The Carrefour International Foundation carried out an assessment of the support activities performed in the villages of Shuiruo and Saba, located in a nature reserve in the Shichuan region, over a twelve-month period.

This initial study mission revealed the children's immediate educational requirements and the need to promote more effective resources management practices among adults.

Building on the success of this initial project, the Shichuan pepper association commissioned two experts in 2007 to provide 322 farming families with alternative solutions to their daily energy consumption. At the end of 2007, the project was already showing positive results with a reduction in heating-wood consumption per inhabitant by a third and significant energy savings based on the introduction of new slow-burning stoves in the villagers' homes. 

In terms of education, the association supplied, and made available to villagers, teaching material in the villages' two schools and helped to enhance the childrens' education through the building of a library with 200 new formal and informal educational books.

Aiming to improve the health of villagers, and of women and children in particular, a course in hygiene and sanitary conditions was taught in the village. At the same time, Mao County sent medical equipment to ensure the villagers received basic medical care.

The results of the initial project study revealed a deterioration in soil conditions, and a drop in yields and production due to an unsuitable and little-varied crop rotation system; the association therefore carried out structural alterations to the production systems. To achieve this, the farmers, assisted by agronomists, have been introducing new varieties of staple foods, such as potatoes, for several months.

Lastly, the association suggested the possibility of increasing their income by growing "Shichuan pepper". The programme had already been piloted in other villages and shows that, in addition to being a profitable business venture, this production helps preserve the region's natural resources and safeguards the nature reserve by substituting pepper farming for construction-wood production.

To help farmers adapt to this new activity, the WWF and Carrefour Chiba have decided to initiate a substitution production support programme. Since 2004, Carrefour ensures the sale of the pepper in its stores and is committed to buying a proportion of the production directly and at a minimum guaranteed price.

Sold and promoted for two weeks, the pepper is bought and sold in more than 60 Carrefour stores in China. For three years, production has intensified and now represents 10% of the farmers' income. This new production is also considered as exemplary by the local authorities which, by using the "Shichuan pepper" project as a model, have presented it as an intiative that should be extended to other areas.

At the end of 2007, this programme, supported by the Foundation for two years, should lead, by 2008, to the repair and maintenance of roads - the villagers' only means of communication -, the construction of new schools, and a self-managed sustainable agriculture programme run by the villagers.