Second Gansu Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection and Development Project (P149528) Executive Summary for ESIA Reports Public Disclosure Authorized of Two New Subprojects (Kangxian Subproject and Jingtai Subproject) proposed as part of the Project Restructuring June 9, 2020 1. Introduction In the restructuring of Second Gansu Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection and Development Project, two subprojects of Kongtong Mountain Scenic Area and Zhuanglang County Yunya Temple Scenic Area have been dropped due to environmental regulation Public Disclosure Authorized issues. At the same time, some new activities are added under two subprojects, one is the new Jingtai Yellow River Stone Forest Tourism and Community Development Project (simplified as Jingtai subproject below) and the other is the Kangxian County Tourism and Community Improvement Project (simplified as new Kangxian subproject below, expansion based on original Kangxian subproject). During restructuring, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was conducted to support the preparation of these two new subprojects following both domestic regulations and the World Bank’s safeguards policies, of which the key findings and recommendations are summarized in this Executive Summary. 2. Summary of the EIA report for Jingtai Subproject Public Disclosure Authorized 2.1 Project background Jingtai Yellow River Stone Forest is located in the southeast of Jingtai County in Baiyin City of Gansu Province, which is a national geologic park and a national 4A scenic tourism site as well as a provincial nature reserve for geological relics. Since its official establishment as the scenic site in 2004, the site has been developed as one of the most attractive tourism sites in Gansu as well as in China. By 2016, the annual tourists reached about 860,000. The Yellow River Stone Forest improvement was one of the subprojects under WB financed Phase I Gansu Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection and Development Project Public Disclosure Authorized (2008 - 2015), under which a 2.5 km access road, a 3000m2 parking lot and a 2500m2 museum was constructed/upgraded together with other supportive works. Since then, the Yellow River Stone Forest also experienced rapid tourist volume growth with the quadrupling of tourist volume from 2010 to 2016. The fast-growing tourist volume has put tremendous pressure on the current infrastructures and facilities in the scenic site. The existing facilities cannot accommodate the current large amount of the tourists. Meanwhile, the tourists not only visited the stone forest park, but also brought tremendous businesses 1 to the local communities from foods, sightsees, lodging, riverside activities, etc. The new subproject for Yellow River Stone Forest was therefore proposed to address the needs for both the improvements of scenic site facilities and the community development of Longwan Village. The estimated investment for the subproject is about $40.40 million, in which about $30.00 million will be financed by WB loan. The project activities are mainly small-scale civil works including the followings: a. Scenic area upgrades: i) Binhe Road and associated facilities; ii) tourist walkways; iii) No. 2 bridge near Yellow River watermill; iv) parking lots; v) tourist rest corridors; vi) landscaping; vii) tourist service center: viii) construction of the park gate; ix) waterfront platforms; x) tourist exchange stations; xii) tourist toilets; xiii) MSW management system; xiv) water, wastewater and power supply facilities; and xv) scenic area smart information system; b. Community development: i) Goat skin raft museum; ii) cultural heritage exhibition hall; iii) agricultural product display hall; iv) family play yard; v) water channel cleanup; vi) apple cold storage; and vii) village cultural market; c. Capacity development: i) village and tourism corporation and development study; and ii) community development training. 2.2 Key EIA findings During project preparation, the EIA was conducted by a qualified consulting team following both domestic regulations and the applicable World Bank’s safeguards policies (OP4.01 and OP4.04). The draft and final EIA was disclosed both online and locally, respective in August and September 2019. The key project stakeholders, including project- affected villagers and relevant authorities, were consulted during the EIA preparation, and the received comments and opinions have been included in the project design and EIA report. The project will focus on the improvements of tourism infrastructure in the scenic area, including roads, bridge, museum/exhibition hall, parking lots, tourist service center, entrance gate, etc. The project activities have been designed in compliance with existing tourism development plans, nature reserve management regulations and other applicable laws and regulations. Due to the geomorphic constraints, part of the project activities (a tourist service center and the entrance gate) will be situated in the experimental zone of the provincial nature reserve based on the results of alternative analysis. An independent ecological impact assessment has been conducted by qualified consultants to better understand the significance of potential project impacts on local ecosystem and concluded that the project would not involve any critical nature habitat and would not bring any significant and irreversible ecological impacts on the nature reserve. The measures to minimize and mitigate the adverse ecological impacts during project implementation have been recommended and included in the EIA report together with other environmental and social mitigation measures. In general, the project implementation is anticipated with overall environmental and social benefits through infrastructure and environmental improvements of the scenic area. However, there will also be some negative environmental and social impacts during project 2 implementation, as summarized below. • Construction period: During construction, the anticipated adverse impacts will be temporary, site-specific and manageable; however, it is important to strengthen the construction management to minimize the construction nuisance within the project areas and to avoid any interference beyond the project scope. - Air pollution: Construction activities, such as site grading, earthwork excavation and piling, and transportation of construction materials and construction waste will generate dust pollution, particularly in windy days. Adequate mitigation measures have been proposed to address the impacts, including site watering, vehicle speed limit, avoiding construction in windy weather, etc. - Wastewater: Two construction camps are planned for the project, which will be used for the storage of construction equipment and materials but provide no accommodation because about 50 construction workers for the project will all be recruited locally. Therefore, domestic wastewater from construction workers (1.2m3/d) will be treated with existing toilets in the scenic areas and a 5m3 settling tank will be placed in the construction site for the treatment of construction wastewater from vehicle washing (1.5m3/d) before being fully reused on the site without discharge. - Noise: Construction noise mainly comes from construction machinery and various transportation vehicles. Some effectives and commonly used measures will be taken during construction to reduce the noise impacts on local villagers, such as reduced use of high-noise equipment, better scheduling of construction activities, installation of noise barriers. - Solid Waste: For construction phase, with only 50 construction workers locally recruited and without workers’ accommodation on site, the generation of domestic solid waste will be only 25kg/d, which will be collected and regularly transported by the local sanitation department to Baiyin Municipal Solid Waste Incinerator for disposal. The project construction is expected to have no spoil generation, and the generation of construction wastewater will be about 90.11t, which will be collected, recycled as far as possible and then disposed at the construction waste dumps designated by the construction management department for disposal. - Ecological Impacts: Due to geomorphic constraints, the proposed tourist service center and entrance gate will be situated in the experimental zone of the nature reserve, to be built/expanded based on the existing Nanshan Square. During project design, alternative analysis has been conducted to minimize potential impacts on the nature reserve. The ecological survey found no critical natural habitat and protected/rare wildlife in the project-affected areas. Following the "Regulations on the Management of Natural Reserves in Gansu Province", the project proposal has been reviewed by the Gansu Forestry and Grassland Bureau, who has issued the “Opinions on the Impact Assessment of the Project Impacts on geological relics in the Yellow River Stone Forest National Geopark (with the official letter No.: Gansu Forest Baobian (2019) No.97), indicating its official no-objection to proposed project activities within the natural reserve since none of the project activities is 3 located in the core zone and buffer zone where the construction and operation are forbidden and there is no important geological relic in the project-affected areas. Adequate mitigation measures have been proposed in the ecological impact assessment and included in the EIA to manage the temporary and site-specific adverse impacts on local geological conditions and landscapes