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NINGXIA Province, China: The desert has been taking over large areas of China, and it has become one of the biggest environmental challenges faced by the country.
In China's northeastern province of Ningxia, desert accounts for 60 per cent of its land area. But this has not always been the case. Experts said desertification has cost China billions of dollars.
In various parts of China, vast tracts of farmland have since been transformed into deserts. In fact, years of deforestation, logging as well as poor farming techniques have resulted in the expansion of China's desert at a rate of 2,000 square kilometres a year. That is almost three times the size of Singapore.
Climate change and overgrazing have also contributed to desertification. And Ningxia is not the only province affected. The desert has also taken over to large parts of Gansu and Inner Mongolia.
Countless families have been forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods. Wang Youde and his family fled the region when he was 10.
He said: "When I was young, Ningxia had a few snowfalls every year. There were birds and flowers, but now they are nowhere to be found. Thirty thousand people from my hometown fled after it was covered by sand. That village completely disappeared from the face of the earth."
Wang has since returned to his hometown. He heads a project to construct a shield that stretches for hundred of kilometres to prevent the desert from spreading further.
This is done through a simple, but labour-intensive technique of making grass patches. Straw is plaited, laid on the sand. Then plants and shrubs are grown on every patch, to fix the sand in place.
Yang Wenjun, desert worker, said: "The survival rate of these crops and shrubs is only 20 to 30 per cent, maybe 50 to 60 per cent if we get some rain. We select drought-resistant and hardy crops that can live even with little rainfall."
The conservation area now covers over 10,000 hectares, and 1,300 hectares are added every year. But despite the hardships and under-funding, Wang and his team have no plans to give up.
He said: "The water we drink and use is filled with fluorine, causing our teeth and even faces to turn yellow and black. The rice we cook also turns yellow. But every time we see an oasis we have created in the desert, we are very satisfied and do not want to leave. Why? Because we have poured sweat and blood into our work."
Even so, much more remains to be done. To combat the encroaching deserts, China needs to use water more efficiency. It will also need to increase its use of sustainable energy sources, such as wind and solar energy.
Meanwhile, here in this almost forgotten corner of China, the ongoing and persistent battle between man and nature is far from over. - CNA/ms
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