Read at : Google Alert – desertification
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6555524,00.html
Approximately 2.6 million square meters of land in China consist of only sand or rock desert. That is an area about seven times the size of Germany. Efforts to stop the sand from spreading are tedious and slow.
Sand dunes reach as far as the eyes can see in Shapotou in the northwestern province of Ningxia. At the edge of the desert, people are fixing square-shaped straw mats to the ground to stabilize it. Each square measures around one by one meter. The straw mats cover the edge of the desert like giant fishing nets.
Inner Mongolia, China’s third largest province, is fighting severe desertification, much like the provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Heilongjiang and Hebei. Over-grazing, logging, expanding farms and population pressure, along with droughts have steadily turned once fertile grasslands into sandy plains.Tree planting has become a key government effort to fight desertification
Yong Xu Cheng of the local government administration says the method seems to be working. But he adds that they can only do so much. He says it is “very difficult to stop the sand from spreading. We can only work at the edge of the desert, around the railway and streets and around the peripheries of villages and cities.” But the efforts are crucial, he believes: “We don’t have a choice. We have to keep the sand at bay to ensure our survival.”
Desert plantations and vineyards
The square mats stabilize the sand so that grass can be planted. That will prepare the ground for larger plants to be planted later on. Using this method, people in and around Shapotou have been able to cultivate fruit plantations and grapevines. But in other parts of the Province Ningxia, people have already lost the battle against the desert.
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