China’s deserts expanding at rapid rate
IN THE TENGGER DESERT, China — The Tengger Desert lies on the southern edge of the massive Gobi Desert, not far from major cities like Beijing. The Tengger is growing.
For years, China’s deserts spread at an annual rate of more than 1,350 square miles. Many villages have been lost. Climate change and human activities have accelerated the desertification. China says government efforts to relocate residents, plant trees and limit herding have slowed or reversed desert growth in some areas. But the usefulness of those policies is debated by scientists, and deserts are expanding in critical regions.
Nearly 20 percent of China is desert, and drought across northern China is getting worse. One recent estimate said China had 21,000 square miles more desert than what existed in 1975 — about the size of Croatia. As the Tengger expands, it is merging with two other deserts to form a vast sea of sand that could become uninhabitable.
Across northern China, generations of families have made a living herding animals on the edge of the desert. Officials say that along with climate change, overgrazing is contributing to the desert’s growth. But some experiments suggest moderate grazing may actually mitigate the effects of climate change on grasslands, and China’s herder relocation policies could be undermining that.
In an area called Alxa League, the government has relocated about 30,000 people, who are called “ecological migrants,” because of desertification.
Officials have given Liu Jiali, 4, and her family a home in a village about 6 miles from Swan Lake, the oasis where they run a tourist park. To get them to move and sell off their herd of more than 70 sheep, 30 cows and eight camels, the officials have offered an annual subsidy equivalent to $1,500 for each of her parents and $1,200 for a grandmother who lives with them.
Jiali’s mother, Du Jinping, 45, said the family would live in the new village in the winter, but return to Swan Lake in the summer.
Local governments in desert regions began relocating people away from the encroaching sands decades ago. But China’s densely populated areas are pushing toward the deserts, as the deserts grow toward the cities.
Storms of wind-driven sand have become increasingly frequent and intense, reaching Beijing and other large cities. “We dread the sandstorms,” Du said.
Residents who live on the edge of the deserts try to limit the steady march of sand. Along with local governments, they plant trees in an effort to block the wind and stabilize the soil.
Many people in this area are from families that fled Minqin, at the western end of the Tengger Desert, during China’s Great Famine from 1958-62, when tens of millions died.
Guo Kaiming, 40, a farmer who also manages a tourist park at the edge of the Tengger Desert, planted trees by a new cross-desert highway in June.
Guo took saplings the government had left behind after it completed a tree planting operation.
He said he was not ready to join the climate refugees. He has his corn and wheat fields, plus income from running the tourist park. Last year, the company that runs the park paid students to build seven giant sand sculptures as its centerpiece. But strong desert winds steadily eroded them.
“They are all a mess now,” Guo said. “The wind is fierce.”