How China tamed a 1,000-plus-year-old sand land in seven decades

BEIJING, June 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- This is a news report from Beijing Review:

It needs two adults to fully wrap their arms around Shi Guangyin's first tree, which stands on the southern edge of the Maowusu sand land, one of the four largest sand lands in China. Shi, an esteemed hero fighting desertification, planted the tree back in 1984. "I love it very much; it's like my own child," he told Beijing Review.

Shi was born into a farmer's family in Dingbian, a county under the jurisdiction of Yulin, Shaanxi Province in northwest China. The county sits at the southern edge of Maowusu. In the 1950s, 39 percent of the county's land area was covered by sand, and the overall greenness was only 0.5 percent. Sandstorms hit the area frequently. "We moved nine times in my father's lifetime as the sandstorm had crashed our houses," Shi said. What's worse, Shi, when he was eight, lost a buddy in a sand storm. From then on, he was determined to fight "the demon sand."

A tough nut

In the early 1950s, the Chinese Government moved to green the northern part of China, an area prone to erosion. As of 1984, Chinese residents had been encouraged to plant vegetation across contracted sand lands and barren hills.

"I believed it was high time to realize my dream," Shi told Beijing Review. Shi contracted 233 hectares of sand land to plant trees and teamed up with six fellow villagers on his greening mission. He became the first farmer to contract deserted land in China's fight against desertification.

The biggest challenge was a lack of funding. Shi sold all of his livestock. So did other stakeholders. In addition, they took out a loan. Finally, the nascent company managed to raise enough funds to purchase saplings. Fortunately, the weather was in their favor that year. "We had enough rain. And 85 percent of our saplings survived in the first year," Shi said.

The success prompted the new greening team to be more ambitious. In 1985, they contracted 3,867 more hectares of sand land in Langwosha in the county.

Yet, Langwosha turned out to be a tough nut to crack. The surface temperature in Langwosha varied from 60 plus degrees Celsius in summer to minus 40 in winter. And winds were strong. Keeping saplings alive in such an inhospitable environment was a huge challenge.