On April 22, "World Earth Day", more than 15 million netizens across the country planted more than 1.5 million flower sticks for Gansu on their mobile phones through Ant Forest. On the morning of the same day, the first batch of 420,000 flower sticks was planted at the southern edge of the Tengger Desert in Liangzhou District, Wuwei City. In the next three years, Ant Group will donate another 100 million yuan through Ant Forest to support Gansu in planting trees and controlling desertification. Previously, Ant Group has donated more than 900 million yuan to the Gansu Provincial Ecological Construction Agreement through a number of public welfare organizations and professional institutions, and planted more than 150 million trees. Nationwide, in the eight years since the launch of the Ant Forest project, more than 90% of the trees have been planted in the three iconic battle areas of the "Three Norths" project.
"The 'Three Norths' project carried out by the state is a magnificent proposition of the times, and green should not only be planted on the earth, but also planted in everyone's heart. "In the past eight years, Ant Forest has become one of the important channels for the public to participate in the 'Three Norths' project, allowing more ordinary people to change from the beneficiaries of the 'Three Norths' project to the builders of the 'Three Norths' project. Peng Yijie, senior vice president and chief sustainability officer of Ant Group, said.
Picture: The planting site of the first batch of flower sticks for spring planting in Ant Forest in 2024
In 1978, in order to cope with the increasingly serious disasters such as sandstorms and soil erosion in the northwest, north and northeast China, the mainland officially launched the "Three Norths" shelterbelt system construction project, with the goal of increasing the forest coverage rate of the project area from 5.05% to 14.95% by 2050. According to public information from the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, by the end of 2020, the forest coverage rate in the "Three Norths" project area had reached 13.84%, an increase of 8.8 percentage points from 1978. In the next 10 years, the top priority of the "Three Norths" project is to fight the three landmark battles of the Yellow River's "zigzag bend", the annihilation battle of the two major sandy lands of Horqin and Hunshandak, and the resistance battle on the edge of the Hexi Corridor and the Taklamakan Desert.
Photo: Poplar Forest at Ant Forest 666 in Jinta, Gansu Province, next to the Badain Jaran Desert, March 2024
Gansu is the core area of the "Hexi Corridor-Taklamakan Desert Edge Blocking Battle" in the landmark battle of the "Three Norths" project, with thousands of kilometers of wind-blown sand lines. In 2017, Ant Forest launched a tree-planting campaign in Wuwei, Gansu Province, to help prevent the Badain Jaran Desert and the Tengger Desert from "shaking hands" here.
Photo: Forest No. 241 Ant Forest in Minqin County, Wuwei, Gansu Province, taken in March 2024
In Minqin County, Wuwei, many ant forest plots have formed obvious sand crusts, effectively preventing the movement of sand dunes, and the yellow sheep, a national second-class protected animal that had disappeared, has been revitalized again.
In Dunhuang, more than 900 kilometers away from Minqin, the same phenomenon is happening. As the area with the most serious degree of desertification and sandstorm hazards in Gansu Province and even the whole country, Dunhuang has only 42.5 mm of precipitation and 60 times the amount of evaporation. In order to stop the invasion of the Kumtag Desert, since 2018, Ant Forest has planted more than 30,000 acres of trees such as Saxonosuro in Yangguan Town, Dunhuang. Every flowering season, the pale yellow sea of flowers makes the Gobi Desert full of vitality, and the encounter with the goose-throated antelope, a national second-class protected animal, has also become a small surprise that rangers often encounter when patrolling.
Photo: In order to stop the eastward encroachment of the Kumtag Desert, Ant Forest helped Dunhuang plant 30,000 acres of green barriers, the picture shows Ant Forest No. 616, taken in March 2024
It is understood that from its establishment in 2016 to August 2023, Ant Group has participated in and supported the ecological construction of 22 provinces across the country through the Ant Forest project, planting a total of more than 475 million trees.
Next door to Gansu Province, on November 23 last year, the People's Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Ant Group, under which Ant Group will focus on desertification prevention and control in the next five years, and strive to help Inner Mongolia complete another 2 million acres of afforestation, management and other desertification prevention and control projects, and explore the model innovation of mobilizing social forces to participate in desertification prevention and control cooperation. Prior to the signing of the agreement, Ant Group had planted more than 270 million trees in Alxa, Ordos and other league cities through the "Ant Forest" public welfare afforestation project, with a total area of more than 2 million mu, and a cumulative donation of more than 1.5 billion yuan.
Photo: Sea buckthorn forest No. 469 in Ant Forest in Horqin, Inner Mongolia, in April 2024
"If we don't wipe out the desert, the desert will wipe us out!" Guo Wangang, a national model worker and forestry hero, told reporters. In the mid-80s of the last century, Guo Wangang took over from his father and began to plant trees in the eight-step sand, which is known as "eight steps out of the house". Over the past 40 years, he has led the cadres and masses to complete sand control and afforestation of 287,000 mu in Babusha, Heigangsha and northern sand areas, and the vegetation coverage rate in the management and protection area has increased from less than 3% before the treatment to more than 70% now. Among them, 60,000 acres of trees were planted by Ant Forest.
"From one acre to one acre, one stubble after another, as long as people go further, the sand will take a step back. On April 22, at the Wuwei tree planting site, Wang Yinji, who had planted trees in Shawozi for 25 years, once again waved a shovel and led the people to press the sand and plant trees. "Thinking about that touch of green, my steps are more energetic!" Wang Yinji said.