China builds the "Great Green Wall" to combat desertification

2023-06-19 10:46

Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition

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China is one of the countries in the world with the largest area of desertification, the largest number of affected people and the most serious damage caused by wind and sand. In the process of desertification prevention and control, Chinese has written countless moving stories and achieved world-renowned achievements. The results of the sixth national desertification and desertification survey show that China's desertification and desertification land area has maintained a "double reduction" for four consecutive monitoring periods, and for the first time achieved a "double reversal" of desertification and desertification land in all surveyed provinces. Over the years, China has actively carried out international cooperation on desertification control, shared its experience in desertification control, and made important contributions to global desertification control. Some foreign media and international people lamented that China has created miracles in desertification control and built ecological security barriers, and there are many experiences that other countries can learn from.

Create a miracle of sand control

The "Three North" shelter forest project refers to the large-scale artificial forestry ecological project built in China's "Three North" regions (Northwest, North China and Northeast China), which has attracted much attention from foreign media since its launch in 1978. Foreign media are accustomed to using the "Great Wall" as a metaphor for the "Three North" shelterforest system, calling it the "Green Great Wall". For example, the Business Journal in 1986 wrote: "Today, a new Great Wall — a shelterbelt of trees, shrubs and grass — is being formed to protect the desert from the more threatening invaders." Germany's "Die Welt" reported that the "Three North Shelterbelt", a "green Great Wall", spans 13 provinces with a total length of nearly 4,500 kilometers.

Foreign media noted that after more than 40 years of unremitting efforts, China has made remarkable achievements in desertification prevention and control, and the economic and social development and ecological outlook of desertification areas have undergone earth-shaking changes.

The Times, a mainstream media outlet in the Maldives, published an article introducing the human miracle of Saihanba's "wasteland turned into forest and sea". The article pointed out that more than 60 years ago, the natural environment of Saihanba was very harsh. In order to improve the ecological environment, China built the Saihanba Forest Farm here, and in a few decades, built a million acres of forest and sea on the windswept wasteland. In recent years, China has adhered to both poverty alleviation and ecological construction, and has embarked on a road of sustainable development.

The Kubuqi Desert is located north of the ridgeline of the Ordos Plateau in Inner Mongolia, on the south bank of the Yellow River. The South African news website Independent Online once described the pre-governance Kubuqi Desert as follows: "Kubuqi, China's seventh largest desert, was once known as the 'Sea of Death' because of its harsh environmental conditions and the impoverished economic situation of its residents. "Today, it's a very different place. From the "Sea of Death" to the "Land of Hope", Kubuqi has achieved a historic transformation from "sand retreating" to "green into sand retreat".

Time magazine in the United States paid attention to the great changes that took place in Kubuchi: "People have planted special plants that fix quicksand and prevent sand dunes from encroaching on farmland and villages. Herds of disappearing cattle and sheep have reappeared, the secondary industry is booming, and tourists are flocking to the scene. ”

Housam, the head of the diplomatic affairs department of Egypt's newspaper Izvestia, planted a tree in the Kubuchi desert a few years ago. "When you see an oasis full of eyes, it's hard to imagine that there was once yellow sand here." Housam said that after decades of management, Kubuqi has become a model for desertification control in China and even the world. China has also increased the income of local residents through the development of desert tourism, specialty planting and other industries, and lifted a large number of people in sandy areas out of poverty.

Stephen Ndegwa, head of Kenya's South-South Cooperation Think Tank, said that in the process of fighting desertification, China has created a miracle of desertification control through careful planning and unremitting efforts. China has successively implemented a number of key ecological projects, such as the construction of the "Three North" shelterforest system, the return of farmland to forest and grassland, and the treatment of wind and sand sources in Beijing and Tianjin, and built ecological security barriers, of which many experiences are worth learning from other countries.

Great effort

A few days ago, the website of the Dominican newspaper Today published an article by Eduardo Klinger Pevida, academician of the Dominican Republic's Academy of Sciences, entitled "China on Earth". From 1990 to 2022, China's forest area will increase by about 3 million hectares per year. Under the strong management of the Chinese government, large areas of desertified land have been brought under control, and China has made great efforts to build a good ecological environment. This effort is social and persistent. Every spring, thousands of people mobilize to plant millions of trees in "ecologically fragile" areas.

According to a recent report by Brazil's "Tribune" magazine, in the lush grasslands of Xilin Gol in northern China, herds of cattle and sheep are strolling and enjoying a feast of fresh grass. After completing a 45-day grazing break to protect the grassland ecology in the area, cattle and sheep and other livestock are once again released to Qingqing pastures. The Xilin Gol League and Hulunbuir City in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region manage large areas of pasture in the border area, with 250 million mu and 93 million mu of pasture this spring, respectively. The seasonal grazing rest policy and the approximately 250 million yuan in government subsidies received by about 110,000 herder families in the Xilin Gol League reflect the Chinese government's ecological efforts to build a "Great Green Wall" in the north.

Kofi Kouakou, a senior fellow at the Center for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, has worked on the environment and sustainable development at the World Bank. Kofi Kuaku said that China's achievements in desertification prevention and control are amazing. The desert has become a gratifying oasis, which is a direct reflection of China's outstanding achievements in ecological protection. These achievements are attributed to the strong leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

Tackling challenges together

Desertification, known as the "cancer of the earth", is a difficult problem in the global ecological field. Holding a seminar for senior officials on the implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and sandstorm control in "Belt and Road" countries; organized the Kubuchi International Desert Forum; Jointly establish with the United Nations the International Training Centre for Combating Desertification and the International Knowledge Management Centre for Desertification Control... China has persisted in participating in and promoting international cooperation, actively promoted the implementation of anti-desertification projects in relevant countries, and contributed Chinese solutions to global ecological governance.

"Go fast alone, go far together." Recently, Marcelan Sanou, senior director of the Pan-African Great Green Wall Secretariat, used this proverb to describe the future of China-Africa cooperation to combat desertification. He said that in terms of experience exchange and technology sharing in desertification control, Africa-China cooperation has broad prospects. In view of China's rich experience in desertification prevention and control, the Pan-African "Great Green Wall" organization signed a memorandum of cooperation with China in 2017, hoping to strengthen desertification prevention and control capabilities through cooperation such as technology transfer, "through cooperation, Africa and China can share experience and support each other, which is conducive to promoting the 'Great Green Wall' plan."

The R&D team of Kazakhstan and China selected suitable afforestation plant species and built a 23-hectare experimental demonstration base in and around Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, providing a systematic solution for the construction of ecological barriers in the capital area. Kazakhstan presidential greening adviser Nesabayev said that the research results of Kazakhstan-China cooperation have systematically solved the technical problems faced by the ecological construction of Kazakhstan's capital area, and are a vivid practical example of jointly building a green "Belt and Road".

Nima Tseren Mandakh, a researcher at the Institute of Geography and Geology and Ecology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, said that with the help of China, her institute and Chinese scientific research institutions jointly implemented the project of "R&D and demonstration of key technologies for quicksand fixation and vegetation restoration in countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt", and carried out cooperative experiments in desert areas such as Burgan Province and Gobi Sumbuir Province in Mongolia, and achieved good results.

Kofi Kuaku said that through continuous improvement and innovation, China has formed a set of effective environmental protection standards and desertification control solutions, and is at the forefront of research and development and practice in some fields such as solar energy and green finance. "We hope that China will continue to actively share its development concepts and achievements, work with other countries to address environmental challenges, and better benefit the people of all countries."

Reporter Jia Pingfan