BEIJING, June 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- This is a news
report from Beijing Review:
It needs two adults to fully wrap their arms around Shi
Guangyin's first tree, which stands on the southern edge of the
Maowusu sand land, one of the four largest sand lands in
China. Shi, an esteemed hero
fighting desertification, planted the tree back in 1984. "I love it
very much; it's like my own child," he told Beijing Review.
Shi was born into a farmer's family in Dingbian, a county under
the jurisdiction of Yulin, Shaanxi
Province in northwest China. The county sits at the southern edge of
Maowusu. In the 1950s, 39 percent of the county's land area was
covered by sand, and the overall greenness was only 0.5 percent.
Sandstorms hit the area frequently. "We moved nine times in my
father's lifetime as the sandstorm had crashed our houses," Shi
said. What's worse, Shi, when he was eight, lost a buddy in a sand
storm. From then on, he was determined to fight "the demon
sand."
A tough nut
In the early 1950s, the Chinese Government moved to green the
northern part of China, an area
prone to erosion. As of 1984, Chinese residents had been encouraged
to plant vegetation across contracted sand lands and barren
hills.
"I believed it was high time to realize my dream," Shi
told Beijing Review. Shi contracted 233 hectares of sand land
to plant trees and teamed up with six fellow villagers on his
greening mission. He became the first farmer to contract deserted
land in China's fight against
desertification.
The biggest challenge was a lack of funding. Shi sold all of his
livestock. So did other stakeholders. In addition, they took out a
loan. Finally, the nascent company managed to raise enough funds to
purchase saplings. Fortunately, the weather was in their favor that
year. "We had enough rain. And 85 percent of our saplings survived
in the first year," Shi said.
The success prompted the new greening team to be more ambitious.
In 1985, they contracted 3,867 more hectares of sand land in
Langwosha in the county.
Yet, Langwosha turned out to be a tough nut to crack. The
surface temperature in Langwosha varied from 60 plus degrees
Celsius in summer to minus 40 in winter. And winds were strong.
Keeping saplings alive in such an inhospitable environment was a
huge challenge.
Shi and his team lived in the sand land. "We ate highland barley
flatbreads and drank groundwater from a 1-meter-wide hole we dug,
using reed stalks as straws," Shi said. However, they failed twice.
Several stakeholders wanted to give up. Shi respected their choice,
but still held on to his dream. "I will not give up till my very
last breath," he said.
Before Shi tried a third time in 1987, he was told that barriers
were needed to protect the saplings. After the saplings were
planted, his team sowed grass seeds. Once the seeds had taken root,
they would stabilize the sand and cover the land, hence forging a
barrier to protect the saplings. And finally, this way, Shi's team
succeeded to turn Langwosha into a green land.
Promising changes
After three decades of hard work, the once barren desert has
been turned into a forest. Animals like birds, foxes and pheasants
have made their first appearance in the new oasis. And what excites
Shi the most is the fact that some of the ground in Langwosha is
now covered in moss. "This means that the water has been better
conserved and some moving sand has turned into soil," Shi Jianyang,
the grandson of Shi Guangyin, told Beijing Review.
Shi Guangyin is not alone in his greening efforts. Both
individuals and state-owned farms have undertaken numerous bold
efforts to green Maowusu in the past seven decades. In 2020, the
forest coverage in Dingbian reached 29.2 percent. Maowusu has
become the only sand land tamed by mankind in the world. "In the
past, the moving sand chased us away. Now, we have pushed them
back," Shi Guangyin said.
In early June, Shi Guangyin was nominated for China's July 1
Medal, an award given to outstanding members of the Communist Party
of China at the centenary of the
founding of the world's largest Party.
Non-stop efforts
Success does not, however, mean that the residents of Maowusu
now can rest on their laurels. According to Shi Changchun, dean of
the Shaanxi Research Institute for Sand Control, all forests in
Maowusu are man-made, and their ecosystems are fragile and
unstable.
The combination of limited tree variety and high density has led
to serious pest infections and tree degeneration in the forest.
Also, many trees, like poplars, planted some 50 years ago are dying
out as they have reached the end of their biological cycles.
"Maowusu is still at risk of degrading back into sand land," Shi
Changchun told Beijing Review. He advises that a specific law
should be rolled out to better protect the man-made forests,
supported by new tailor-made guidelines and funds.
In fact, 110,000 hectares of mixed forests with Scots pines,
which can stand tall for 150 to 200 years, as the main vegetation
have been planted to replace dying poplars in Yulin since 2012. "We
need continuous efforts, generation after generation, to protect
the environment," Shi Guangyin said.
Please scan the QR code to watch a video about Shi Guangyin
Comments to linan@bjreview.com
By Beijing Review reporter Li
Nan
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