Reprinted from September 30, 2021
First of three parts
It borrows its name from the massive stone structure built by the Qin Dynasty. But the purpose of the Green Great Wall in China is not to hold back the barbarians, it’s to stop the ever-encroaching deserts.
The following article was submitted by Antony Funnell/ABC Radio National:
“About a quarter of all of China’s land mass is desert, and those deserts, up until very recently, were expanding; they were growing at the rate of about 1,000 square miles per year,” journalist and author Vince Beiser said.
“It’s a decertification rate that has laid waste to vast swathes of valuable farmland and regularly choked the suburbs of Beijing in clouds of dust.
“When completed, the Green Great Wall will stretch more than 4,800 kilometres across the north of China, forming a living barrier along the edge of the giant Gobi Desert.
“A man builds a shade cloth fence around small trees.
“The 50-year project involves the planting of more than 88 billion trees and the results so far, said Beiser, have been amazing.
“You can drive through areas where they have planted just millions and millions and millions of trees,” he said
“I stood on top of a hillside in one place in inner Mongolia and as far as you could see it was desert land that had obviously been forested.”
“A large sand dune against a blue sky.
“Future Tense explores two ambitious projects aimed at halting decertification and returning soil to productivity.
“It’s sold as a great patriotic effort to tame nature. And its success, to date, has relied on the involvement of tens of thousands of farmers and landholders following a regimented master plan.
“There’s one area in the Kubuqi … they built this brand-new road through the desert, and all the way along the road for miles and miles and miles it’s lined with trees,” Beiser said.
“And then just behind those rows, is just sand, just sand as far as you can see.
“A truly global problem.
“China is not alone in facing the threat of encroaching deserts.
“Late last century, 197 states came together to ratify the United Nations’ Convention to Combat Decertification.
“Despite that, more than 24 billion tons of fertile soil is still lost annually to decertification, while 40% of the Earth’s land surface is now considered degraded.
“The cost, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, isn’t just environmental, it’s social, cultural, and economic.
“Dry land degradation reduces national domestic product in developing countries by up to 8% annually,” he recently warned.
“In fact, the UN estimates decertification affects the lives of about 3 billion people,” senior UN official Ibrahim Thiaw said. We have a short window of 10 years to 15 years to reduce the pressure and if possible reverse the trends.
“Technologically we have the means, we have the knowledge right now. Maybe we need more of a political will and more public engagement.”
Continued next week