Yunnan Urban Environmental Project

World Bank Financed

Yunnan Urban Environmental Project

Social Assessment:

Indigenous Peoples

China Cross-cultural Consulting Center,
SunYat-senUniversity

July 13, 2007

Summary

According to the OP4.10, TOR provided by SA expert of the WB, and under the guidance of DRA SA consultant, during Dec 1-19, 2006, the social assessment experts of the China Cross-cultural Consulting Center, Sun Yat-sen University (CCCC) conducted a field survey to identify the features, socialimpacts,benefitmechanism on the indigenous peoples (IPs) involved in the 34 subprojects under the World Bank Financed Yunnan Urban Environmental Project (YUEP).

The Yunnan Urban Environmental Construction Project covers 86 Xiangs/towns/sub-districts in 22 counties/districts in Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Wenshan Prefectures/Cities, Yunnan Province, with a total benefited population of 2.13million, including an urban population of 1.16 million (54.4%) and a rural population of 0.97 million (45.6%).

The negatively impacted population is 11,132[1](accounting for 0.52% of beneficiaries ) , including 3,667 in Kuming project area, 2,815 in Dali project area, 2,417 in Lijiang Project area, and 2,233 in Wenshan project area.

The affected regions include 12 key counties for state poverty relief, including five IPs’ autonomous counties and two IPs' autonomous prefectures, 15 counties in total, namely Shilin Yi Autonomous County, Luquan Miao Autonomous County, Xundian Hui-Yi Autonomous County, Ninglang Naxi-Yi Autonomous County, Yulong Naxi Autonomous County, Dali City, Eryuan County, Funing County, Malipo County, Guangnan County, Yanshan County, Wenshan County, Qiubei County, Xichou County and Maguan County.

The project areas involve 12 resident IPs, which are Hui, Yi, Miao, Bai, Lisu, Naxi, Dai, Zhuang, Tibetan, Pumi, Gelao, Yao and Bouyei, an IPs population of 822,800, accounting for 38.71% of the total affected population. The total population of negatively impacted IPs is 3,527, accounting for 31.68%.

Specifically, the IPs in the Kunming project areas are mainly Hui, Yi, Miao etc, with an IPs population of 131,300, accounting for 15.03% of the total affected population in Kuming; the population of negatively impacted IPs is 52, accounting for 1.42% of the total negatively impacted population in Kuming.

The IPs in the Dali project areas are mainly Bai, Yi, Hui etc, with an IPs population of 387,100, accounting for 63.59% of the total affected population in Dali; the population of negatively impacted IPs is 1981, accounting for 70.37% of the total negatively impacted population in Dali

The IPs in the Lijiang project areas are mainly Naxi, Mosuo, Yi, Bai etc, with an IPs population of 104,400, accounting for 56.51% of the total affected population in Lijiang; the population of negatively impacted IPs is 1070, accounting for 44.27% of the total negatively impacted population in Lijiang.

The IPs in the Wenshan project areas are mainly Zhuang, Miao, Yi, Yao, etc, with an IPs population of 200,000, accounting for43.6% of the total affected population in Wenshan; the population of negatively impacted IPs is 424, accounting for 18.99% of the total negatively impacted population in Wenshan.

The Assessment Team has identified the IPs in each subproject area using the OP 4.10 criteria, and suggests that the IPs involved in the 20sub-projects keep the specific ethnic identities, the ethnic culture and language in their compact villages/communities. The OP 4.10 fits to 17 sub-projects of them. And the IPs involved in the other 14 projects are scattered in urban areas, whose cultural characteristics are largely consistent with the main peoples in the project areas. Moreover, the Chinese (Han) language is popular in these areas. Accordingly, the Assessment Team thinks OP4.10 does not apply to these project areas.

The SA Team carried out typical investigations of IPs in 34 Indigenous Peoples’ communities in 20subprojects affected areas. The SA team collected the baseline information on the demographic, social, cultural, and political characteristics of the affected Indigenous Peoples’ communities, the land and territories that they have traditionally owned or customarily used or occupied, and the natural resources on which they depend. Taking the baseline information into account, the SA team identified the key project stakeholders, and conducted the free, prior, and informed consultation with the affected Indigenous Peoples’ communities. The Team communicated adequately with the indigenous stakeholders (especially women and poor IPs) in the IPs’ communities by way of questionnaire survey (980 questionnaires), interview, workshop(38 workshops) and observation, to learn their different needs for the Project, analyze the impacts of the Project, and obtain extensive support from the IPs communities.

