New forests keep desert in check
Source: Xinhua |
February 27, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
NORTHWEST China's Shaanxi Province has been successful in fending off desert encroachment by planting new forests near the ruins of the Great Wall.
Satellite images taken in August 2009 show the wind-and-sand zone along the ancient defense in Yulin City on the Loess Plateau has turned from yellow to green, according to the province's forestry department.
"Compared with images taken in 2000, the forest has expanded about 400 kilometers northward from Yan'an City in the heartland of the Loess Plateau," said Yulin's forestry chief Li Junzhi. "It's a result of sustained afforestation."
China began an ambitious forest-planting project in 1978 to curb desert encroachment and soil erosion in the northwestern and northeastern regions. The tree-planting, which created a new forest belt running 7,000 kilometers east to west, also aimed to reduce the intensity of the sandstorms that hit Beijing-centered north China.
The area in northern Shaanxi Province, extending 500 kilometers in Yulin, is one of China's most sparsely populated areas.
"Twenty years ago, we had sandstorms sweeping through all year," said Du Fangxiu, who grew up at the foot of the Great Wall in Dingbian County. "Sand used to fall like snow and would bury all the seedlings in spring."
Sand into soil
For years, Du, who made little out of the infertile cropland, planted drought-enduring trees such as poplars and sand willows and sold the lumber for a living.
In response to the government call for "afforestation for ecology," Du stopped lumbering in 2000.
In return, he has been subsidized at least 1 million yuan (US$147,000) for growing 8,000 hectares of forest in the formerly infertile land.
The forests have also nurtured pieces of fertile cropland, where Du grows wheat, vegetables and other economic crops.
Du has written rhyming phrases on the red couplet that hangs on his front door. "Cover the infertile mountain with trees; Turn the crawling desert into oasis," it reads.
But Du is not the only "green campaigner" in Yulin.
"Many spent years heavily planting trees and are honored as the heroes who built the modern 'Great Wall of Forests,'" said Li Junzhi, the forestry chief.
In the past decade, Shaanxi Province spent nearly 22 billion yuan to plant 4.5 million hectares of forests, said Zhang Shenian, chief of the provincial forestry department.
"The province's forest coverage has increased to 37 percent from 30 percent in 2000," said Zhang.
Even in Yulin, which is surrounded by encroaching desert, forest coverage has reached 30 percent.
Satellite images taken in August 2009 show the wind-and-sand zone along the ancient defense in Yulin City on the Loess Plateau has turned from yellow to green, according to the province's forestry department.
"Compared with images taken in 2000, the forest has expanded about 400 kilometers northward from Yan'an City in the heartland of the Loess Plateau," said Yulin's forestry chief Li Junzhi. "It's a result of sustained afforestation."
China began an ambitious forest-planting project in 1978 to curb desert encroachment and soil erosion in the northwestern and northeastern regions. The tree-planting, which created a new forest belt running 7,000 kilometers east to west, also aimed to reduce the intensity of the sandstorms that hit Beijing-centered north China.
The area in northern Shaanxi Province, extending 500 kilometers in Yulin, is one of China's most sparsely populated areas.
"Twenty years ago, we had sandstorms sweeping through all year," said Du Fangxiu, who grew up at the foot of the Great Wall in Dingbian County. "Sand used to fall like snow and would bury all the seedlings in spring."
Sand into soil
For years, Du, who made little out of the infertile cropland, planted drought-enduring trees such as poplars and sand willows and sold the lumber for a living.
In response to the government call for "afforestation for ecology," Du stopped lumbering in 2000.
In return, he has been subsidized at least 1 million yuan (US$147,000) for growing 8,000 hectares of forest in the formerly infertile land.
The forests have also nurtured pieces of fertile cropland, where Du grows wheat, vegetables and other economic crops.
Du has written rhyming phrases on the red couplet that hangs on his front door. "Cover the infertile mountain with trees; Turn the crawling desert into oasis," it reads.
But Du is not the only "green campaigner" in Yulin.
"Many spent years heavily planting trees and are honored as the heroes who built the modern 'Great Wall of Forests,'" said Li Junzhi, the forestry chief.
In the past decade, Shaanxi Province spent nearly 22 billion yuan to plant 4.5 million hectares of forests, said Zhang Shenian, chief of the provincial forestry department.
"The province's forest coverage has increased to 37 percent from 30 percent in 2000," said Zhang.
Even in Yulin, which is surrounded by encroaching desert, forest coverage has reached 30 percent.
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