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<DIV><FONT face=Calibri>All,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri size=5> Just watched an
incredible documentary on the Science Channel regarding how China's once immense
Grasslands have been destroyed due to a number of</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Calibri size=5>factors--mainly overgrazing and crop production.
The film is called: "China's Raging Sands." It will be on several more
times this week. A must see for all the</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=5><FONT face=Calibri>conservation community. It truly
exemplifies that when you take away the grasses and other vegetation, ground
water and rivers dry up and dependent wildlife
vanishes. </FONT><BR><FONT face=Calibri>It reminds me of the
dust bowl days of the American West. fo</FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<H1 align=center>Beijing's Desert Storm</H1>
<H2 align=center><FONT color=#0000ff>The desert is sweeping into China's
valleys, choking rivers and consuming precious farm land. Beijing has
responded with massive tree-planting campaigns, but the Great Green Walls
may not be able to buffer the sand, which could cover the capital in a few
years </FONT></H2><I>
<P align=center>By Ron Gluckman /Beijing, Fengning and Langtougou,
China</P></I>
<HR>
<P><FONT size=6>F</FONT><FONT size=4>ROM HIS ROOFTOP,</FONT> Su Rongxi
maintains an unsteady balance, perched between the past and a precarious
future. One foot is planted firmly upon his tiled roof. The other sinks
ankle-deep into a huge sand dune that threatens to engulf his house and
Langtougou village, where his ancestors have lived for generations. For
this dirt-poor town in Hebei province, the sands of time aren't just a
quaint notion, they are close at hand, burning the eyes and lungs. And for
Langtougou, the sands seem to be ticking out. </P>
<P><IMG height=190 hspace=12 src="desert-10.jpg" width=290 align=right
vspace=3 border=2> "We have no money to move and, besides, who would have
us?" says Su. "There's nothing to do but dig away the sand and wait to see
what happens. Sometimes I dream of the sand falling around me faster than
I can dig away. The sand chokes me. I worry that in real life, the sand
will win."<BR><BR>Su and his neighbors are ethnic Manchurians who survive
by cultivating subsistence crops and raising horses, goats and pigs. But
this year violent sandstorms dumped entire dunes into the once-fertile
Fengning county valley. <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00" size=5>Now
most of the grass is gone and the Chaobai River stands dry.</FONT>
Besieged villagers say they have no idea where the sand came from. The
scary bit? Su's almost-buried house is nowhere near the heart of China's
rapidly encroaching deserts. It is just 160 km north of Beijing. Suddenly,
rural Langtougou has become a barren outpost on the front line of a
national battlefield.<BR><BR>Premier Zhu Rongji raised the war cry in this
very village in May, after the worst sandstorms in memory buffeted
Beijing. Zhu stood on Su's roof, pledging urgent measures to combat the
encroaching sand. Then the premier left with his entourage, a huge
government caravan, on 1,000-kilometer safari across China's desert
hotspots. The next month newspapers ran daily stories about
desertification as armies of tree-planters were mobilized. The 5th Plenum
of the Communist Party Central Committee, starting Oct. 9, has put the
issue near the top of its agenda. Zhu has called it "an alarm for the
entire nation."<BR><BR>Su, 53, missed that address — and the visiting
premier. Su was in the grass-stripped hills tending his hungry goats. He
doesn't know much about the goings-on in Beijing anyway, having never
traveled further than Fengning's county seat, about 25 kilometers away.
That trip used to take 40 minutes; now it can last days. Local workers
cleared a path for the premier, yet just weeks later the road vanished —
reclaimed by the relentless desert.<BR><BR><FONT size=6>Few people think
of China as a desert nation, yet it is among the world's largest. More
than 27%, or 2.5 million square kilometers, of the country comprises
useless sand (<FONT color=#ff0000>just 7% of Chinese land feeds about a
quarter of the</FONT> <FONT color=#ff0000>world's population</FONT>). A
Ministry of Science and Technology task force says desertification costs
China about $2-3 billion annually, while 800 km of railway and thousands
of kilometers of roads are blocked by sedimentation. An estimated 110
million people suffer firsthand from the impacts of desertification and,
by official reports, another 2,500 sq km turns to desert each
year.</FONT><BR><BR>This is nothing new, of course. In the 4th century
B.C. Chinese philosopher Mencius (Mengzi) wrote about desertification and
its human causes, including tree-cutting and overgrazing. Experts argue
over the reasons and consequences, but all agree that Chinese deserts are
on the move. Sand from the distant Gobi threatens even Beijing, which some
scientists say could be silted over within a few years. Dunes forming just
70 km from the capital may be drifting south at 20-25 km a year.