The results of free, prior, and informed consultation suggest that: ①the project positive impacts include improving the overall environment of the IPs’ communities and the health level of the IPs, providing the IPs’ villages with nonagricultural job opportunities, increasing their income, promoting local economic development, specially in tourism and urbanization, and helping build the sense of the residents as the subject of environmental protection; ②the negative impacts on the IPs include land requisition, relocation and change in land use, resulting in income reduction and nonagricultural changes in livelihoods to the affected peasants; causing noise and safety problems to the affected villages, and possibly affecting the trip and agricultural production of the IPs.

Based on the participatory consultation with IPs, the SA team discussed on how to conduct projects by the culturally appropriate way, and avoid, minimize, mitigate the project adverse effects with the stakeholders including PMOs, project owners, design Institutes and RAP institute, provided the action plan of measures to control and compensate for these adverse effects (See SA general report “Chapter 7. Conclusion, Suggestion and Action”),and elaborated the culturally appropriateprocess for consulting with the Indigenous Peoples at each stage of projectpreparation and implementation(See SA general report “Chapter 6. Communities’ participatory strategies”), to ensure the key issues of IPPs can be included in the projects’ general designs.

In accordance with World Bank OP4.10, the SA Team further judges the need for an IPP based on the proportion of benefited IPs population, impacts on lands and related natural resources of IPs, whether commercial development of IPs cultural resources is involved and whether the new poverty of IPs will be brought. The SA Team thinks that:

①In terms of proportion of benefited IPs population, the affected areas of the 20 projects that comply with OP4.10 are mostly IPs’ communities. The proportion of the benefited IPs population is above 50% in most projects, except the “Municipal Solid Waste Collection and Disposal Project in LuquanCounty”. The IPs are the main part of the benefited population in most projects, and the key issues of IPPs have been included in the projects design.

②In terms of whether a subproject’s affected area is under IPs autonomy, except the Lijiang Lion Mountain Environment Renovation Project, Second Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant and Associated Sewer Network in Lijiang City, Municipal Solid Waste Collection and Disposal Project in Lijiang City, the other 17 subprojects that comply with OP4.10 are under IPs autonomy. There are a range of policies, regulations and preferences from the state to the local level in IPs autonomous places in place to assure the freedom of the affected IPs to maintain or reform their own cultural customs and practices; under state planning, they are free to arrange and manage local economic construction activities, manage and conserve local natural resources; the autonomous organs in these places are also ensuring that all IPs in these places enjoy equal rights. A project carried out in IPs regions must conform to these policies and regulations, which are the basis of the IPs’ equal benefit from the project. In the Municipal Solid Waste Collection and Disposal Project in Luquan County in which the IPs population is not a majority of the benefited population, the above policies and regulations have already provide for the IPs’ equal rights in politics, economy, culture and natural resources and can ensure the IPs benefit equally from the project.

③In terms of impacts on lands and related natural resources of IPs, engineering land requisition and relocation, and change in land use of IPs are the main negative impacts of the Project. The culturally appreciate Resettlement action plan are preparing for the affected IPs to guarantee the source of income of the farmers who lose their land, and reduce the negative cultural, economic and social impacts arising from resettlement.

④In terms of whether commercial development of IPs cultural resources is involved, the Assessment Team thinks the Project will not conflict with the IPs customs, religious beliefs and cultures, and except Municipal Infrastructure Construction in Nu'erguo Town of Ninglang County, no project will involve the commercial development of the traditional cultural resources of the IPs.

⑤In terms of whether the new poverty of IPs will be led to, the SA Team has found that most projects’ designs and RAPs can avoid the IPs new poverty, and will not aggravate the poverty of the affected poor IPs, except the project of “Municipal Infrastructure Construction in Nu'erguo Town of Ninglang County”. The Yi villages covered by this project are poor villages in the affected area and are still very backward despite of the past domestic and international poverty reduction projects. The Yi villagers hope to maintain the existing livelihoods of farming and stockbreeding. The Mosuo culture will be the center of the future tourism development led by the project. Yi people will face to how to get equal benefits from the tourism development to relief their poverty. The present project design lacks of the corresponding control measures.

In sum, in the 20 subprojects that comply with OP4.10, the SA Team suggests that in particular, since “Municipal Infrastructure Construction in Nu'erguo Town of Ninglang County” is involved of the ethnic culturecommercial development, and may aggravate the poverty degree of Yi people, an separate IPP is necessary to be prepared for this project to further ensure the project will not make the poor Yi villages even poorer and protect the Mosuo, Yi cultures in the tourist development process. And it is no need to do IPPs for other 19 projects since the key issues of IPPs have been integratedinto the project contents through the SA, RAP and project designs.

