Read at : Google Alert – desertification
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15182754,00.html
Grid of straw squares turns Chinese sand to soil
Straw helps grass to grow, which helps cultivate more vegetation
The sand dunes in Shapotou, a town in the northwestern Chinese province of Ningxia, stretch for as far as the eye can see.
The town is located in part of the roughly 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles) of China that are covered in sandy or rocky deserts – an area about seven times as large as Germany.
One strategy regional officials have developed to keep the desert from – literally – gaining ground is to stabilize sands at the edge of the desert with a grid of straw squares, measuring about 1 square meter each. Brown says over-grazing is a result of a ‘classic tragedy of the commons’
Local official Yong Xu Cheng said the straw grid helps keep the sand from advancing on Shapotou, but adds that there are limits to how much can really be done.
“It’s very difficult to stop the sand’s advance everywhere,” he said. “We can only work on the edges of the desert and stabilize the ground along the railroad tracks and streets and around the villages and towns.”
Land reclamation
The grid, which looks like a massive fishnet over the sand, holds the ground together well enough to grow some hardy species of grass, which in turn provide enough stability to cultivate larger plants.
Fruit trees and grapevines now grow around Shapotou, which began the process or reclaiming land from the desert in the 1950s.
China has struggled to keep the deserts that cover more than a quarter of the country from gaining ground, but soil stabilization and sustainable livestock-farming are beginning to slow rates of desertification.
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