Once barren, now a model example for world experts
Print Edition
CHINA’S success in reforesting the once barren Kubuqi Desert has seen the region gradually prosper in the development of the green economy, while the country seeks to share and promote the model worldwide.
The sixth Kubuqi International Desert Forum in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at the weekend attracted delegates and experts from home and abroad to discuss desertification.
Kubuqi is the seventh largest desert in China, covering an area of 18,600 square kilometers. It was once the source of frequent sandstorms hitting Beijing.
Over the past three decades, farmers and herdsmen in Kubuqi planted medicinal herbs to improve soil, built photovoltaic power stations for electricity and fostered tourism.
These efforts not only contributed to the greening of more than 6,000 square kilometers of Kubuqi, but also lifted 102,000 people out of poverty.
The core of success at Kubuqi is its sustainable business model, and the establishment of a system that incorporates policy instruments, private sector investment and active participation of locals, according to a report from the United Nations Environment Program.
The greening project in Kubuqi has offered a model for the world to tackle desertification, said representatives of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
Reduced poverty
China has made great progress in the fight against desertification in the past few years, with shrinking degraded land and reduced poverty in desertified areas.
The area of desertified land in the country now shrinks by an annual average of over 2,400 square kilometers, compared with an annual average expansion of over 10,000 square kilometers at the end of last century, making China the first country in the world to achieve desert shrinkage, according to Vice Premier Ma Kai, who addressed the forum’s opening ceremony.
China will keep innovating taxation, investment and financing mechanism for desertification control, bring more parties to join efforts in the endeavor and improve local people’s income by developing related industries, Ma said.
For the 2016-2020 period, China aims to rehabilitate 10 million hectares of desertified land and turn more than half of the country’s reclaimable desert into green land.
In early September, China will host a United Nations meeting on fighting desertification in Inner Mongolia.
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