China in the face of desertification threats | SLICE

by Hui Ben is soon going to move to a new Village close to the mouth of the Tiger [Music] we fought for years against the sand and this is our new house the whole village will soon move here the house is more solidly built against the sand and has electricity and water life here is better more comfortable yeah like all his neighbors by Hui Ben could no longer stand the daily fight against the encroaching sound [Music] over hundreds of kilometers an army of peasants are fighting to seal the breach of the mouth of the Tiger through this breach pours the sand which threatens to submerge The Oasis and to annihilate it foreign the sand moved fast and caused a lot of problems in this area what did you do to improve the situation beforehand there was moving sand which flew everywhere and we started fighting desertification in Autumn 2008. we mobilized a thousand people to stabilize the sand the first step was to stabilize the sound with blocks of straw before planting up till now we've planted trees over 6670 hectares you've been working here six years yes since 2008. you've done well to plant the trees Dr Liu chuzong developed a new plastic mesh to block the sand which was quicker to put in place than blocks of straw and very economical [Music] this mesh really stops the wind from moving the Sandra as you can see from afar with this method there are no more sandstorms it's a type of tree which we've used Minchin using our institute's techniques in the Northeast and Northwest of China our technique with the yongchu is also used desert Institute has experimented with over 700 different plants it also uses the swasuo which grows in the deserts of ching chong at the borders of Tibet highly resistant the sourceful also uses little water and only needs to be watered when it is planted grow like this after three years the plantations of the mouth of the Tiger have worked the sandstorms that threaten Beijing have diminished markedly over the last few years on the Western Front The Battle of minshin is a first Victory to win the war a program of reforestation launched in 1978 led to the plantation of 30 million trees the equivalent of the land surface of Great Britain and it will take several more Decades of work to complete the great green wall which should protect Beijing [Music] a second battle is being led on the Northern front this is against the sand dust of the kupuchi desert in the province of Inna Mongolia that regularly strikes the capital [Music] the roads that cross the kupuchi desert are regularly invaded by sand New Plantation techniques are being tried thanks to this solution it only takes a few seconds for two people to plant a tree in a day we can plant up to 1500 cuttings in the past there was only sand in the air when it was windy you couldn't even open your eyes and you couldn't see the road the kabuchi desert is the one that affects the storms that hit Beijing the most before we had 70 to 80 every year today after years of work there are only three to five Beijing suffers a lot less beforehand we only work manually without any machines I didn't know how to plant trees often I'd dig a hole and the sand would just fill it straight up in 2007 and 2008 we learned how to plant using pressurized water we put this straight to use and planted a lot more trees according to official figures this new method gives a survival rate close to 85 percent compared to 55 in the past the wall of young trees now stretches out for kilometers thanks to this it has been possible to build roads across the desert which no longer become buried and Mr Chung never gets tired of watching the cars go by the great green wall is fragile and only time will tell if it will be able to resist the pressure of the desert urgency of the 1980s trees were chosen for their ability to grow quickly and absorb greenhouse gases poplars which should live 30 years didn't survive foreign so if the water table drops and it becomes arid they'll die the calculation which led to favoring these types of tree which grow quickly in the hope of Greater efficiency wasn't the right one that there is the local Poplar which grows very quickly is tall and blocks the sand heading for Beijing the downside is that it has quite a short lifespan that's why we're cultivating instead zhangsong pine trees like this one they adapt to the sand have a longer lifespan and also hold back the sand from the storms it's a very good type of tree if just one type of tree is planted there's a greater danger of sickness than if you mix two types together the great lesson that China has learned from its successes and failures is that there is no universal recipe for containing the desert each parcel of land has its own types of tree and techniques of Plantation the great green wall isn't a monolithic Monument but a mosaic [Music] thank you [Music] come on hurry up we're still collecting the dead trees that haven't survived the aridity the Heat and the wind conditions are very difficult we've planted several kinds of tree like chongsu song Woodland Pine Shinto wild Peach and shall you sand Willow shall you adapts best then Shentel for chongsu song Woodland Pine it's more complicated the tanker makes intensive watering possible when planting but the water is very quickly absorbed the solution is programmed drip feed watering in the middle of the desert we water this type of pine twice a week during the first year then the second year we water it once every two weeks in this Zone there are around two hundred thousand pounds the drip feed Network extends for hundreds of kilometers it's a heavy investment but the results are there the trees take root and Wildlife returns [Music]

Channel: SLICE

Views: 300,537

Keywords: documentary, documentaries, shortdoc, shortdocs, slice, slicedocs

Id: _gEF1cQA0xE

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 11 2023