World's second large desert thrown on green scarf

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 26, 2003

World's second large desert thrown on green scarf

People living around Taklimakan area, who have been frustrated with the world's second large desert are now trying to recover their losses.

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People living around Taklimakan area, who have been frustrated with the world's second largest desert are now trying to recover their losses.

Taklimakan Desert located in south Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region covers an area of 240,000 square kilometers, an sum-total area of Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands. Over thousands of years, there has seen no wildlife in Taklimakan Desert and numerous desert tourists and businessmen were blocked outside. However, a "green scarf" of around 5,000 kilometers long circling the southern, western and northern parts of the desert is clearly visible by a bird's eye view over the Taklimakan Desert

In ancient times, the western region used to be the cradle of prosperity and civilization. However in the past thousands of years, the tragedy of desert devouring cities has been repeated time and again along the Silk Road. The southern brim of Taklimakan Desert, 82 percent of which are shifting sand dunes, is one of the regions in the world with the most adverse ecological environment. Capital of the Jingjue State which was one of the 36 states in the western part, Minfeng County once known as Niya was swallowed by desert as Loulan in the eastern part of the desert. Even in modern times, the county seat of Minfeng has been moved three times to get free from the desert.

In 1978, China started the project of windbreakers covering northern, northeastern and northwestern China. Since the construction of the "Three-North Green Belt", China's central government and the local government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region invested totally 10 billion-yuan for afforestation to check the ongoing of the Taklimakan Desert. Over 20 years later, the forest area in the Taklimakan Desert has reached 866,700 hectares which was estimated as three times the length of the equator if formed a green belt of one meter wide. Thanks to the "green scarf", in the surrounding counties and cities, the number of days with sandstorm decreased from 22 to 11, and that with shifting sand from 66 to 30.

To afforest along the brims of the Taklimakan Desert, one must level the huge sand hills with bulldozers, build water conservancy facilities and then plant drought-resistant sacsaoul (Haloxylon ammondendron), Chinese tamarisk and Russian olive. Due to the adverse climate and serious water shortage, there must be people especially in charge of the protection of each forest. The forestry department of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region estimated that the cost of each mu of the forest around the desert is 900 to 1200 yuan, almost the per capita annual income in the southern part of Taklimakan area.

In fact, local people have devoted themselves to afforestation for free and some of them even funded the afforestation work out of their own purses. A local farmer in Luopu County, who has been combating the desert for some 27 years, started the planting from 1976 with his own money and has planted 53.33 hectares of trees. He said that previously they could not eat as the sand drop into the bowl. Now it is far better. I will plant trees so long as I live. If we do not plant trees we will suffer poverty for lifelong, even our home will be buried by the desert.

People in Minfeng County spend on average two months each year on planting, said Tong Weidong, secretary of the county committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Minfeng County, which was nail-biting in combating the desert, a green belt of 120 kilometers' long and over 70 kilometers' wide has been planted and will be extended to 250 kilometers in two years.

Qiemo County, which is also located in the southern part of the desert created a drought-resistant plant belt of 51 kilometers' long and 500 meters' wide along the banks of Che'erchen Rivulet. Hetian area in the center of the desert has connected ten large green belts into one along the rims of the Taklimakan desert. Hetian County received in 2001 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Top 500 Award.

In the Aksu area to the west of the desert, local army and masses of people joining hands together have planted a large shelter-belt of 70 kilometers' long and 25 kilometers' wide. Saying goodbye to sand, the past arid desert was donned with rivers and rich vegetation. Hejing County in the north of the desert planted in 2002 forests of 1467 hectares, changed desert of 20,000 mu to forest. The 58,000-mu halophytic diversiform-leafed poplar in Luntai County has become a solid fortress against the desert.

Yin Chuanjie, head of the afforestation department under the Forestry Bureau of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said that over one thousand "green scarves" block Taklimakan Desert form a three-layer shelter system mainly composed of agriculture farmland windbreaker, large forest belt circling oases and natural desert forests.

(By PD Online with article from Xinhuanet and translated by staff member Gao Lanrong)

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