China is one of the countries with the largest area of desertification, the largest affected population, and the most severe wind-sand hazards in the world. For a long time, China has taken sand prevention and control as the primary task of desertification control, vigorously implemented key ecological projects such as the Three-North Shelterbelt System Construction, the Grain for Green Program (returning farmland to forest and grassland), and the Beijing-Tianjin Sandstorm Source Control, and has explored a path of desertification control that combines ecological protection and restoration with improvement of people's livelihoods.
Taking the Three-North Project as an example, in the 1970s, the forest coverage rate in the Three-North region was only 5.05%, land productivity was extremely low, and grain output per hectare of farmland was far below the national average. In order to fundamentally change the deteriorating ecological environment of the Three-North region and curb problems such as wind-sand erosion and soil and water loss, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council made the strategic decision to build large-scale shelterbelts in the key wind-sand hazard and soil and water loss areas of Northwest, North, and Northeast China, and to systematically establish a shelterbelt system combining belts, patches, and networks through afforestation and grass planting, so as to change the production and living conditions of the Three-North region.
As of June this year, the Three-North Project area has completed a cumulative total of 480 million mu of afforestation, treated 1.28 billion mu of degraded grassland, raised the forest coverage rate from 5.05% in 1978 to 13.84%, and reduced the area of degraded grassland from 85% in 2004 to about 70%. The key treatment areas have achieved a historic transformation from "sand advancing and people retreating" to "greenery advancing and sand retreating." A "Green Great Wall" against wind and sand has been built on the northern border of the motherland.
October 22, 2024, Dingxi, Gansu, workers carrying out tree-planting operations
Joint prevention and joint control steadily advancing
According to reports, after the launch of the Three-North Project critical battle, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, and other places issued general forest chief orders to step up deployment of the critical battle work.
Liu Bing, director of the Three-North Bureau of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, told reporters that in 2024 the central government invested 32 billion yuan, launched 287 key projects, and arranged construction tasks of 109 million mu, accounting for 75% of the national total task, with treatment intensity continuously increasing.
The National Forestry and Grassland Administration took the lead in organizing relevant provinces and regions to carry out joint prevention and joint control, and planned and laid out more than 10 cross-provincial joint prevention and joint control projects, coordinating integrated protection and restoration of the upper and lower windward areas, the desert edge and hinterland, and the sand source areas and path areas. Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia and other four provinces and five cities launched joint prevention and joint control of the Mu Us Sandy Land, and four "windbreak and sand-locking forest and grass belts" have successively started construction. Alxa League of Inner Mongolia, Zhongwei City of Ningxia, and Minqin County of Gansu joined hands at the provincial boundary of the Tengger Desert to create a sand-blocking ecological defense line of "engineering sand fixation + artificial grass planting."
In addition, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration consulted with the Ministry of Water Resources on the issue of ecological water use for forestry and grassland. The Ministry of Water Resources implemented ecological water replenishment during the Yellow River ice-flood diversion period, supplementing more than 200 million cubic meters of ecological water for forestry and grassland to Bayannur City. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the National Forestry and Grassland Administration launched a general survey of forest, grassland, wetland, and wasteland resources to investigate the greening space in the Three-North region. The National Forestry and Grassland Administration held supply-demand matchmaking meetings for seedlings and sand control, ensuring the effective supply of materials such as seedlings and sand control raw materials; organized the "open competition mechanism to select the best candidates" for key technology research and development of the Three-North Project critical battle, implemented seven major actions of scientific and technological support, and comprehensively advanced the construction of 15 scientific and technological innovation highlands.
Carrying out research and tackling of key technologies
The implementation of the Three-North critical battle cannot be separated from the support of science and technology. In response to the difficult and bottleneck issues of ecological governance in the Three-North region, the Three-North Engineering Research Institute has developed a batch of emergency key technologies.
Lu Qi, chief scientist of the Chinese Academy of Forestry and president of the Three-North Engineering Research Institute, introduced to reporters that in terms of ecological irrigation water use, it was proposed to alleviate the shortage of ecological water through "broadening sources and reducing expenditure." "Striving for ecological irrigation water quotas is 'broadening sources'; developing and utilizing key technologies for unconventional water such as reclaimed water, brackish water, and mine pit water, and promoting and applying water-saving afforestation technologies—this is 'reducing expenditure.'"
In terms of scientific allocation of seedlings, the Three-North Engineering Research Institute compiled the pocket book Commonly Used Plants for the Three-North Project, recommended and promoted a batch of drought-tolerant, barren-tolerant, and wind-sand-resistant tree and grass species, drew distribution maps of natural distribution areas and suitable growing areas for various plants, scientifically optimized the allocation of tree, shrub, and grass vegetation, and answered "what to plant," "how to plant," and "where to plant." In terms of research and development of sand control machinery, it accelerated research and development toward mechanization and intelligentization of sand prevention and control, and sand-pressing and sand-fixing machinery, shrub stubble-clearing machinery, and drone aerial seeding have been widely applied. In terms of restoration of aging and degraded forests, it proposed the idea of grading, classification, and zoning for scientific identification of aging and degraded forests, and, with the restoration of the Zhanggutai Mongolian pine artificial sand-fixing forest and the farmland shelterbelt in the Hetao Irrigation District as pilots, proposed new ideas for consolidating the achievements of ecological construction.
"In addition, we established the country's first mechanized operation service team for sand prevention and control, providing sand control machinery services, improving safety and efficiency, reducing costs, and saving labor. A total of 340,000 mu of desertified land has been treated, and the operating efficiency of multifunctional sand barrier laying machinery is more than 10 times higher than that of manual work, exploring a new path of machinery and equipment services for the Three-North Project critical battle," Lu Qi emphasized.
Regarding the direction of next steps, Lu Qi said that major basic scientific research on ecological construction will continue to be carried out. In areas such as the Three-North water cycle and forest and grass vegetation allocation, the succession laws of desert ecosystems, joint prevention and joint control, salinization and freeze-thaw desertification, and the correlation between climate change, extreme events, and land desertification, basic research will be intensified.
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