Duolun campaign to restore deserts bearing fruit

By Hao Nan (China Daily)

Updated: 2016-06-17

Desert restoration projects have developed at an incredible rate in Duolun county in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The county currently has nearly 196,000 hectares of forests and grasslands, an increase from 36,000 hectares in 2000.

It has a 31 percent forest coverage rate, up 24.2 percent over the past six years.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Duolun suffered from severe land sandification due to natural disasters and excessive grazing.

In 2000, it began implementing plans to improve the ecological environment, such as planting trees and bans on grazing.

In 2011, the county launched an afforestation project to plant Mongolian scotch pines. With a series of supportive policies, the project attracted more than 30 companies and 55 forestry cooperatives.

As of 2015, they had finished about 70,666 hectares of Mongolian scotch pine plantations with investments of 1.46 billion yuan ($222.65 million) and built 265 tree seedling bases.

About 4,500 kilometers away from Duolun, Hotan prefecture, which sits on the edge of the Taklamakan desert in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has also made efforts to thwart sandification.

Since 2000, it has kicked off several afforestation projects, such as returning grain plots to forests and participated in China's "sanbei" (Northwest, North and Northeast China) forest belt project.

Hotan's efforts have not only effectively curbed further land degradation, but has also enlarged oases and improved people's living environments.

The prefecture currently has 1.24 million hectares of forests, including 325,000 hectares of artificial plantations.

The total area of desertified land has been reduced by 690 square kilometers since 2004.

A group of companies have gathered in Hotan to develop local industries, such as fruits, roses, desert tourism and traditional Chinese medicine.

Left and center: A sand area in Duolun, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Photos Provided To China Daily Right: A grassland area, also in Duolun, which currently has nearly 196,000 hectares of forests and grasslands, up from 36,000 hectares in 2000. Su Weizhong / For China Daily