The Green Wall of China

When the Chinese government has an idea, it goes forward fast and in a gigantic manner.

So, in order to hold back the Gobi desert – a very important issue for cities like Beijing – the local government decided to plant million trees during the next 70 years.

The Gobi Desert, extends itself from Southern Mongolia to Northern China. This desert is growing fast, around 3,600 square kilometres per year according to the Chinese government.

This leads to an augmentation of sandstorms which are threatening Beijing and neighbouring cities. This desert has been growing fast for the past years because of land erosion (due to prior over farming), water scarcity and air pollution.

So to stop this worrying phenomenon, the People’s Republic of China’s government decided to plant millions of trees.

According to the BBC News website :

The Great Green Wall is a project to plant a 4,480km (2,800 mile) shelterbelt of trees across the northwest rim of China skirting the Gobi Desert.

(…)

Its aim is to increase the forest coverage rate around Beijing from the current 13.4% of land area to 27% by 2005.

The project will greatly reduce the sandstorm threat to Beijing, upon completion, Mr Zhou said.

China’s Great Green Wall will cost the government 96.2 bn yuan over the next decade.

This will be money well spent, if it helps convince the International Olympics Committee that Beijing is the best venue for the 2008 games.

Source

I seriously ask myself how all these forests will be irrigated. Since it will be on dry lands, how will all these trees will grow? To me, a plan of drop-by-drop irrigation will have to putted in plan in order to support this very interesting project.

Further reading and additional sources :

World Changing | BBC News | Seed Magazine