From a Desert to an Oasis
Addressing the worldwide problem of desert control, people in Youyu County ignited a Chinese miracle with perseverance and contributed Chinese wisdom to the global fight against desertification.
The Mu Us Desert covers 42,200 square kilometers on the border between Shaanxi Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Once upon a time, it was a breathtaking pasture with lush plants and beautiful scenery. Due to perennial unsustainable reclamation and war, the vegetation gradually disappeared and the area turned into a desert.
Since 1959, the Chinese government has been vigorously advocating windbreak construction and desert transformation. Through the unswerving ecological rehabilitation efforts of several generations, preliminary success has been achieved. More than 6 million mu (400,000 hectares) of quicksand in the Mu Us Desert finally stopped advancing and turned green.
Once Barren Land
Located on the edge of the Mu Us Desert, Youyu County was known as China’s “Desert City” 60 years ago. Situated less than 100 kilometers from the main wind gap of the Mu Us Desert, it was once a “sand sea.”
According to official records of Youyu County, in 1949, there were only 8,000 mu (533 hectares) of residual forests on the 3 million
mu (200,000 hectares) of land in the county. Forest coverage rate was less than 0.3 percent, desertification ratio was 76 percent, and soil erosion ratio was 73 percent.
This caused a peculiar phenomenon: Doors and gates of local residences were all inwardopening. “Sand piled half a door high after a windstorm,” explains Wang Degong, former chairman of the county committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), who is now in his 70s. “Doors simply could not be opened outward. People could only pull them from the inside, let the sand flow into the house, and then clean it up.”
A ballad depicting the state of living in Youyu County still circulates there. “Wind blows throughout the year,” it goes. “During the daytime lamps are on; during the night, doors are barricaded by sand. Sand flies high when the wind blows; floods will come when it rains. Men are forced to leave their hometown to earn bread; women stay and live on wild vegetables.”
Foreign experts surveying the harsh environment of the county declared the area unfit for human habitation and suggested that the entire population be relocated.
Miracle Through Perseverance
That proposal was not adopted. People in the county believed that they could change the environment and vowed to “dress the sandy city in green.”
Since the 1950s, the promise of “giving green space to the desert”
in Youyu County has continued to this day. Over more than 60 years, 20 successive Party secretaries in the county have continued to pursue “contribution to the final success” and led the entire county in efforts against desertification. But since sand moves with the winds, it has not been easy to plant trees.
Now, people are seeing a peculiar phenomenon in Youyu County: Taller tree species grow low, and their branches tightly wrap around the treetops like huge furled umbrellas. However, thanks to unexpected help from this oddity, the county created an ecological miracle by building a green city in the desert.
“In the first two years, the trees we planted were always blown away by the wind,” recalls Yang Xi, a villager in his 80s. After continuous failures, they gradually worked out planting methods which they call “boot wearing,” “cap wearing” and “belt tying.”
“Boot wearing” is creating shoring forests resembling wild goose wings to prevent dry sand from moving. “Cap wearing” refers to making ditch nets on flowing sand dunes and strengthening saplings
with ropes, to fix sand dunes. “Belt tying” stands for building mid-hill windbreak belts to reduce wind force.
To avoid being uprooted by strong winds, all the trees in Youyu County are planted so deep that almost all the tree trunks stay buried in the sand, exposing only the canopy. This limits the growth of the trees, and the crowns are only one meter high above the ground. Due to winds blowing all year round, the branches grow upward, forming a strange scene. The trees are often referred to as “little old trees” because they stop growing so early.
Thanks to the wisdom of the Youyu people and their tireless efforts for more than 60 years, the forest coverage rate in the county has grown from less than 0.3 percent to 54 percent, 20 percentage points higher than the national average. The barren land has been transformed into an oasis. Tree species have increased from less than 10 to more than 30 kinds. The number of herbal species has reached 45, and more than 50 species of wildlife live there.
Today, Youyu County features 1.5 million mu (100,000 hectares) of green area and an estimated 100 million trees. If the trees were lined up one by one at an interval of one meter, they would extend for 100,000 kilometers, 2.5 times around the equator.
A microclimate has formed due to the good ecology brought about by the vegetation. The average wind speed has decreased by 29.2 percent; its average annual rainfall is 30-40 millimeters higher than the surrounding area. According to statistics of the past five years, the annual average temperature of the county has risen from 3.6 degrees Celsius in the mid-20th century to 5.2 degrees Celsius at present, and the frost-free period has increased from less than 100 days to 123 days. Chinese Answers to Desert Control
In 1977, the Action Plan to Combat Desertification was formulated at a United Nations conference on desertification. Desertification was put onto the international agenda as a global economic, social and environmental issue. In 1992, at a United Nations conference on environment and development, desertification control was included in Agenda 21. In 1994, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was passed in France. In October of that year, China acceded to the convention.
With a recorded history of 5,000 years and a population equal to one fifth of the world’s total, China is among the most severely affected by desertification and water scarcity.
According to the Global Desert Outlook published by the United Nations Environment Programme, the issue of desertification is worsening. More than 40 percent of the earth’s land is dry land, and one third of the world’s population lives in arid areas. Desertification has become a global environmental and social problem that cannot be ignored.
Addressing the worldwide problem of desert control, people in Youyu County ignited a Chinese miracle with perseverance and contributed Chinese wisdom to the global fight against desertification.
The director-general of the UNCCD once commented: China deserves world tribute for its practice in controlling the Mu Us Desert.
Now, lush woods grow in Youyu, and it is hard to imagine that the county was once a desolate desert.