How planting trees in China created a desert

 

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China’s growing deserts a major political risk

by Jeremy Luedi

As desertification in China increases and government efforts to stop the sand’s advance falter, serious political risks are emerging from hub to hinterland.

When most people think of China’s landscape, they envision rivers and rice paddies, yet much of China does not conform to this image. From Tibet and Xinjiang, to the Russian border, the majority of Chinese territory is comprised of desert, grasslands, or arid steppe.

These regions only fell under official Chinese rule during the Qing dynasty, and for most of China’s 5,000 years as a civilization, dynasties and kingdoms have centered around the south-eastern river valleys and coasts.

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The Green Wall of China

Following the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the country embarked on history’s largest nation building exercise. To this end, vast swathes of China’s forests were felled for fuel, lumber, and paper production for the billions of little red books and proclamations emanating from Beijing. This process was accelerated in the 1960s, as forest and grassland cover shrank, increasing the rate of desertification.

As the deserts grew, the government recognized the threat and began a gargantuan reforestation effort in 1978, planting 66 billion trees to date. This project – colloquially dubbed the ‘Green Wall of China’ – is a multigenerational mega project slated to be completed by 2050.

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How planting trees created a desert

The government introduced fast-growing, but non-native species such as pine and poplar, while simultaneously rooting out local keystone species like sea buckthorn during the 1980s. The removal of sea buckthorn, removed a species playing a vital role in holding the soil together, thus increasing erosion.

The introduced pine and poplar are also very thirsty species, and introducing billions of them into an already arid environment, sunk the water table up to ten times below its original depth. This in turn killed off the shorter roots of prairie grasses, causing further desertification.

Read the full article: Global Risk Insights

Climate change and the Great Green Wall in Africa

Photo credit: Google

Lake Chad: The Shrinking Giant

Lake Chad, a living example of the devastation climate change is wreaking on Africa

REPORT from African Development Bank

 

Stronger partnerships, sound national policies, more funding for climate change adaptation and mitigation, research, community involvement and sensitization are key to realizing the goals of the Great Green Wall initiative in Africa.

The initiative, a pan-African proposal to “green” the continent from West to East intends to fight desertification. The project, which began five years ago, aims to tackle poverty and degradation of soils in the Sahel-Saharan region, on the 8,000-kilometre-long strip of land stretching from Dakar to Djibouti.

Speakers at COP21 during the debate on the initiative noted that urgent measures must be put in place to reverse desertification and save human life as those living in the Saharan-Sahelian region are among the poorest and most vulnerable to climatic variability and land degradation.

“The livelihoods of 100 million people are in danger. We are aware that due to heat and drought, 40 million Africans from this region migrate to North Africa and later to Europe. Some die during the long journeys. We should solve this problem,” said African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina.

Adesina singled out agriculture as a key component of changing the livelihoods of millions in the region together with other initiatives.

“There is a correlation between the effects of climate change – like the shrinking of Lake Chad, which was 25,000 square kilometres in 1967 but is now less than 2,500 – and the loss of livelihoods, radicalization, terrorism, forced migration, insecurity, poverty and deaths,” Adesina said.

He announced that AfDB has released US $12 billion and will mobilise an additional US $50 billion to provide clean energy in Africa including in the Sahara-Sahel region.

Read the full article: Relief Web