BEIJING: With more than a quarter of its surface area covered by desert, desertification is a major issue for China, and the National Desertification Prevention and Control Plan, recently approved by the State Council, aims to do more to address the issue.
According to the plan, 6.7 million hectares of land affected by desertification will have been treated by 2025. By 2030, that figure is projected to reach 12.4 million hectares.
The plan has identified seven key areas where spreading deserts need to be pushed back, including the mountains of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the areas around the Kubuqi Desert in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and the Mu Us Desert in Shaanxi province. In order to tackle desertification, the process through which once-fertile land turns into desert, the plan calls for recourse to science and technology to address the issue at its root, and for farmers and herdsmen to get involved in green means of utilizing light, heat, wind and remediating soil to improve their incomes. This is the third desertification prevention and control plan approved by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, since 2002.
The current plan includes adjustments to ideas and general methods of desertification reversal and control, derived from the experience and results of previous plans, according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