Conservative estimates say 3 km a year. And despite massive spending on
land reclamation and replanting, China is falling behind. </P>
<P>In the northwest, where the biggest problems lie, desertification has
escalated from 1,560 sq km annually in the 1970s to 2,100-2,400 sq km in
the 1990s. According to many environmentalists, Beijing has been largely
content to issue proclamations about student-supported tree-planting
rather than tackle complicated land issues.<BR><BR> But that was
before clouds of grit roared through the capital this spring. Sandstorms
are hardly novel in Beijing, but the sheer ferocity of these tempests was.
For days on end, wave after fearsome wave, sand closed the airport and
casualties filled hospitals. Just as surprising was the public outrage.
Even state-run media lambasted government officials. The frustration is
easy to understand. According to Chinese records, dust storms came to the
capital once every seven or eight years in the 1950s, and only every two
or three years in the 1970s. But by the early 1990s, they were an annual
problem. </P>
<P>The government responded with huge "greening" campaigns and in the past
20 years alone, according to the People's Daily, more than 30 billion
trees have been planted. This year, however, the storms blew away any
sense of security.<BR><BR><IMG height=192 hspace=12 src="desert-1.jpg"
width=290 align=left vspace=3 border=2> Grasping the enormity of the
problem is easy on the road north from Beijing to Langtougou. Nestling
among fields of corn and sunflowers, villages bloom with flowers. After
two hours' driving, the views are still green. But over one steep mountain
a surreal landscape astounds the eyes. Mountains rise on both sides of the
valley ahead, but the hills are an ugly gray, denuded of vegetation. Even
weirder, hillsides are dotted with white, much like highway stripes
stretching into the horizon. </P>
<P>The real shock hits on the descent into the valley. Those dots are
actually white-painted stones, lining small pockets of soil. Inside each
is a tiny tree. But the entire countryside has been stripped of grasses,
topsoil and mature trees — meaning the saplings have little chance of
survival.<BR><BR><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">In Langtougou,
residents are mumbling about new regulations as they dig huge pits in
their yards to compost manure and waste to produce fuel. Each house must
have one as part of a government decree against burning wood. Firewood
collection (32.4%) is a key cause of desertification in northern China,
according to a study by Chinese researcher Ning Datong and published by
the University of Toronto. Ning attributed the other causes to <FONT
color=#ff0000>excessive grazing</FONT> (30%) and over-cultivation
(23.3%).</FONT></P>
<P>None of the 200 villagers is enthusiastic about their new composting
brief, but what really upsets them are the other initiatives. Farming will
cease, and they have also been told they will have to give up their
animals. "This is how we live," says Li Guoyun, 50. "We have 50 to 60
goats. We sell the wool and some for food. Without them, we'll be ruined."
Li realizes, of course, that his goats gobble up the grass that used to
cover the valley floor and hillsides, "but they are so much easier than
pigs or cows."<BR><BR>Up and down the silted-in valley, the story is much
the same. "I grow corn, rice, beans and tomatoes, to eat and to sell,"
says Zhang Baoguan, 43, a father of two from the nearby hamlet of
Caonianguo. "Now, I'll have to stop. The government is promising some rice
and money, but it's not enough." The moratorium on farming and grazing
will apply throughout the valley — and nobody knows for how
long. </P>
<P>Villagers have already been drafted into China's new green army of
tree-planters. "We'll plant trees every day for five years," Zhang says
dejectedly. "And if that doesn't work, we'll plant for five
more. That's what they tell us." </P>
<P>Neighbor Lin Renrui fears that no amount of tree-planting will bring
the valley back to life, since the government has no plans for the sand.
"We don't like this plan at all — especially the part about the animals,"
Lin says. "The government told us we will have to sell them all." And the
sand? "That's the real problem," he says, "not the goats. We ask about the
sand. Nobody gives us an answer."<BR><BR>Environmentalists in the capital,
most of whom speak on the condition of anonymity, say Beijing is missing
the big picture. Land and water use, <FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">grasslands</FONT> and forests, desert
and climate changes are all interconnected. "The response has really been
fragmented," says one. Yet now that the government seems to be throwing
its weight behind the issue, some critics call it overkill. "All of a
sudden all you read about is desertification," says one foreign observer.
