Lifestyle

While Beijing has long been known for its dense springtime sandstorms, the situation in the past few years has been improving. But despite government attention elevating desertification to a priority, China is currently about 27 percent desert, and that desert is expanding. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), China's deserts are growing at a rate of about 3,400 square km a year. Land that was once green and fertile is turning into yellow sand. And this is not only happening at the edges of existing deserts. Small pockets of desert are now appearing in the midst of what was once fertile cropland.

Desertification is a process where productive, fertile land in arid regions becomes eroded and barren. This process is caused by a variety of natural and manmade factors, including climate change, overgrazing, over-farming, inappropriate land use, and deforestation. All these factors reduce the vegetation cover and affect the chemical composition of the land, making it more susceptible to erosion and eventually desertification.

Desertification is also intimately linked with poverty. The arid lands that are most susceptible to desertification also tend to house the most poor and disenfranchised rural residents. They are usually only scraping by through farming or herding on very inhospitable land, and often do not have any choice but to over-exploit natural resources in order to make ends meet. Many such residents do not have access to more efficient or ecological agricultural or animal husbandry methods. According to the UNCCD, an estimated 400 million people are affected by desertification in China.

Anti-desertification measures

China's large swathes of arid land, especially in its northern and western provinces, and its large rural population make it an ideal breeding ground for new deserts. The Chinese Government, particularly the State Forestry Administration, has initiated many tree planting campaigns in order to fight desertification. Although tree planting can be an effective measure in stabilizing the soil and slowly reversing the effects of desertification, reforestation efforts often fail due to lack of proper plant selection, planting, management, and maintenance.

Farmers in the aptly named Sand City (Shacheng), Hebei Province, were encouraged by the local government to reverse desertification by planting new trees and crops on the region's dry and sandy terrain. The farmers put up grape trellises and planted date trees and sunflowers. The residents hoped the new crops will bring in more cash. Unfortunately, the crops are not doing very well. Ling, a farmer, who recently began growing date trees, said, "The land is too dry. This year, none of the crops are healthy." Across the fields, the sunflowers are wilting. The cornhusks are shriveled. And even the date trees do not bear much fruit. If agriculture is not sustainable, Sand City may have to return to its old business standby, selling sand by the truckload.

Besides reforestation, another government anti-desertification strategy is population resettlement. Residents living in vulnerable environments are considered "environmental refuges." These include herders whose flocks are putting fragile ecosystems in danger, and farmers whose agricultural practices deplete already weary lands. Sometimes, nomadic herders are resettled into sedentary communities. Thus, resettlement brings along with it socio-economic issues such as how the resettled people will adapt to new homes and new livelihoods. Critics of environmental resettlement have questioned how much input the local residents have in their resettlement process.

Desertification also encourages another form of resettlement, urban migration. Farmers face failing crops and lower yields, and herders facing depleted grazing land and dying flocks, will sometimes leave their land and head to the cities to look for jobs in factories. At the same time, city dwellers are headed out to the deserts to plant trees.

Private sector's role

Inspired by outreach programs, such as the Million Tree Project initiated by the Shanghai Roots & Shoots, an NGO, urban residents are going out to plant trees in rural areas. Aimed at slowing down desertification in Inner Mongolia, the Million Tree Project allows the general public a chance to participate in reforestation by buying trees for 25 yuan ($3.7) each. Schools and corporations can buy entire forests and participate in the actual planting. This hands-on approach has given many city dwellers a better understanding of environmental issues.

The program started in 2007, after the organization met with local officials of Kulun Qi, or Kulun County, a desertified area in southeast Inner Mongolia. The local government was amenable to collaborating on a tree-planting project, and after three years, 400,000 trees have been planted. Zhong Zhenxi, the Executive Director of Shanghai Roots & Shoots, said they believe they can reach their goal of planting 1 million trees by 2014.

"Planting trees is the easy part," said Zhong. "It's ensuring their survival that's the challenge." Climate, pests, and human interference all affect the survival rate of trees. However, the NGO chose to plant a hardy poplar hybrid and so far the survival rate has been a very commendable 91 percent. One of their secrets is that they employ a fulltime forestry manager to oversee the newly planted trees and work with local residents in maintaining the fledgling forest.

ABB, a multinational power and automation technologies company, with many offices in China, has also undertaken an anti-desertification strategy as part of their corporate social responsibility work. Partnering with Inner Mongolia Power Co., they are building a vegetation "greenbelt" in Inner Mongolia's Maowusu Desert. The purpose of the greenbelt is to stabilize sand dunes and thus protect the high voltage power lines that run through the desert from shifting sands. Without such a greenbelt, the sand would interrupt the transmission of electricity in the region.

In China, there are increasing numbers of projects combining public and private expertise and resources. Many new projects aim not only at reforestation, but at improved management and coordination among different agencies, capacity building and environmental training for local officials, and better desertification monitoring and prevention programs.