China Turns a Desert Green with Miraculous Reforestation Project

Located within the Ordos Desert of Inner Mongolia lies the Kubuqi Desert the seventh largest desert in China with a total area of more than 186,000 square kilometers. It was once called the "Sea of Death".

After 30 years of governance, one third of the Kubuqi Desert has become an oasis, the only desert in the world to be governed as a whole. Kubuqi’s desertification model successfully practices the concept of "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains" put forward by General Secretary Xi Jinping, and is called a "global desertification sample" by the United Nations.

↑This is the status of ecological restoration in the Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. (Photo credit: 彭源)

With the beginning of the Ku Bu Qi desert, people were shocked by the thick green. The clusters of clusters of Salix, Caragana and flower sticks have put green clothes on the successive dunes and erased desolation after desolation. What once stretched as boundless yellow sand has made way for an oasis in its present appearance.

↑This is an ecological restoration landscape in the Ku Bu Qi desert of Hang Jin banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. (Photo credit: 彭源)

↑This is the Seven Star Lake Desert ecotourism area in the Ku Bu Qi desert. (Photo credit: 彭源)

Tourists are walking through the sand sea oasis just like sporadic flowers, which adds a lot of vitality to Ku Bu Qi. On both sides of the road through the sand, they often encounter afforestation sands, with new techniques as green deserts, and they stand to watch the green legend in the vast desert.

↑Yili Group's ecological division workers use spiral borehole planting method to plant trees in the Ku Bu Qi desert. This method can be used in 30 seconds to plant the next tree. (Photo credit: 彭源)

Walking to a sand valley, I saw only two sand control personnel of the Yili Group. One was holding a self-made 1-meter-long water-and-gas gun. In the sand, it rushed out a hole of about 1 meter deep and about 5 centimeters in diameter. Another person inserted the Salix seedling into the hole, and then watered the seedlings with a water gas gun.

Tourists from Jiangsu, Sichuan and other provinces are looking at it curiously and are eager to experience it. "It takes time to plant a tree in the city,” a tourist from Chengdu by the name of Liu Jieqiu said, “and it's amazing to plant a Salix in a dozen seconds with this 'black technology’ in the desert."

Zhang Jishu, an expert on sand control from the Yili Group, said that if traditional methods were used in the desert to dig, cut, fill and tread for four or five minutes, planting trees by water gas was like minimally invasive surgery in the desert, which in turn increases the efficiency and survival rate while reducing disturbance in the sand.

↑Technicians in the Ku Bu Qi desert in Hang Jin banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, demonstrate using self-made water air guns to plant trees. (Photo credit: 邹予)

Zhang Jishu said that this technology was extracted and developed from the long-term afforestation practice of the Sandpeople. It began developing in 2011 and quickly scaled massively in large areas in 2013. Only 1 million 500 thousand mu of this technology was used in the desert, and it is now used in the harness and Tengger Desert.

↑This is the contrast of the surrounding environment of the sand passing highway in the Ku Bu Qi desert of Hang Jin banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. (Photo credit: 彭源，新华社)

The Mongolia language is "the string on the bow". The desert, just like a bow string, draws the Yellow River into a "few" characters and lies in the northern part of the Ordos City of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It is the seventh largest desert in our country and one of the birthplaces of dust storms.

Innovative technology is an important driving force for precision sand control. After several generations of practice and exploration, a series of scientific and effective sand control technologies have been developed by the joint efforts of local government, sand control enterprises and farmers and herdsmen in sand areas.

↑Researchers have collected plant germplasm in the Germplasm Bank of the eco Tech Center of the Yili Group (Photo credit: 彭源) 

↑In the sand plant nursery Laboratory of the ecological science and technology center of the Yili Group, researchers conducted tissue culture experiments. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

↑In the sand plant nursery Laboratory of Kubu Ecological Science and Technology Center of Yili Group, researchers are observing the growth of sand plants. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

Standing in the depths of the Kubuqi Desert  is a place called the "Sand of the Day” where sparse trees and low shrubs cover the continuous dunes. Between the trees, a ruler with a height of more than 10 meters tall stands on the sand. On the scale, a year mark is suspended every one or two meters. The highest point is 2009, followed by 2012, 2014 and 2016.

"Each sign reflects the height of the dunes in the year.” Zhang Jishu said that the sandalman used the wind direction data method for afforestation technology to reduce the height of the sand dunes. This technique uses the principle of cutting peak and filling the valley, first determining the main wind direction of the location of the mobile sand dune, and planting shrubs below the height of the windward slope 3/4, and the roof of the non afforestation will be gradually reduced by the wind and planted by the shrubs. The place is fixed.

According to statistics, from 2009 to now, Yili Group used the wind direction data method for afforestation, planted about 300,000 mu in the desert and the sand dunes on average decreased by about 1/3 in the harnessing area.

↑Technicians demonstrate the UAV planting in the Ku Bu Qi desert of Hang Jin banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

"Buzz..." A UAV completes the aerial seeding operation in the sand hill outside the 100 meters away and returns smoothly. Operator Hao Yafeng is a technology researcher at the Yili Group, specializing in UAV aerial seeding technology.

While the unmanned aerial vehicle had not yet landed, he showed the reporter the process of flying: press the "broadcast" button on the remote control, and the seed port of the unmanned aerial vehicle was spilled out with seeds. The surface of each seed is coated with a layer of degradable "coating" material, which makes the seeds better immobilized in the sand and provides nutrients and water for the seeds.

Hao Yafeng said, unmanned aerial vehicle can install 10 kilograms of tree species, flying sowing an acre of only 1 minutes, the farthest flight distance of 3 kilometers, can be set up the route, make it in the air self - flight sowing, and emergency barrier, "one unmanned aerial vehicle can plant more than 400 mu a day, compared with artificial planting trees, efficiency is greatly improved."

↑Technicians control aerial seeding afforestation of UAV in the Ku Bu Qi desert of Hang Jin banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

↑An aerial seeding aircraft takes off in the hinterland of the korbu desert in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

↑In the hinterland of the korbu desert in Ordos City, an aerial seeding aircraft flies to the sand sea. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

Some effective sand control technologies are also well grasped by farmers and herdsmen in the desert area. In the hinterland of the Kurkha Desert, the licorice land of Yili Group is green and luxuriant. Gao Mao Hu, a farmer in Du GUI Tara Town, Hang Jin banner, Ordos City, and a dozen villagers are weeding and watering.

↑This is the Yili Group A Mu Gulong licorice Health Industrial Park located in the Ku Bu Qi desert. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

“These licorice are planted by me and the villagers,” Gao Mao tigers said. “We use the technology developed by Yili Group to change the licorice from vertical planting to horizontal planting, increasing the control area.”

↑The technicians demonstrate the licorice translation method in the Ku Bu Qi desert of Hang Jin banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

↑The technicians demonstrate the licorice translation method in the Ku Bu Qi desert of Hang Jin banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. (Photo credit: 卢烨）

↑In the Ordos City of Inner Mongolia, the Yili Group, A Mu, Cologne health licorice Industrial Park. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

Zhang Jishu said that licorice is suitable for growing in the desert: the nitrogen fixation amount is large, the effect of improving the sandy soil is very obvious, and the licorice is lying long and can be extended from 0.1 square meters to 1 square meters. This technology has been extended to other sand areas and the area reaches 2 million 200 thousand mu.

↑This is the eco energy photovoltaic power station of the Yili Group in the Ku Bu Qi desert. (Photo credit: 彭源) 

Source: 新华社

Supervisor: Crystal Huang

Editor : SC

Proofreader : Ed Bellin

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