Table of contents

1Overview of Indigenous Peoples in project locations

1.1 Definition of project areas

1.2 Distribution of Indigenous Peoples in project areas

1.2.1 Distribution of Indigenous Peoples in 4 prefectures/cities and affected counties

1.2.2 Distribution of Indigenous Peoples in project areas

2Features of Indigenous Peoples

2.1 Indigenous Peoples complying with OP4.10

2.2 Cultural characteristics of main Indigenous Peoples in project areas

2.3 Policies and regulations protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples in project areas

2.3.1 State-level laws and policies

2.3.2 Local-level laws and policies

3Participation of Indigenous Peoples

3.1 Design of participation of Indigenous Peoples

3.2 Process of participation of Indigenous Peoples

3.3 Outcomes of participation of Indigenous Peoples

3.3.1 Attitude of Indigenous Peoples to the Project

3.3.2 Project demand of interested parties of Indigenous Peoples

3.3.3 Positive and negative impacts of the Project

4Analysis of Project impacts on Indigenous Peoples

4.1 Basin and river course management projects

4.2 Wastewater treatment and sewer network projects

4.3 Solid waste disposal projects

4.4 Other projects

4.5 The Project’s impacts on the poverty issue of IPs population

5Judgment of preparation of Indigenous Peoples development program

5.1 Basis of judgment

5.1.1 Benefits of Indigenous Peoples

5.1.2 Impacts on lands and related natural resources of Indigenous Peoples

5.1.3 Will the Project involve commercial development of cultural resources of Indigenous Peoples

5.1.4 Will the Project bring the new poverty to Indigenous Peoples

5.2 Outcomes of judgment and analysis

6Conclusion and suggestions

Abbreviation & Acronyms

1 Overview of Indigenous Peoples in project areas

YunnanProvince is located by the southwest frontier of China, borders on GuizhouProvince, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the east, SichuanProvince in the north, Tibet Autonomous Region in the northwest, Burma, Laos and Vietnam in the west and south. The province governs 16 prefectures and cities, 129 counties, county-level cities and districts, including 29 Indigenous Peoples (IPs) autonomous counties. At the end of 2005, the province had a total population of 44.15 million, including an urban population of 11.639 million, and a rural population of 32.117 million. Yunnan is the province with the large and most widespread population of IPs, and has 25 IPs with a population of over 5,000, where the IPs population accounts for 33.4% of its total population.

The Yunnan Urban Environmental Project (hereinafter referred to as the “Project”) consists of 34 subprojects falling into the 4 categories of basin and river course management, wastewater treatment and sewer network, solid waste disposal and other, involving the fields of drainage (including wastewater treatment), water supply, waste disposal, integrated river course management, runoff pollution control, environmental monitoring and cultural relic protection in Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Wenshan Prefectures/Cities.

There are 7 projects in KunmingCity in its urban area and 6 counties, involving integrated river management, wastewater treatment and sewer network, waste collection and disposal, environmental monitoring and management support system, etc.

The 5 projects and 12 subprojects in DaliPrefecture are mainly located in DaliCity and EryuanCounty in ErhaiLakeBasin, including sewer network, integrated management of river course water environment, rural runoff pollution control, waste collection and disposal, wastewater treatment plant and supporting sewer network.

All the 6 projects in Lijiang City are urban infrastructure construction projects, including waste disposal, wastewater treatment and sewer network, conservation of natural and cultural resources, distributed in 3 counties and 1 district of Lijiang.

WenshanPrefecture has the largest number of subprojects (15) for integrated lake/river management, waste disposal, wastewater treatment and supporting sewer network, wastewater collection network, and capacity building in environment monitoring and supervision. These subprojects spread over all counties of WenshanPrefecture.

1.1 Definition of project areas

The Yunnan Urban Environmental Construction Project covers 86 Xiangs/towns/sub-districts in 22 counties/districts in Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Wenshan Prefectures/Cities, Yunnan Province, with a total benefited population of 2.13million, including an urban population of 1.16 million (54.4%) and a rural population of 0.97 million (45.6%). The affected regions include 12 key counties for state poverty relief, including five IPs’ autonomous counties and two IPs' autonomous prefectures, 15 counties in total, namely Shilin Yi Autonomous County, Luquan Miao Autonomous County, Xundian Hui-Yi Autonomous County, Ninglang Naxi-Yi Autonomous County, Yulong Naxi Autonomous County, Dali City, Eryuan County, Funing County, Malipo County, Guangnan County, Yanshan County, Wenshan County, Qiubei County, Xichou County and Maguan County.

See Table 1-1 for the area of each subproject:

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YunanProvince–World Bank Group Huit –SCE

YUEP-fasep706

Table 11 Schedule of Project Areas (2005)

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