在世纪之交的关键时刻，党中央、国务院高瞻远瞩，明确提出生态环境建设既是西部大开发的基础，又是西部大开发的根本点和切入点；西部开发，生态先行。而在加快改善西部生态环境、整治中西部水土流失上，党中央一锤定音：“退耕还林（草），封山绿化，以粮代赈，个体承包”。 At the critical juncture of the turn of the century, the Central Party Committee and the State Council made a clear-cut and far-sighted proposal that the construction of an ecological environment is both the foundation for the development of the western region and the fundamental point and starting point for the large-scale development of the western region. The western development and ecological precedence will be the first priority. In accelerating the improvement of the ecological environment in the west and water and soil erosion in the central and western regions, the Central Party Party has a single blueprint: “returning farmland to forests and grasslands, closing mountains and landscaping, providing food for relief, and individual contracting.”