China Claims Small Gains In Battle Against Desertification - Guardian

[hatrack]

China declared its first victory in a centuries-old war against the desert yesterday after a campaign to plant 12bn trees in five years finally made a small green dent in an ocean of sand dunes and dustbowls.

It is being hailed as a sign of a budding ecological consciousness in a country that is trying to move away from a growth-at-all-costs industrial model. Yesterday, the government also announced plans to build 32 nuclear power stations; part of a scheme to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Faced by one of the world's fastest deteriorating environments, the government in Beijing has invested more than 50bn yuan (£3.5bn) since 1978 on a "Great Green Wall" to protect the country's northern cities from the encroaching desert. For most of that time, it has been a losing battle because climate change and rapid industrialisation have sucked lakes and rivers dry, while over-logging and over-grazing has left many hillsides bare. Deserts now cover almost a fifth of China's territory or more than seven times the area of Britain.

But yesterday, the government said the tide had - at least temporarily - turned. According to a new report by the State Forestry Administration, the nation's deserts have shrunk at a rate of 1,283 sq km (797 sq miles) a year since 2001. Forest cover, by contrast, has increased by 66m hectares every year. "It's the first time since the people's republic was established that we have brought about a reversal," the administration's director Jia Zhibang told reporters. The gains are tiny compared with the environmental losses during the past 28 years of breakneck economic growth and many conservationists question how long they will last, but they show the government's ability to mobilise huge resources.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,1719546,00.html?gusrc=rss

[cliss]

1. This is good news.

China planted 12 billion trees? Now, that's progress. Now if they could just do something about their population.....

[xchrom]

2. i'll take any good news re: desertification.

now if we could do this in africa?

[Massacure]

3. What causes desertification?

Is it only a lack of water? Can desert be irrigated to support growth or does the desert sand lose its nutrients during the desertification process?

[XemaSab]

4. It can be a number of things

Removal of vegetation, increasing salinity, change in pH, soil compaction, and loss of topsoil can all contribute to desertification. This means that even if the region gets the same amount of rainfall it originally got, the water may run off the soil surface instead of sinking in to plant roots, or just may not be held in the soil profile or be available to the plants.

It's somewhat of a myth that desert soils are sandy. Somewhat of a myth because wind can carry away the finer particles, leaving behind the sand and creating dunes, but unless it's a dune sand desert the soil usually has a decent amount of silt and clay in it, which help hold nutrients.

Desert soils can be reasonably fertile if water is able to sink in and there are no pH or salt problems, but usually that's a big if.