China’s 'Green Great Wall' tames desert growth, but the fight is not over

Yin walks along sand dunes covered by grass checkerboard.

For half a century, millions of workers have repeated a task across the deserts in northern China: inserting forearm-length sticks into shifting sand, first in a row, then in an intersecting line, gradually forming a grid. Then saplings are planted at the centre of each small square.

The technique, known as "straw checkerboards”, is a simple yet widely used method to stabilise sand dunes against the wind and help plants take root by using water supplied through an irrigation system.

The widespread lattice it created across the sand has become the iconic image of China’s decades-long campaign against the spreading of desert conditions, known as the Three-North Protective Forest Program or the Green Great Wall.

The generations of work have yielded measurable progress, but scientists caution that preserving the gains will require decades of continued effort.

For a long time, drought, overgrazing and farming removed vegetation, harmed the soil and made areas vulnerable to wind and sandstorms. That kind of degradation of the land over time is known as desertification. The area of desertified land in northern China peaked in 2000, and it has been reduced by over 1,000sq km each year since then, according to data published by state media.

A shed is surrounded by a sandy plain near Ordos.

The Chinese government said the initiative launched in 1978 has played a crucial role in transforming vast regions covering nearly half of China from "the desertification advancing and people retreating” to "greenery advancing and the desertification retreating".

Forests planted by the programme now cover a cumulative 500,000sq km.

"The broad significance of the Three-North Program is not only the scale of restoration, but the long-term political commitment behind it,” said Barron Joseph Orr, chief scientist for the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

In a response to The Associated Press, he wrote that reversing desertification is possible when it becomes part of long-term development strategies.

Visitors walk past a grass checkerboard on a sand dune that is part of desertification control efforts at the Engebei Ecological Area.

Elsewhere, efforts to combat desertification have included a project launched in Africa in 2007 to plant trees across a number of countries to hold back the Sahara Desert.

The progress is the result of the efforts of frontline sand-control workers, along with top-level planning and substantial state investment, said Zhu Jiaojun, a scientist at the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has long been dedicated to the construction and management of the programme.

He added that increased rainfall in recent years in some areas has made vegetation restoration easier.

"The achievement of desertification combat is due to people’s hard work and a bit of luck with climate,” he said.

According to long-term monitoring data by Zhu's team, China’s desertified land has shrunk by around 10% overall since 2000, and areas of severely or extremely desertified land have decreased by more than 40%. Forest cover in the programme area has risen from around 5% in 1978 to 14% in 2022.

Men stand on top of a sand dune covered by a grass checkerboard.

In a recent government-organised media tour to a corner of Kubuqi Desert, about 800km to the west of Beijing, 60-year-old Yin Yuzhen recounted her early days of being a sand-control worker as "very lonely”.

Working alongside her husband near her hometown in the neighbouring Mu Us desert, she said that it felt delightful to encounter any other creature.

"Even the passing of a bird across the sky made me happy,” she said.

Four decades ago, she recalled, the sand often blew so thick that it made it hard to see a short distance.

"But now we can see the sun. We can see the green in the distance. We can see the road,” said Yin.

A highway cuts through a desertification control site of the Engebei Ecological Area.

She and her husband now work from dawn to noon every day, attending to trees and fixing or replacing checkerboards. They are joined by their children and sometimes local volunteers.

Zhu estimated that over 300 million rural labourers have been involved in the programme, mostly on a paid, part-time basis.

Orr said restored ecosystems in drylands can become increasingly self-sustaining over time, but they still require careful management and long-term monitoring, with success depending on factors such as water availability and soil health.

The environmental advocacy group Green Camel Bell in Gansu province works to explain desertification and its risks to farmers and herders, plant trees with them in dryland areas, and help restore and sustain vegetation.

"Efforts to combat desertification and restore forests should be linked to local livelihoods, so communities do not see economic development and ecological protection as an either-or choice,” said its founder Zhao Zhong.

Electric pylons are seen in the horizon along sand dunes near Ordos.

Orr agreed that restoration efforts have a much greater chance of succeeding if they're structured to help communities benefit economically.

Zhu said that a key question for the project is how conservation can be sustained if the scale of human intervention and investment is reduced.

"This is what we are very concerned with and this is also the biggest challenge,” he said.

Yin hopes the younger generation will continue her work.

"We need to teach young people to love this Earth. If we love it with all our hearts, nature will love us in return,” she said. – AP