Beijing safe from turning to desert

Source: Xinhua  |   2008-6-18  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

CHINA has started a massive ecological program in its arid northwest to prevent the desertification of Beijing and other areas.

The five-year program calls for planting 400,000 hectares of commercial forests around the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region at an annual cost of 1.3 billion yuan (US$188 million) from central and local government budgets, according to Wang Delin, chief of the regional forestry bureau.

Ningxia, which sits on the upper reaches of the Yellow River, is besieged by the Tengger, Ulan Buh and Mu Us deserts. It is highly vulnerable to sandstorms and has a fragile ecology.

The program was worked out under orders from President Hu Jintao. During an April 2007 inspection tour of Ningxia, a sandy and dry region, Hu told local officials to improve conservation and ecological protection.

"We should work to achieve improvements in the environment through arduous and long-term efforts and make contributions to create a new ecological shield in the vast west," said Hu.

The program was implemented early this year, mainly in Tongxin County, a typical arid stretch of land lying in a recess formed by the Qilian Range and Mount Helan.

Through this recess, sand from a host of deserts in north and northwest the country, such as Badain Jaran and Tengger, both in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, finds its way into China's interior.

Apart from the 66,667-hectare tree belt in Tongxin, workers have been constructing a wind barrier of the same size in Yanchi. The barrier is intended to protect farmland and grazing grounds from wind and sand and to hold back sandstorms from advancing east and south after passing through the Alxa Plateau and Hexi Corridor in Gansu, a neighboring province.

Workers have also started building ecological parks at the eastern foot of Mount Helan, in northern Ningxia, to slow down the advance of sand swept through the Hexi corridor.