Success Stories from Our Members in the field

Promoting Business and The Environment: The Right Thing and The Smart Thing, The Trickle Up Program

The Cao Hai Nature Reserve, an important breeding and wintering ground for many species of birds, including the endangered Black-Necked Crane, was until recently one of the poorest areas in China.

Government regulations in 1982 prohibited farming and fishing of the wetlands, and as a result, tens of thousands of families were adversely affected. Many Chinese, out of the desperation born from extreme poverty, simply ignored the government prohibitions and harvested what they could from the Reserve.

The Trickle Up Program, an American nongovernmental organization, along with the U.S.-based International Crane Foundation and local Chinese agencies, joined together in 1992 to address the problem. The groups provided the poorest families with small grants of $100 and business training to help them start or expand businesses that did not exploit the natural resources of the Cao Hai Nature Reserve.

More than 500 families in 13 villages around the lake have started environmentally friendly businesses, such as manufacturing stoves from discarded oil barrels, farming and retail trade.

Some 80 percent of the Trickle Up entrepreneurs reported profits, 93 percent say their nutrition has improved and 31 percent credit the program with allowing them to send their children to school.

As hoped, the program also decreased the villagers' dependence on the natural resources of the Cao Hai Reserve.

The Cao Hai experience is so successful that it has been replicated in other Chinese communities. It's a remarkable example of how American development assistance, if carried out in an effective, accountable way, is both the right thing and the smart tbing to do.