"You have to wonder if it's not all propaganda, designed perhaps to win
overseas funding for environmental campaigns." </P>
<P>But what about all that sand, sweeping down from the Gobi Desert and
threatening to swallow Beijing within a few years. "Silly," responds one
official in the Ministry of Agriculture's ecology section. "There are real
problems, but everything with desertification is exaggerated." He worries
that the current focus misses the step-by-step approaches needed in a
well-rounded environmental package. <FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">These include planting grasses</FONT>
first to stabilize and enrich soil, then trees. "But everything is going
fast now and there is no masterplan."<BR><BR><IMG height=236 hspace=12
src="Jolo-sand.jpg" width=400 align=left vspace=3 border=2> If ever there
is a place to grasp the climatic and environmental changes in China, it is
not out on the vast plains, where herdsmen and farmers battle over
dwindling water resources and tillable land. Instead, it is along an odd
stretch of towering sand dunes just 70 km northwest of the capital. In
olden times, this area was a favorite hunting ground of the imperial
family, with forests and lakes for picnics.</P>
<P>Now the woods are gone. Nearby sits the junction town of Huailai —
except that no one calls it that anymore. Even on the road signs it is
Shacheng — Sand City.<BR><BR>The changes also are stark in small villages
such as Chai Yuan (Firewood Garden), about 25 km further northwest. From
there it is just a few more kilometers to Flying Camel Desert, so named
because some Chinese entrepreneurs have surrounded the sand with a fence
and charge admission to tourists wishing to experience the desert. Not
that it is much of a desert experience. There are dune buggies and motor
bikes for careering over the dunes, a mock Mongolian yurt, and camels and
Mongolian horses.<BR><BR>Still, there is more at the Flying Camel than
exists over the dunes, where huge waves of sand crash to a halt above
Longbaoshan. The village of 800 people was set up in 1989 to house
mountain folk — moved from nearby hills as part of a resettlement program.
The new brick buildings seem impressive, but the village lacks life.
"Nobody has any work," explains Zhang Wengui, 78. "We grow crops, some
fruit and vegetables, that's about all."<BR><BR>At least, that was about
all. When farming was banned by Premier Zhu, officials swept in with their
own version of Desert Storm. They introduced a desertification
rehabilitation program, which, thus far, has consisted largely of fencing
in the nearby sand and erecting signs proclaiming: "Controlling the
Desert, State Focus Point." The farming prohibition was mostly a waste of
time as well. Crops wilted long ago.</P>
<P> "We have no water," says Zhang. The two village wells, dug deeper
each year, have run dry. The people will likely need to be moved again. In
the meantime, no prizes for guessing what they have been doing: planting
trees. </P>
<P><IMG height=218 hspace=12 src="desert-19.jpg" width=260 align=right
vspace=3 border=2> "It's part of a big campaign," says one villager, who
recalls how the local Bank of China staffers joined in one day. They had
no choice. "The officials just went in and told everybody: 'You have to
plant trees today.'"<BR><BR>It is a similar picture in thousands of
villages across China, where population growth has meant rampant farming
and wasteful irrigation. Yet if mass tree-plantings register far below the
raging-success mark in Beijing's piecemeal fight to stave off the sands,
they still look pretty good next to the efforts at Flying Camel
Desert. </P>
<P>While Longbaoshan villagers go thirsty, workers at the desert park are
busy hosing down a dune so tourists can take a toboggan ride.</P>
<HR>
<P><A href="mailto:ron@gluckman.com">Ron Gluckman</A> <I>is an American
reporter who is based in Hong Kong and Beijing, but who roams around Asia
for a number of different publications including Asiaweek, which ran this
Inside Story in October 2000.</I> </P>
<P><I>Top two pictures courtesy of Ricky Wong, a Hong Kong photographer
based in Beijing. Bottom two photos by Ron Gluckman.</I> </P>
<HR>
<P> </P>
<H1 class=title>Deserts Swallowing Up China's Grasslands and Cities</H1>
<DIV class=tabs></DIV>
<DIV class=node><!-- if the node is a page, rather than in a listing -->
<DIV class=horizontalBar></DIV>by Zijun Li</A> on June 1, 2006
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<P>In recognition of the grave perils of increasing desertification, the
United Nations has declared 2006 the <A
title="http://www.iydd.org/ CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://www.iydd.org/">International Year of Deserts and
Desertification</A> and the theme of <A
title="http://www.unep.org/wed/2006/english/ CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://www.unep.org/wed/2006/english/">World Environment Day</A> on
June 5, 2006 is, "Don't Desert Drylands!". Deserts and other dryland
ecosystems now cover a third of the Earth’s land surface, and worsening
land degradation puts more than a billion people in over 100 countries at
risk of poverty, political instability, and other related effects. In
China, desertification threatens to uproot growing numbers of residents
from their homes and livelihoods. In the country’s arid north, the <A
href="http://www.chinanews.com.cn//news/2006/2006-03-23/8/706758.shtml">Mongolian
Desert</A> is rapidly encroaching on Shenyang, an industrial city of more
than 40 million people; today, the distance between city and desert has
shrunk to only 48 kilometers, down from 100 kilometers in 2000. </P>
<P>One of the most visible consequences of China’s desertification is
worsening <A
title="http://www.gluckman.com/features/chinawatch/stories/20060523-1 CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://www.gluckman.com/features/chinawatch/stories/20060523-1">sandstorms</A>.
