Baseline Information
Zhouzhi County is located in the west of Guanzhong Plain, which is the biggest water supply base of Xi?an and a national ecological demonstration county. There are plenty of tourist attractions and rare resources such as natural mineral spring in Zhuyu Township. Zhanglong Village is a piedmont village with 201 households and total area of 5,235 Mu. The per capita income of the village in 2015 is 3,200 Yuan, 78% of which comes from forestry while 23% from exporting labor service. The local agricultural production mostly depends on steep slope cultivation. Lacking of necessary soil and water conservation measures and vegetation coverage, land degradation inevitably takes place and the ecosystem stability in Qinling Mountains is negatively affected. Large scale of returning farmland to forest also impacts the local conventional livelihood.

Main Problems
(1) Ecological and environmental problems. The local terrain is mainly steep slope with barren soil. The backward tillage methods and deforestation has caused land degradation and negative impact on wildlife?s habitats.
(2) Industrial structure problems. The local economic forest mainly consists of almond trees. The monotonous variety structure and low fruiting rate lead to villagers? low motivation to plant. Under-forest planting is less developed.
(3) Other social problems. Most young labor force of the village has flowed out. Due to the inconvenient traffic, some of the village?s agricultural products are in sales predicament.

Proposed Activities
(1) Encouraging the locals to commit to afforestation by planting mao bamboo, Chinese pine, cedar, Prunus cerasifera, Chinese scholar tree, locust tree and cherry blossom to prevent soil erosion and land degradation.
(2) Developing forest-edible fungus mode. Cultivating mushrooms and edible fungus to optimize the planting structure and expand sources of income.
(3) Developing Eco-tourism agriculture by launching a series of activities including rose picking, digging bamboo shoots, fishing and sightseeing to create a new model of poverty alleviation in Qinling Mountains.
(4) Promoting the project via TV, newspaper and other new media to enlarge the social reputation and demonstration effect of the project.

Anticipated Results
(1) 300 Mu of farmland will be returned to forest. 100 residences will be trained whose per capita annual income is expected to increase by 400 Yuan.
(2) Promoting under-forest planting and breeding on 20 Mu of land. 5 demonstration households and 200 residences will be trained whose per capita annual income is expected to increase by 600 Yuan.
(3) A whole industry chain of poverty alleviation mechanism will be established, including Eco-tourism, Eco-agriculture and nature conservation. 200 residences will be trained. 200 employment positions are to be provided, 120 of which are for women, whose per capita annual income is expected to increase by 1000 Yuan.
(4) A project promotion conference is to be held to summarize the results and experience and promote participatory community sustainable development model. Over 30 delegates from government agencies, experts in Eco-tourism and media will attend the conference.