China completes desert 'greening' project with 3,000 km of trees

According to Reuters on November 29, the above project is part of China's efforts to end desertification and limit sandstorms that rage in some parts of the country in the spring.

A "green belt" about 3,000 kilometers long around the Taklamakan Desert was completed on November 28 in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, after workers planted the last 100 meters of trees on the southern edge of the desert, the People's Daily reported .

The project was launched in 1978 and is known as China's "Northern Three-Region Protection Belt" or "Great Green Wall". More than 30 million hectares of trees have been planted.

Tree planting in the arid northwest has helped bring China's total forest cover above 25% by the end of 2023, up from around 10% in 1949. People's Daily said that forest cover in Xinjiang alone has increased from 1% to 5% in the 40 years of the project.

Over the decades since the project began, China has experimented with different types of trees and plants to determine which species can best withstand the harsh environment. But critics say the survival rate of the plants is often low and that the “green belt” solution is ineffective in reducing the sandstorms that regularly hit the capital Beijing.

At a press conference on November 25, Mr. Zhu Lidong, a Xinjiang forestry official, said that China will continue to plant more trees and plants along the Taklamakan border to prevent desertification.

Poplar forests on the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert will be restored through floodwater diversion, Lidong said, adding that officials are also planning to build new forest networks to protect farmland and orchards on the western edge.

Despite China's tree-planting efforts, 26.8% of the country's total land area is still classified as "desert," down only slightly from 27.2% a decade ago.