Reforestation and China's Great Green Wall

[Music] foreign [Music] on the edge of china's vast gobi desert the wang family are trying to push back the sand with one tree at a time for years wang ying-ji and his father have been planting fresh shoots in the dunes to turn barren deserts and marshes into farmland and battle against desertification [Music] [Music] [Music] in early 2021 a series of heavy sandstorms hit beijing the chinese capital was shrouded in thick brown dust and it wasn't the first time beijing faces regular sandstorms in march and april due to strong winds blowing in from the gobi desert as well as deforestation and soil erosion throughout northern china it's an issue that the government cannot ignore to screen beijing from the sand the government has designed the three north forest belt program known colloquially as the great green wall it's meant to serve as the first line of defense against sandstorms some consider it to be the largest afforestation program in the world with plans to plant more than 86 million acres of shelter belt forests by 2050 but over in the remote northwest tree planting is not just about meeting state targets or sheltering cities like beijing from dust for farmers like the wang family it's a matter of survival every morning the wang spend time planting the spindly hua bang known in english as the sweet veg the yellow flowering bush has an 80 success rate even in harsh desert conditions they're planted in even squares across the desert slopes to reduce the amount of sand that can blow into the fields foreign the 53 year old says his family have been fighting against the desert since 1980 back in the day growing anything here was nearly impossible due to the drifting sands now his farm is protected by a forest planted about a decade ago he says the green shield allows them to grow corn in the fields [Music] the long battle against desertification has turned wang and his family into a local institution their painstaking work to rehabilitate marginal lands has been promoted as an inspiration for the rest of the country every year they lead busloads of students from the provincial capital of lanzhao into the desert to plant and irrigate new trees um china has long put tree planting at the heart of its environmental efforts a 1984 resolution obliges every adult to plant at least three trees a year the country's top leaders can be seen on national television participating in the tree planting day every march the 12th experts say china's reforestation work has grown more sophisticated over the years but the fight is far from over with climate change and rising temperatures set to make conditions even tougher among the long-suffering farmers of wu-way there is a sense that even after decades of trying to subdue the sands the desert remains unconquerable sixty-nine-year-old ding yin hua and her husband li yufu have been herding sheep in the desert since 1999. they say tree planting has made no difference at all [Music] [Laughter] [Music] there are some who agree and fear china's great green wall can do little to hold back the worst effects of climate change climate analyst liu jong-yan from greenpeace says the recent rounds of sandstorms show how planting trees is no longer enough actually climate change is the uh ultimate reason that underpinned more and more severe sandstorm took place in northern china this year extreme warm temperature drought and degradation of ecosystems all contributed to the severe sandstorms in the spring so the ultimate solution to avoid more and more sort of increasing risks of the sandstorm is tackling climate change not just the planting trees [Music] but that won't deter wang ying-ji from continuing to turn the desert green for him it's also about fulfilling a promise one that he made to his son who passed away from brain cancer when he was 14. [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Reuters

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Keywords: reuters, business, finance, news, politics, top news, headlines, breaking news, news today, bloomberg, thomson reuters, reuters youtube, China, Beijing, sandstorms, sand, Gobi desert, Great Green Wall, Three-North Forest Belt Program, earth, reforestation, tree

Id: xC_2VpeunDo

Length: 9min 24sec (564 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021