Songhe villagers build 9-kilometer ‘great green wall’ to protect homes
Shi Shuzhu, former Party chief of Songhe village, Minqin county in Gansu province, spent half a century leading his village in planting trees to fend off sandstorms and desertification. They built a 9-kilometer “green great wall” around the village, helping to turn it into a prosperous place.
Today, the village looks like a green leaf in the vast desert, preventing the Tengger and Badain Jaran deserts from devouring it.
“I am devoting my whole life to just doing one thing (desertification control) well,” is something Shi often says.
The 81-year-old started his desertification prevention and control work in 1955, when he was 19, serving as the village’s secretary of the Communist Youth League.
Shi recalled that, when local people started their battle against the desert, there were only 10 trees in or near the village. Some villagers had already taken their families and moved to other areas because of the severe environment.
Instead, Shi formed a young people’s team and led them to fight desertification. But soon he found that traditional desertification controls didn’t have long-lasting effects.
“There were few trees to stop the wind and sand. The strong wind and sprawling sands in turn made it impossible for saplings to survive,” Shi said.
Although the highest level of education he reached was only primary school, he sought help from professionals about how to control desertification in a scientific way.
In the 1960s, a Gansu desertification control experimental center was established not far from Songhe village. Shi was thrilled by the news and made friends with the technicians there. He learned not just tree planting skills, but also introduced new kinds of trees, bringing life and hope to the village’s forest.
To solve the problem of strong Shi Shuzhu, former Party chief of Songhe village, Minqin county, Gansu province winds, he conducted in-depth research and eventually came up with a new planting method. He would stabilize the sand dunes by filling them with straw first and then plant the trees, followed by planting crops.
The new method enabled the trees to survive sandstorms and gained the village 1.33 hectares of white poplar trees in the first six years.
That was not much, but Shi’s bravery and unyielding attitude when faced with difficulties touched his fellow villagers and made him the backbone of the project.
In 2005, Shi donated 1,400 yuan ($215) to buy 28,000 saxaul trees. He planted them along with fellow villagers on barren land 20 kilometers west of Minqin county, to fend off sandstorms.
Afforestation activities every spring have become an unshakable schedule for Songhe villagers, even though Shi retired from his position in 1998.
“It is hard for Songhe villagers to plant trees and even harder to protect them and help the trees survive,” Shi said. “So the management and protection of the trees is very important.”
He made rules to protect the forests, forbidding any villager from grazing their livestock there or from taking trees out of the forest.
But he realized, to maintain the forest and tree-planting efforts, the common villagers would have to benefit from it financially.
After discussing with the village’s administration, they decided to contract out 160 hectares of arable land. Villagers pay rent, while the village manages the forest as a collective body.
The decision has helped villagers to gain a combined income of more than 3 million yuan a year from the fields, while Songhe village earns a collective income of more than 100,000 yuan yearly. The village from then on was able to use the forests for agriculture, and apply the rent income to maintain the forest.
“Respecting science and technology is something I have learned from long periods of struggling with sandstorms,” Shi said.
After all these years, the people of Songhe village now have a protective green forest 9 kilometers long and 2.5 kilometers wide. There are 107 hectares of white poplar trees and sand jujube, as well as 367 hectares of trees on what was previously barren land. A large tree farm, with arable fields in between, now stands beautifully on the village’s western border.
Respecting science and technology is something I have learned from long periods of struggling with sandstorms.”