu’s Poverty Reduction Practice”. The column is 20 meters long, and is divided into 9 themes, namely “foreword”, “party development leads overall planning”, “the profitable ecological conservation for poverty reduction”, “rural industry lays the foundation for poverty reduction”, “relocation brings happy life”, “education and medical service provides support”, “social assistance comes from all social sources”, “intellectual support and ambition building arouses” and “rural rejuvenation builds a beautiful hometown”. The exhibition gives systematic answers to the questions of who to receive support, who to provide support, how to support, how to exit and how to connect the result of poverty reduction with rural revitalization, and showcases poverty reduction practice through ecological conservation in the county. At the same time, the center also made videos on poverty reduction, which are displayed in the center to show Youyu’s poverty reduction outcomes in an artistic and vivid way.
General situation of poverty reduction in Youyu: Youyu County is located at the juncture of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, in the alpine cold and dry areas in northwest Shanxi. It has 172 administrative villages and 116,000 people; the county covers 1969 square kilometers. Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Youyu raised its greening rate from less than 0.3% to 56%, creating an ecological miracle of transforming a barren land to an oasis. But at the beginning of the 21st century, Youyu is still considered as a national-level poor county.
After the targeted poverty reduction battle began in 2014, Youyu follows the requirement of major political tasks and primary livelihood projects, utilizes its ecological advantages, and firmly implements the targeted poverty reduction strategy. It strictly implements the responsibility letter system, promotes “eight programs and 20 actions”, coordinates industrial preferential policies, and provides household-based policies. In 2017, the county was lifted out of poverty. In August 2018, the county was approved by the provincial government to become one of the first batch of counties that will graduate from the list of national poverty counties.
Ecological conservation poverty reduction in Youyu: the county stands on local ecological advantages, focuses on “returning farmland to forests, conservation, management and use”, and innovates working methods to carry out ecological conservation for poverty reduction. This is a key step for the county’s local poverty reduction.
First, on “returning farmland to forests”, the county works to return farmland to forestsand to increase transfer income of the poor. On one hand, the county focuses on the installment compensation and forest management of the 105,000 mu (7000 hectares) of farmland reclaimed in the first round of returning farmland to forests between 2002 and 2006. On the other hand, it actively applied for quotas after the new round of returning farmland to forests began. In 2017, it successfully incorporated 630 mu (42 hectares) of arable land on steep slope (with a slope of over 25°) into the new round. In 2019, Youyu once again received the task of returning 159,400 mu (10626 hectares) of farmland to forests. According to statistics, in the five-year subsidized period, farmers in Youyu can receive 240.045 million yuan (1500 yuan for each mu) of subsidies, in which 80.393 million yuan has been distributed.
Second, on “conservation”, the county strives to create jobs to increase salary income for poor people. In view that the county was rich in investment channels, which were generally not accessible to poor people, Youyu County registered 34 afforestation cooperatives and assigned them with the afforestation programs implemented during the 13th five-year period in order to increase poor people’s income from ecological development investment. So far, afforestation cooperatives in Youyu have recruited 712 members. Since 2017, 476 poor laborers have participated in the ecological conservation programs. These programs have helped Youyu County to become the first county in the city to greening all eligible barren hills in 2020.
Third, on “management”, the county focuses on forest rangers’ recruitment to create jobs for poor people. Since 2016, Youyu integrated funds from national level public forests, local public forests and forest rangers, and the revenues from the green ecological conservation program and PV poverty reduction programs supported by China Longyuan Power Group to develop forest ranger teams. So far, Youyu has recruited 638 poor people as long-term rangers, and increased their annual income by 7,800 yuan; the county has also hired 3500 poor people as temporary rangers during emergency seasons with salary of 80 yuan a day, which has increased the poor’s personal income by 1000 yuan a year.
Fourth, on “use”, the county makes good use of green resources to increase poor people’s income. The county vigorously develops green processing industry. The whole county plants 280,000 mu (18,667 hectares) of sea-buckthorn trees, with an annual output of over 5000 tons and a total sale of 30 million yuan. It also develops featured planting industries. Based on its advantages as a national minor coarse cereal base, the county develops the coarse cereal industry and plants around 350,000 mu (23,333 hectares) of coarse cereal. The county develops ecological husbandry. Youyu mutton is the first animal product to become a national product of geographical indication in Shanxi, and the total number of sheep raised in the county reached 750,000. The county strives to develop rural tourism. On the basis of its ecological advantages, the county guides poor people to engage in catering service, cleaning and rural tourism, and enables them to gain stable income through work and profit sharing in the cooperatives.