While such weather events have long plagued the nation, they have
increased in both scale and frequency as land degradation intensifies.
<FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">The total degraded area in China
is now estimated at 8–10 million square kilometers</FONT>, and this
destruction contributes to economic losses of more than 47 billion RMB
(US$6 billion) a year, according to China’s <A
title="http://www.chinanews.com.cn/news/2006/2006-04-18/8/718688.shtml CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://www.chinanews.com.cn/news/2006/2006-04-18/8/718688.shtml">national
desertification program</A>. Decades-long efforts to control and manage
desertification have not produced adequate results, and experts worry that
the pace of degradation will only accelerate given growing human pressures
and climatic changes. </P>
<P>Excessive cultivation of farmland, particularly overgrazing, is
recognized as the leading cause of land degradation in the nation, and the
situation is getting worse, according to the Chinese Ministry of
Agriculture. Some 130 million hectares of grassland are now degraded and
have lost their vegetative cover, and this area is expanding at an annual
rate of 2 million hectares. </P>
<P><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">China’s intensive grassland
cultivation can be traced back to </FONT><A
title="http://caijing.hexun.com/english/detail.aspx?ID=1636738 CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://caijing.hexun.com/english/detail.aspx?ID=1636738"><FONT
title="http://caijing.hexun.com/english/detail.aspx?ID=1636738 CTRL + Click to follow link"
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">policies</FONT></A><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"> adopted under the planned economy
between the 1950s and early 1980s,</FONT> which emphasized
self-sufficiency and food security. Farmers were encouraged to migrate to
grassy areas in the north to raise more cattle, resulting in severe
overgrazing. Although the government has since standardized the protection
and use of grassland resources through its “grain for green” program, many
local officials still lack awareness of the importance of grassland
management, and tensions between conservation needs and wider economic
benefits impede remediation efforts. <FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00" size=4>Meanwhile, grassland productivity
continues to decline: currently, an estimated 36 percent more animals
graze northern China’s grasslands than the region can ecologically
support, and grass output is one-third to two-thirds lower than in the
early 1960s</FONT>. </P>
<P>Scientists are studying the relationship between land degradation and
climate change as well. A recent report by the <A
title="http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Tibetan_Glacier_Melt_Leading_To_Sandstorms_In_China.html CTRL + Click to follow link"
href="http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Tibetan_Glacier_Melt_Leading_To_Sandstorms_In_China.html">Chinese
state press</A> found that global warming is melting glaciers on the
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at the rate of 7 percent annually. The increased
meltwater from the plateau is expected to trigger droughts and worsen soil
erosion, leading to more desertification and sandstorms in lower-altitude
regions. </P>
<P>Realizing that existing desertification and grassland policies have
been poorly managed and implemented, experts with China’s <A
href="http://www.chinanews.com.cn/news/2006/2006-04-18/8/718688.shtml">desertification</A>
program have called for greater attention at the policy level to address
this challenge. Currently, only two national laws focus specifically on
land loss and prevention of desertification, with other land-degradation
regulations being subsumed under the Environmental Protection Law, Forest
Law, Agriculture Law, and other legislation. </P>
<P>Meanwhile, the lack of practical plans for ecosystem restoration and
desertification prevention has slowed progress. A 1998 national plan set
overall targets for recovering desertified areas, but failed to account
for vastly differing regional situations. China’s most severely degraded
lands are in the northwest, a region that has faced serious water
shortages for centuries. Thus, the national targets of restoring 22
million square kilometers of degraded land by 2010 and 40 million
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<P></P><FONT face=Calibri></FONT><FONT size=5><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00"><STRONG>Grasslands </STRONG>make up about a
third of China 's total land area.</FONT> The immense and productive
<STRONG>grasslands </STRONG>are largely concentrated in Inner Mongolia , Ningx
ia Autonomous Region, parts of Qiughai and TibetThe natural wildlife they
support includes three species on the verge of extinction: Przewa lski's horse,
the Asiatic wild ass and the Bactrian camel (the ancestor of domesticat­ ed
camels). Others, including the Tibetan gazelle, are threatened by the influx of
gold miners and truck drivers carrying goods to and from Tibet , who poach
annuals for food and as trophies-There is often direct competition between
domestic animals and wild fauna, and herdsmen poison or trap carnivores, and
sometimes set fires to increase pasture area. The government has recently
stepped up efforts to <FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">control the
conversion of grasslands to pasture,</FONT> but lacks the manpower to enforce
policy</FONT><BR><BR>
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