Small Chinese County Reverses Desertification With Arduous Tree-Planting Method Across 240,000 Acres

Small Chinese County Reverses Desertification With Arduous Tree-Planting Method Across 240,000 Acres

Small Chinese County Reverses Desertification With Arduous Tree-Planting Method Across 240,000 Acres Photo by Quan Jing on Unsplash A rural village has led the transformation of a barren ravine into a flourishing forest mosaic in one of the least-habitable parts of their country. When Deng Xiaoping took control of Communist China in the 1970s, the land around the Mo Us desert was described by visiting environmental scientists as a heavily desertified landscape unfit for human habitation. Given to large social engineering projects, there were discussions among Party bosses about moving the entire Youyu county population away from the hostile land, where yellow sands would whip through towns, darkening the sky. You’d never know that now if you passed through the Shipaogu area, where tree-planter Wang Zhanfeng lives today. Cloaked in grasses, Mongolian pine, and larch trees, as well as orchards, animal pastures, and soccer fields, the landscape has been completely reversed. “In my childhood, w…